Glenmanus Reformed Presbyterian Church, 23-25 Portstewart Road, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8EH

Glenmanus Reformed Presbyterian Church is a late Victorian roughcast rendered church with a three-stage entrance tower, associated hall and manse, built in 1899 and situated at the junction of Glenmanus Road and Portstewart Road in Portrush town centre. It is a well-preserved example of a 19th-century church, well proportioned and with high-quality detailing characteristic of the Victorian period. The interior is simply detailed in the manner typical of the Reformed movement, and the adjoining hall and manse, which are contemporary with the church, add to the historic interest of the site.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The church is double-height with a rectangular plan and an apsidal end to the west. There is a square tower to the northeast corner, a modern single-storey flat-roof extension of various heights to the south, and a single-storey modern linking block connecting a double-height lecture hall (dating from around 1900) to the rear.

The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and leaded hips to the apsidal end. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on a moulded eaves course. The walls are roughcast rendered, with smooth rendered buttresses and a dentilled raking eaves course to the gable.

The windows are round-headed coloured leaded lattice lights, some with secondary glazing, set in smooth rendered surrounds with label moulds, a keyblock, and a smooth rendered decorative bracket under the sills.

The east gable is abutted on the right by the three-stage entrance tower. The tower has clasping buttresses rising to square piers surmounted by ball finials, connected by a curvilinear parapet. At the belfry stage there are round-headed louvered openings with a block surround and an archivolt punctuated by three keyblocks. The second stage has an oculus in a decorative moulded surround. At ground floor level, the north face has a window, while the main entrance to the east is reached via four stone steps with plinth walls surmounted by original cast-iron railings. The entrance comprises a round-headed original timber-sheeted door in a blocked and chamfered surround, surmounted by a hood mould with three fluted keyblocks. Above the door head is a scrolled entablature, possibly originally bearing a dedication plaque. A blind doorway to the west face of the tower is identical in design and is accessed via three stone steps. The gable itself has a graded group of three windows with segmental pediments and a continuous sill course, below which are two square-headed windows divided by a buttress, with moulded architraves with keyblock and decorative bracket under the sills.

The south elevation has five evenly spaced windows divided by buttresses; to the far left is the single-storey modern flat-roof extension of various heights, which is of little architectural interest. The apsidal west end is abutted centrally by the modern single-storey linking block connecting the hall, with a square-headed window to the left. The north elevation has four evenly spaced windows divided by buttresses, with the three-stage tower to the left.

HALL AND MANSE

Directly west of the church is a roughcast rendered gabled hall, with a flat-roof modern extension and entrance porch connecting the church to the hall. The hall has a pitched slated roof with blue and black angled ridge tiles and raised stone verges with ball finials to the gables, and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on a moulded eaves course. The walls are roughcast rendered on a smooth rendered plinth with smooth rendered dressings. Windows are round-headed leaded and stained glass set in smooth rendered surrounds with a keyblock and stone sills. The north elevation has four evenly spaced windows divided by lesenes. The east gable is abutted by a modern flat-roof extension to the right; to the left are a window and a timber-sheeted door surmounted by an oversized leaded and stained glass round-headed transom light, with the entrance door accessed via a concrete ramp. The west gable has a window on both the left and right sides.

The manse lies to the west of the hall and is two-storey with a gabled canted bay to the east. It is in a similar style to the church and lecture hall, with roughcast render and smooth rendered dressings. The manse has been altered and refurbished in recent years; replacement fabric includes a red-brick chimneystack, uPVC glazing throughout, and a modern uPVC entrance door to the east. The west elevation has been altered to include a modern garage. The manse is bounded to the north by a roughcast rendered wall with square rendered piers having pointed caps and supporting original ornate cast-iron gates.

SETTING

The church is set back from the road at the junction of Glenmanus Road and Portstewart Road, in a largely residential area south of Portrush town centre. The site is bounded by a roughcast rendered wall with level coping stones. To the northeast corner are square smooth rendered gate piers with pointed caps supporting steel gates; to the north is a pedestrian steel gate on slender square piers with pointed caps. A rubble stone wall to the south bounds the church from the neighbouring semi-detached houses. The front of the site is lawned with a concrete aggregate pathway to the front entrance, and polygonal flagstones lead to the north entrance. A tarmacadamed car park lies to the far west of the site.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland, also known as the Covenanting Church, was established in the wake of the Revolution Settlement of 1690, when a small minority of Presbyterians refused to subscribe to the new settlement on the grounds that it failed to recognise the dominant kingship of Jesus Christ. Covenanters in Ulster began to hold separate meetings, and in 1763 a reformed Presbytery was established. Glenmanus is the most northerly Covenanting church in Ireland; prior to the establishment of the Portrush congregation, the few Dissenters in the area worshipped at Ballyclabber, east of Coleraine.

The congregation was largely the creation of Samuel Patton (1820–1900), a local businessman who resolved to build a Covenanting church in Portrush despite there being only a handful of members in the area. Patton first attempted to secure a site in the centre of Portrush but was unable to obtain land from the Earl of Antrim. Undeterred, he built the church on his own land in Glenmanus townland, at his own expense, completing the building before the congregation was even formally organised. The church was opened in June 1899. Initial concern was felt that the building might remain underused, as Portrush had a population of only around 1,800 at the time with few Covenanters; however, within the first year attendance was sufficient for the Reformed Presbytery to upgrade the site from a preaching station to a full congregation. Samuel Patton gifted the church to Portrush and died on 3rd July 1900.

Annual Revisions confirm that construction had been completed by 1898, when the site was first valued. The church and contemporary hall (formerly a schoolhouse) were valued at £50, and the record also notes a sexton's house and a stable block; the sexton's house has since been demolished. The church was first depicted on the third edition of the Ordnance Survey map for the Portrush area, which shows the church, hall, and manse in their current layout.

In the early years of its history the congregation was small: there were 19 communicants in 1914, dropping to only nine during the 1920s. Originally sited on the outskirts of Portrush, the church's future was secured by housing construction in the 1930s, which boosted the local congregation to over 30 communicants. Later works included the installation of a new heating system in 1957, the renovation of the church interior and addition of a kitchen in 1963, and the addition of a single-storey extension linking the church to the western hall during the ministry of the Reverend Donnelly (1987–1990), which included a classroom and toilet block. Writing in 1972, Girvan described Glenmanus as "a curious church with pretensions to architectural refinement. It presents a forbidding appearance because of its unrelieved greyness … a coat of paint could work a transformation"; since that time the appearance of the building has not been dramatically altered. The church was listed in 1983. Renovation work in the late 1990s included the replacement of the church hall roof and the redecoration of the hall, and a new car park was provided in 2000.