Second Presbyterian Church And Hall, Strand Road, Londonderry

Second Presbyterian Church and Hall, Strand Road, Londonderry

This is a Gothic-style three-bay gabled Presbyterian church built in 1847 to designs by Stewart Gordon, together with an adjacent former schoolhouse built in 1850. The buildings occupy a corner site at Strand Road and Patrick Street, with the church overlooking the City Factory to the rear on North Edward Street, and lying close to the west side of the River Foyle. The complex sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, which is enhanced by the historic presence of these buildings.

Historical Background

The Strand Road itself had been laid out by 1780 and was known as the "new road" to Pennyburn before acquiring its current name in the 1830s. The land on which the church stands was reclaimed from tidal ground; a local newspaper noted in 1849 that "the site where the Second Presbyterian Church was recently built was formerly covered with water during the winter." The congregation itself was originally formed in 1780 as the First Derry Secession congregation, meeting for over sixty years at a small building off Fountain Street near the city walls. In 1840 the Synod of Ulster and the Seceding Synod united to form the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at which point the congregation was renamed Second Londonderry. The Scots Church on Great James Street, previously known as Londonderry Second Presbyterian, was consequently redesignated Londonderry Third Presbyterian.

By the 1840s the congregation had outgrown its Fountain Street premises, and the move to the newly developing residential suburbs north of the city reflected a broader contemporary trend. During the ministry of the Reverend James Crawford, The Honourable The Irish Society donated both a liberal financial subscription and the plot of land on the Strand Road for the new church. The foundation stone was laid on 3rd September 1846 by James Anderson, Deputy Governor of the Irish Society, and the completed church was opened for worship on 12th March 1848, with the Reverend Henry Cooke of Belfast delivering the first sermon. The total construction cost came to £1,450. The adjoining schoolhouse was erected in 1850. The church was recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1856 as owned by The Honourable The Irish Society and valued at £80.

The church gallery was added in 1885 during an extensive renovation costing £1,700. The church organ was installed during the ministry of the Reverend James Pyper, between 1909 and 1940. The foundation stone of the adjoining church hall was laid on 30th August 1960; it was designed by a Mr G. H. Colhoun and officially opened on 14th September 1961. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (covering 1936 to 1957), the combined value of the church and schoolhouse was set at £280, rising to £592 for the full complex — church, schoolhouse and hall — by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956 to 1972). The church was included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in 1978 and listed in 1979.

The congregation continued to worship on the site until 2010, having survived the worst of the Troubles years by forming links with congregations in Inch, Burt and Buncrana. The broader migration of Protestants to the waterside during the Troubles had dramatically reduced the cityside Presbyterian population, from 4,227 in 1971 to just 656 by 1991, and the congregation eventually vacated the Strand Road church in 2010 owing to declining membership and the poor state of repair of the buildings. A commemorative booklet was published that year to mark the closure.

The architect Stewart Gordon (d. 1860) served as Londonderry's County Surveyor and had earlier designed the Scots Church on Great James Street (1835–37) in a neo-classical manner. His Gothic treatment here is markedly different from that earlier work. Critics have been measured in their praise: Alistair Rowan described it as "a plain Gothic hall… octangular central tower ending in thin pinnacles… Hardly an accomplished design," and the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1970 characterised it in similarly restrained terms as "a hall-type church, neo-Gothic in design." Gordon used locally quarried Derry schist and Scottish Barony Glen sandstone in the masonry, as recorded in the Natural Stone Database.

Exterior — The Church

The church is rectangular on plan, constructed of random rubble local schist with Barony Glen sandstone dressings. The principal elevation faces east onto Strand Road, set behind a low reconstituted stone and concrete boundary wall with piers and iron railings above. The central bay of the east elevation projects forward and contains a Gothic-style arched doorway under an ogee hood-moulding, flanked by narrow angled and diagonal ashlar schist and sandstone buttresses. The entrance is approached by a short flight of wide concrete steps with a concrete ramp to the left side fitted with painted handrails. A wider lancet light sits directly above the doorway, and the central bay is flanked by tall lancet windows. Pointed pinnacles appear on each corner of the schist walling.

The most distinctive external feature is the 60-foot-high two-stage octagonal sandstone tower rising above the central bay. It has lancet openings alternately infilled with blind timber panels and timber ventilation slats.

The south elevation facing the nave is of random rubble schist and sandstone, five bays wide, with painted stone surrounds to lancet windows. Cast-iron guttering on out-and-up iron brackets discharges to a uPVC downpipe. This elevation is abutted to the rear by a high rendered boundary wall to North Edward Street. The west (rear) gable-end elevation, which faces onto North Edward Street overlooking the City Factory, has a rendered painted finish with coping stone and kneelers, and contains two tall lancet windows with painted stone surrounds and metal mesh grilles. The north elevation has a smooth-rendered unpainted finish and is abutted along its entire length by the adjoining church hall; the exposed section above the hall roofline shows five equally spaced Gothic-style arched windows.

The pitched slate roof to the main church has black clay ridge tiles with two copper ventilation cowls centred on the ridge.

Exterior — The Church Hall

Abutting the north side of the church is a 1960s rock-faced concrete hall with rendered dressings, which projects forward from the church and school building. It is noted as being of little historic interest.

Exterior — The Former Schoolhouse

Immediately to the south of the church is the former schoolhouse, built in 1850. Its east gable-end elevation is of random rubble schist with a sandstone bellcote at the apex. This elevation is abutted by a single-storey rectangular flat-roofed battlemented entrance porch finished in rendered lined-and-marked unpainted walling, containing a centrally placed shouldered window opening on a sandstone sill. The north side of the porch has a shouldered door opening with chevron timber-sheeted double doors and a plain overlight. The south side of the porch is blank. The south elevation to Patrick Street has four shouldered window bays on stone sills. The north and west elevations of the schoolhouse are abutted by a rendered ruled-and-lined extension, which has a shouldered window bay to the right of a shouldered door opening on its south elevation. The slated pitched roof has black clay ridge tiles, and rainwater goods are uPVC.

Materials and Windows

Roofing is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and uPVC. Walling is local schist with Barony Glen sandstone dressings to the church and east elevation of the former school, with ruled and lined render to other elevations of the school. Windows throughout are lancets containing coloured glass and margin panes.

Setting

The buildings are located on the west side of Strand Road, close to the River Foyle to the north-east, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. Much of the external historic detailing survives, and the group makes a positive contribution to the character of the conservation area.