Presbyterian Church hall, Castle Street, Ballycastle, County Antrim, BT54 6AS

Presbyterian Church Hall, Castle Street, Ballycastle

A single-storey gothic style church hall built in 1886 as a lecture hall for the neighbouring Presbyterian Church. Originally a plain rectangular structure with a projecting porch to the front, the building was extended significantly to the west and south sides in the mid to later twentieth century, and is now roughly square in plan and over twice its original size.

The hall is set within spacious grounds on the south side of Castle Street, west of Ballycastle town centre. The church itself stands immediately to the east, with a graveyard to the west. To the north is a large tarmac-covered car park. The grounds are enclosed from the street by a low rendered wall with decorative late Victorian railings. The boundary is entered via a gateway with square pyramidal-capped rendered pillars and gates of similar design to the railings. Similar vehicle gateways lead into the car park, with one gateway at the west end featuring plainer wrought-iron gates.

The front elevation comprises the original symmetrical section with a flat-roofed portion to the west, added after 1972. At the centre of the façade is a large projecting gabled porch with a pointed arch doorway flanked by timber sheeted double doors and moulded in-out dressings and archivolt. Above the doorway is a small painted date stone, with three pointed arch recesses above this. The porch has pointed arch windows with timber frames and horizontal glazing bars on both east and west faces. Either side of the porch are tall pointed arch windows rising into gables, each with double lancet or Y-tracery frames and horizontal glazing bars. A similar but slightly shorter and broader window appears on the extension.

The east elevation features the gable of the original section alongside a large single-storey flat-roofed extension with a long squat window in a modern frame and a recessed doorway with modern glazed door and sidelights. The gable retains two windows as on the front elevation, with a roundel recess above.

The west elevation comprises a flat-roofed side extension on the left and an earlier extension on the right, the latter featuring two roughly square windows with modern timber frames.

The rear elevation contains a flat-roofed side extension to the left, the gable of the earlier extension to its right, and a larger flat-roofed extension to the far right. The side extension has a square window with modern frame and a door with modern flat-panel design. The gable displays two square windows with modern frames. The flat-roofed section to the right contains two windows, one very large and one long and squat set at high level, both with modern timber frames.

The entire façade is finished in dry dash render with in-out quoins to the original section and the front of the side extension. The gabled roof of the original section has an overhang with plain bargeboards and exposed rafter ends, finished in slate. The gabled section to the rear is also slate-roofed. The other sections have asphalt-covered roofs. Rainwater goods comprise a combination of cast-iron and PVC-u.

The building was erected in 1886 as a lecture hall but became an Intermediate School in 1898, entering the National School system in 1906. As Castle Street Primary School, it continued operating until 1968, after which it reverted to the church to serve as the congregation's main hall. The gabled rear return appears to have been added in the mid-twentieth century, with flat-roofed extensions added between 1972 and 1981.

The building has group value with the adjacent Presbyterian Church and is located within a conservation area.