Ballykelly Presbyterian Church, Main Street, Ballykelly, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 9HS

Ballykelly Presbyterian Church is a fine Neo-classical building in temple form, erected on gently rising ground at the east edge of Main Street Ballykelly. It forms a striking architectural foil to the model farm opposite and commands the landscape with powerful formal composition and excellent use of materials.

The church is built of cut stone with a pedimented entrance facade and two rows of windows on three facades. The lower row lights the ground floor nave whilst the tall upper row lights the galleries. A single-storey protuberance containing the minister's room and rear porch extends to the rear. The entrance facade is symmetrically composed with a pedimented central tall doorway set within a shallow recessed semicircular-headed panel of ashlar stonework. On either side stands a ground floor square window, and above each is a segmental-headed tall window of double-square proportions. The door centrepiece is slightly recessed to form a panel trimmed with ashlar stonework. A well-modelled pediment unifies the facade, with a plain stone tympanum bearing a date stone of 1827.

Two colours of sandstone appear throughout: a biscuit-coloured ashlar is used for the entrance feature, quoins and string course in well-worked masonry, whilst the infill walling is built in coursed pinkish sandstone of varying course heights. Windows are picked out in wide plain stone architraves with cills supported on pairs of coved corbels. The building sits on a plinth of rubble whinstone. The 30-degree pitched roof, perhaps steeper than ideal, has good overhang with a moulded soffit that creates crisp shadow lines.

The interior features a gallery running round three sides, creating a theatrical spatial effect of excellent quality. Graves fill the area surrounding the church, with trees lining the perimeter except at the front where a stone boundary wall marks the site edge.

The church was designed by Richard Suitor, the Fishmongers' Company architect from London, who had already prepared plans for Banagher Presbyterian Church. His design was favoured over proposals by Hugh Wright. The building replaced a former T-plan Presbyterian church situated at Tullyhoe, though many parishioners were unhappy with this new siting, preferring the convenience of the original location. Construction commenced in 1826 and was completed by builder James Turnball in 1827 at a cost of £4,000, met entirely by the Fishmongers' Company. The building was erected during the ministry of Reverend Richard Dill, who is interred in the south-west corner of the Episcopalian graveyard across the road. The building impressed both Thackeray and, in the 20th century, Sir John Betjeman. In 1887 the Fishmongers' Company conveyed the church and manse to the trustees of the congregation in fee simple. Renovations were carried out in 1894, possibly under the supervision of M A Robinson, who designed the adjoining lecture hall. Further renovations followed in 1939 and 1976.