Cushendall Presbyterian Church, Shore Street, Cushendall, Co.Antrim

Cushendall Presbyterian Church is a free-standing, single-storey, single-cell church with a chancel, built of red sandstone between 1899 and 1900. It was designed by William John Fennell (c.1850–1923), a prolific Belfast-based architect also responsible for Cooke Centenary Presbyterian Church and the Mater Hospital, both in Belfast. The building sits on a small elevated site on the northwest side of Shore Street, on the northern outskirts of Cushendall village in the townland of Faughil. It is a modest, late 19th-century rural church in an eclectic revivalist style, and holds considerable social and local importance for Cushendall and the surrounding area.

The church is rectangular on plan, facing southeast, with an off-centre gabled entrance porch and a chancel projection to the northeast gable. The steeply pitched roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta ridgecomb tiles, set behind slightly raised gables with sandstone ashlar coping that rises from carved kneeler stones and is surmounted by sandstone poppy-head finials. Moulded cast-iron guttering is carried on a chamfered red sandstone eaves course, with steel downpipes. The walls are of uncoursed rock-faced red sandstone ashlar, with chamfered sandstone trim to the projecting plinth course and stepped buttresses with ashlar offsets. Window openings are paired and round-headed, with smooth ashlar surrounds, paired hood mouldings, flush splayed sills, and leaded coloured glazing set in steel frames with steel mesh panels.

The southeast nave elevation is four bays wide. To the left is a gabled entrance porch with a slate roof, terracotta ridgecomb tiles, a terracotta poppy-head finial, a timber bargeboard, and cast-iron rainwater goods. The porch has a pointed-headed door opening fitted with a vertically-sheeted timber door, set below a half-timbered gable and flanked by pointed-headed window openings with leaded coloured glazing, all set on a low red sandstone wall that returns to both cheek elevations. The door opens onto three circular concrete steps leading down to a bitmac-paved front area. The southwest gable is framed by stepped buttresses and features triple-light pointed-headed windows with a continuous hood moulding. The four-bay northwest nave elevation mirrors the front elevation. The northeast gable is filled by the lower gabled chancel, which also has a triple-light window matching those on the southwest gable, with single pointed-headed window openings to both cheek elevations of the chancel. The building was constructed using locally quarried Devonian Sandstone from the Cross Slieve Group.

The church stands on a small elevated site enclosed by a rubble sandstone wall with stacked coping and two rubblestone piers, which support an original decorative wrought-iron pedestrian gate. The front elevated area is bitmac paved.

The history of Presbyterian worship in Cushendall stretches back to the early 18th century. The first congregation was formed around 1708, with the Reverend James Stuart serving as minister until his death in 1719. After Stuart's death, the local congregation was left without a minister for over a century and was obliged to travel considerable distances to neighbouring meeting halls. Interest in re-establishing a local congregation revived in the mid-19th century, and in November 1848 the Presbyteries of Ballymena and Route formed the Glens into a new congregation. A purpose-built meeting house was constructed in 1852 at Gortaghragan, between Cushendall and Cushendun, along with an adjoining two-storey manse known as Mansefield. This new church was officially opened by the Reverend Henry Cooke. The Gortaghragan meeting house served both the Cushendall and Cushendun Presbyterian populations, but by 1859 services had moved to Cushendall, where they were held in the schoolhouse on the hill of Court McMartin. The former meeting house at Gortaghragan is now used as an outbuilding for the adjoining Mansefield House.

The congregation continued to meet at the schoolhouse until the end of the 19th century, when plans were made for a permanent church on a site granted by John Turnly, proprietor of the village. The foundation stone was laid on 15th September 1899 by George McFerran of Drumreagh House, Ballygawley, with the Reverend D. A. Taylor, Moderator of the General Assembly, presiding over the ceremony. Construction was carried out by Hugh McCann, a Ballymena-based builder. The completed church was officially opened on 17th June 1900 by the Right Reverend J. M. Hamilton, who was Moderator of the General Assembly at that time.

The church was recorded on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903 in its current layout, suggesting few changes were made to the building from the time of its completion. The congregation of Cushendall was united with Carnlough in 1919, with the Reverend William Henry McCracken appointed as the first minister of the joint charge. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the total value of the building was set at £30 and it was exempt from taxation. Ancillary rooms were added to the church in around 1970. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the value of the church had been slightly reduced to £24. In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described Cushendall Presbyterian Church as "a little pink sandstone building, scholarly but reticent." The church was included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to have been designated in the province at that time, a distinction described as testimony to the special qualities of the village — and in that year Cushendall was also selected as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. The church was subsequently listed in 1976. During the 1980s the congregation diminished to single figures, and as a result Cushendall was united with the Newtown Crommelin congregation in 1994. The congregation currently stands at around 80 families.

The listing extends to the church itself, the front steps, walls, piers, and railings.