First Castlederg Presbyterian Church, Garvetagh Road, Castlederg, Co Tyrone, BT81 7QA is a Grade B1 listed building in the Derry City and Strabane local planning authority area, Northern Ireland. First listed on 30 July 1991.

First Castlederg Presbyterian Church, Garvetagh Road, Castlederg, Co Tyrone, BT81 7QA

WRENN ID
stony-dormer-marsh
Grade
B1
Local Planning Authority
Derry City and Strabane
Country
Northern Ireland
Date first listed
30 July 1991
Source
NI Environment Agency listing

Description

First Castlederg Presbyterian Church is a Gothic Revival church built around 1895, situated on the east side of Garvetagh Road. The building demonstrates the denominational confidence and architectural ambition of late 19th-century Presbyterian practice in Ulster.

The church comprises a rectangular nave with gabled transepts to the north and south, an engaged square tower to the north-west, a cat-slide roof over a store to the south-west, and a single-storey minister's room to the east. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles over corbelled eaves course; the raised painted masonry verge on the principal gable features moulded kneelers with a terracotta finial. The minister's room has a hipped roof over roughcast corbelled eaves. Walls are painted roughcast over a projecting plinth with smooth rendered coping and diagonal buttressing to the corners.

The principal elevation faces west and is dominated by a central gable containing a pointed-arched-headed rebated opening in a stepped surround, surmounted by a hood mould with label-stops. This opening contains square-headed double-leaf vertically-sheeted timber entrance doors with a stained glass fanlight. The gable is flanked by single windows on either side. At gallery level, a moulded sill course leads to a large pointed-arched-headed geometric tracery window, surmounted by a hood mould with decorative label-stops. A small pointed-arched-headed louvred opening pierces the apex. Lateral buttressing supports the corners.

To the right of the principal elevation stands a store containing a single trefoil window in a smooth painted surround. To the left, a two-stage square tower rises; the first stage contains a single window to each elevation, whilst the second stage has a moulded string course and a broached profile containing trefoil oculi to the cardinal points. A moulded string course supports a crenellated parapet, with a squat octagonal spire behind. Windows throughout are pointed-arched-headed in chamfered stepped painted sandstone surrounds, containing leaded stained glass.

The north elevation spans three windows across the nave, separated by buttresses. A gabled transept projects at the left, containing a group of three pointed-arched windows with a larger window to the centre. The tower abuts at the right.

The west elevation is abutted by the minister's room; the exposed section at gallery level contains an oculus window surmounted by a small pointed-arched-headed louvred opening. The minister's room has three windows overall. Its north elevation contains a chamfered Tudor-arched-headed entrance opening with a diagonally-sheeted timber door at the right and a single window at the left. The south elevation contains a single window.

The south elevation is four windows wide, separated by buttresses, and abutted at the right by a gabled transept detailed as the north elevation.

The churchyard is modern, with a carpark to the south. The site boundary at the north and south-west is marked by roughcast walling, with access through a pair of square pillars supporting modern steel gates. The front of the church is bounded by a roughcast plinth wall surmounted by cast-iron railings, with access through cast-iron pillars supporting a pair of cast-iron gates. The south boundary is formed of rubble walling and the east by hedging. A single-storey pitched roughcast outbuilding stands to the north-east.

The church hall and original meeting house, dated 1739, stand on the west side of Garvetagh Road. Cast-iron ogee profile gutters and round downpipes are recent replacements.

Detailed Attributes

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