Terrace Row Presbyterian Church, Coleraine, Co.Londonderry

Terrace Row Presbyterian Church

Terrace Row Presbyterian Church is a symmetrical, double-height, classical-styled Presbyterian church situated on the south side of Nursery Avenue in Coleraine town centre. It holds the distinction of being the first Seceder church erected in the town. The original building dates from 1834, with transepts and a classical façade added in 1892 to designs by local architect William James Given, and further alterations carried out around 1985. The church is a good example of late Victorian taste in church architecture, displaying a more ostentatious classical design with fine craftsmanship in its interior detailing, and is of local interest and social importance.

Origins and History

The Seceder congregation was formed in 1796 and originally met in a simple hall on the Waterside area of Coleraine, in the townland of Killowen. By the 1830s that first meeting house had fallen into a dilapidated condition, prompting the congregation to relocate to the eastern side of the River Bann. The plot of land was acquired from The Honourable The Irish Society around 1830, and the new church was opened on 6th July 1834. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Coleraine (1835) record that the Seceder Meeting House measured 55 feet by 45 feet and could accommodate a congregation of 650. Total construction costs amounted to £850, towards which the Irish Society contributed a subscription of £100. The former meeting house in Killowen was subsequently converted into a barn and store.

At the time of construction, the building was a simple rectangular hall without transepts or the present classical façade. It was the third Presbyterian congregation established in Coleraine but the first specifically for the seceding population of the town. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 valued the church at £45, and the contemporary Ulster Town Directory records it under the name Third Presbyterian Church, with the Rev. Joseph McDonnell as incumbent.

In 1872 the first manse was erected at a cost of £1,500, and in 1878 an adjoining church hall and Sunday schoolrooms were constructed at a cost of £1,350, valued at £50 — notably higher than the church itself despite being considerably smaller. The next major phase of work came in 1892 under the incumbency of the Rev. Robert Wylie (1871–1913), when the classical façade with flanking towers and the east and west transepts were added, giving the building its cruciform plan. This work also connected the 1878 church hall to the main building via the east transept. The architect was William James Given (c.1850–1923), who had been appointed Coleraine's town surveyor in 1885 and who established the architectural firm W. J. & M. Given with his brother Maxwell Given in 1892; the renovation of Terrace Row was among the firm's first commissions. Given continued to serve as town surveyor until his death in 1923. The builder contracted for the 1892 works was James Kennedy. The Rev. Wylie, writing in 1925, noted that despite the major renovations and extensions, the side walls of the church up to the transepts and a large portion of the roof remained as originally constructed in 1834.

The rateable value was increased to £49 5s. following the 1892 works. Under the First General Revaluation in Northern Ireland (1935), the church and hall were jointly valued at £215, rising to £320 under the second revaluation carried out between 1956 and 1972. There was no change to the layout or valuation of the church recorded through the Annual Revisions up to 1931.

The church was listed in 1977. Alistair Rowan, writing in 1979, described it as "a simple two-storey hall with a flashy classical front… stuccoed Italianate towers flank a three-arched loggia centre." W. D. Girvan, writing in 1972, had characterised the façade as giving "the unfortunate impression of being stuck on" and as "an extraordinarily clumsy piece of classicism." Since the 1970s, the central space between the towers of the classical façade has been filled in — partially rectifying the composition Girvan criticised — and the features at the tops of the towers were removed as part of that alteration work. The Victorian church hall of 1878 has been replaced by a modern hall designed in a sympathetic style, which continues to connect to the main church building via the east transept.

Notable Ministers

Among the church's ministers was the Rev. Gilbert Patton (1882–1936), who arrived at Terrace Row ten months before the outbreak of the First World War. During the war he volunteered with the YMCA and was commissioned as an army chaplain with the rank of Captain, serving with the 10th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers for over three years. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, having helped to evacuate wounded soldiers and carried one wounded soldier four miles to safety. He returned briefly to Terrace Row after the war before moving to a calling in Belfast in 1920; a commemorative plaque inside the church marks his memory. A later minister, the Rev. Edwin Torrie, served from 1920 to 1954 and died in 1975, by which time he was known as the "Father of the General Assembly," having held the record as the longest ordained minister of that period. The congregation currently stands at approximately 450 families.

Exterior Architecture

The church is built on a cruciform plan with east and west transepts added in 1892. The roof is hipped natural slate with angled hips and ridges concealed behind a solid parapet. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting eaves.

The principal north-facing elevation is three bays wide and symmetrically arranged, with a slightly set-back wider central entrance bay flanked by two narrower bays. The façade is finished in stucco on a contrasting plinth, with quoins flanking the projecting outer bays. A cornice runs with a plain frieze above each floor, though there is no frieze above the entrance. Decorative plain moulded panels appear at upper level. The flanking bays each contain a window at gallery and ground floor levels. The entrance bay has a central gallery window over a triple-arched entrance accessed via a modern ramp with metal handrails. The arched openings are divided by chamfered square piers with moulded panels and imposts; decorative mouldings to the arch heads include keyblock and spandrel details. The central opening is taller and wider than its neighbours and contains a modern double-leaf panelled timber door surmounted by a leaded transom light, with flanking sidelights glazed with modern leaded lattice lights. Side bays have a window at each floor.

The remainder of the building — the main hall — is finished in painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth, with a platband between floors on the east elevation and quoins to the west wall and transept. The ground floor of the west transept features channelled rustication.

Windows throughout are replacement leaded-and-coloured glass fixed lights of varied form. On the principal elevation, first-floor windows are square-headed in moulded architraves, while the central window sits in a plain reveal and ground-floor windows are aediculated. The main hall has round-headed windows over segmental-headed windows at ground floor, all in plain reveals with projecting painted sills; those to the west have painted lugged architraves with keyblocks.

The east elevation is two windows wide at each floor. The east transept is lit by two windows at each floor on its north side and three on its south side. The east gable has a vented oculus over two glazed oculi at gallery level. The ground floor of this elevation is abutted by the single-storey linking block of 1892 that connects the church to the modern hall to the east. The south elevation has two long rectangular windows each surmounted by a modern metal hood. The west elevation mirrors the east; the west transept is lit by two windows to the north and three to the south; the west gable has a vented oculus and glazed oculi in painted surrounds, with a modern gabled porch at ground floor, noted as being of no architectural interest.

Materials

Roof: natural slate. Walling: stucco to the principal façade; painted roughcast render to the hall body. Windows: replacement leaded-and-coloured glass. Rainwater goods: cast iron.

Setting

The church faces north onto Nursery Avenue in Coleraine town centre. To the north across the street stands the former Irish Society School, and a modern supermarket lies to the west. The church connects to a modern church hall — designed in a sympathetic style — to the east via the single-storey 1892 linking block. A large tarmacadamed parking area lies to the south and west. The site is bounded to the north by an uncoursed stone wall with coping and square piers supporting modern metal gates.