Former Methodist Church, St. Eugene Street, Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone

Former Methodist Church, St. Eugene Street, Newtownstewart

A detached gable-fronted single-storey former church, originally built in 1818 and currently used as a funeral home. The building is rendered in cement pebbledash with a pitched fibre cement slate roof and sits on an elevated site accessed by a flight of stone steps from the street. A gabled entrance porch was added around 1900.

The east-facing front elevation is the principal façade, dominated by a pair of round-headed window openings with painted stone hood mouldings and concrete sills, now fitted with uPVC windows. A lower gabled entrance porch sits between these windows, containing a pointed-arched window opening with uPVC glazing. Below is a square-headed timber door. A painted stone plaque at the centre of the front gable declares "METHODIST/ chapel /1818". The south elevation is largely blank apart from a square-headed door opening. The west and north elevations were not accessed during survey.

The building is rectangular on plan. A flight of thirteen stone steps leads to a raised concrete front area enclosed by modern steel railings, with rendered stone retaining walls topped by saddle-back coping. A pair of earlier wrought-iron pedestrian gates open to the street. A granite carved milestone with an indecipherable inscription is embedded in the front retaining wall, possibly dating to the eighteenth century or earlier.

The building's architectural interest has been significantly diminished by extensive reconstruction undertaken in 1984–85 following bomb damage in 1982. The modern interventions include uPVC windows, fibre cement roof slates, cement pebbledash render, uPVC rainwater goods, and an entirely modern interior.

Historical context

The chapel was erected by subscription at a cost of £300 and was capable of accommodating 230 persons, with average attendance of 130. It is documented in the 1833 first edition Ordnance Survey map, uncaptioned. Townland valuations record it as a "Methodist meeting house" valued at £7 10s in Back Street. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 describes it as a "Primitive Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and garden", leased from Daniel Baird Esq, with dimensions of 26.6 feet by 50.6 feet by 12.6 feet and valued at £6 13s (later revised to £8). The 1908 Annual Revisions town plan documents the addition of the porch to the east elevation.

Ordnance Survey Memoirs record: "The Primitive Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Back Street is a building in good repair, 52 feet long and 28 feet broad, erected by subscription in the year 1818 at an expense of 300 pounds. It accommodates 230 persons and the average attendance is 130. The ministers are Mr Adam Ford and Mr John Hurst."

Newtownstewart was an important centre for Methodism. The Reverend John Wesley, founder of Methodism, visited the town in both 1787 and 1789. Methodist preaching in the area dates from 1767, when travelling preacher John Smith, based in Armagh, was invited to the home of Mr. John Grey of Lislap near Newtownstewart. Smith subsequently established a circuit in 1778 comprising over 600 members from Cavandarragh, Aghyarahn, Drumquin, Lisleen and Newtownstewart. This circuit expanded rapidly and was divided in 1786 between Lisleen and Omagh, the latter containing Newtownstewart. By 1792, a "preaching house" was erected on Back Street (now St. Eugene's Road), near the present structure. This smaller building accommodated around a hundred persons and was later converted into a Masonic Hall.

Newtownstewart broke off from the Omagh Circuit in 1792 and remained as a separate circuit until 1831. The present building was constructed in 1818, shortly after a schism within Irish Methodism in 1816 between Wesleyan Methodists and Primitive Methodists, denominations that remained separate until 1878. The building is now owned by Hood and Co, who acquired it in 2007 and have made minimal changes in converting it to a funeral home.