Holy Trinity Church Hall, Main Street, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8EN

Holy Trinity Church Hall

A two-storey stone building constructed around 1840, probably designed by Stewart Gordon (Surveyor for the County of Londonderry) in a simple late Gothic Revival style. The building originally served as a school house and later as a residence for the church sexton before becoming a working men's club in the 1930s. It is now used as a Sunday School and meeting space for various church groups.

The building is constructed of roughly cut black stone laid to rough courses. The roof is of natural slate with sandstone coped gables featuring moulded stops and pointed trefoil finials; the lower west gable has been covered in lead. The walls are decorated with quatrefoil cut stone ornaments at the apex of the main gables. Windows are generally set within flat arches with rendered reveals; those on the south elevation have moulded render hoods (some damaged), whilst those on the west are square-headed with chamfered dressed stone surrounds. Door openings are flat pointed arches, with the street-facing entrance door having a dressed stone surround and original tracery overlight with leaded stained glass. Modern replacements include uPVC windows and uPVC rainwater goods.

The street-facing west elevation presents a gable, extended by a lean-to to the north, which is set forward and off-centre to a higher gable. The first floor contains a central bi-partite window, whilst the ground floor has an entrance door within the lean-to and a single window. The north elevation is largely abutted at ground floor level by an adjacent single-storey building, with a blank rendered wall at first floor. The rear east elevation features a symmetrical gable with a central window to each floor, with a single-storey flat-roofed section set back to the north containing one window. The south elevation is symmetrical across its taller section with three windows, whilst the lower set-back western section has a doorway in its inner corner.

The building sits hard on the pavement of Main Street and forms an important landmark and visual terminus to the east side. It has strong group value with Holy Trinity Church, forming part of the northern boundary of the church grounds and connecting with the church's street boundary wall via a wrought iron gate. The building is surrounded by rendered walls surmounted by iron railings. Much of the original interior remains intact, as does the original layout.

Historical Development: The building first appears on the 1853 Ordnance Survey map, captioned as 'School House', occupying much the same footprint as today. In Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the church, tower, and parish school house are listed together at £50, with no significant changes recorded before the 1930s. The stairway position was altered in 1937 when the building was in use as a working men's club with parish membership. Photographs from around 1900 show that the roofline at the south-western end has since changed. The building remains of local interest as part of the social fabric of Portrush.