Ballyarnett Presbyterian Church, Racecourse Road, Londonderry, BT48

Ballyarnett Presbyterian Church is a single-storey gabled church of 18th-century character, built in 1848 and situated on Racecourse Road in Londonderry. The building is set back 10 metres from the road, with its long wall running parallel to it.

The church is five bays long with a gabled end, roofed in asbestos slates with a plain ridge tile, pressed half-round gutter, and iron downpipe. The walls are finished in roughcast rendering with a smooth plinth and plaster quoins. The entrance is a semi-circular headed door with a plain fanlight, set into the south gable and flanked by arched windows. The north gable contains two similar windows. All windows and the door have plaster architraves decorated with imitation short and long work, featuring panelled keystones and widely spaced panelled blocking pieces. The wooden sheeted door is stained and fitted with applied neo-Gothic strapped hinges, with a date plaque above inscribed 1848. The eaves feature plain timber barges and fascia with gable overhangs.

The sliding sash windows retain 23 panes along the long sides and 20 panes on the gables. The meeting room (sometimes called the lecture room) and an adjoining back-to-back cottage, now boarded up, have square-headed sliding sashes with 12 panes. A single-storey back return contains the minister's room and meeting room. The site is bounded by a low wall with widely spaced piers and galvanised railings.

The congregation was formed in 1847 following a break with Knowhead Congregation. Reverend Robert McCreery was appointed minister and may have acted as architect. The church initially met in the racecourse gazebo. The site is unique in being situated within the former Ballyarnett racecourse. A new hall was erected in the 1960s, designed by architect A T Marshall. Adjacent to the church stands a two-storey three-bay-wide manse with two-storey canted bays flanking the entrances, added during the occupancy of Reverend Gregg. Works carried out in 1971 degraded the building's previous architectural character.