Kilwarlin Moravian Church, 49 Kilwarlin Road, Hillsborough, Co. Down, BT26 6DZ

Kilwarlin Moravian Church is a single-storey, gable-fronted, cement-rendered church dating from 1834, built to replace an earlier building on the same site. It forms part of the wider Kilwarlin Moravian Church complex, attached to the Manse and set within mature grounds accessed from Kilwarlin Road via a decorative gate screen. The building is rectangular on plan, facing west, and was extensively refurbished in 1987.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, set behind a slightly raised front gable. Steel guttering on iron brackets and cast-iron downpipes handle rainwater drainage. The external walls are finished in ruled and lined cement render throughout.

The west entrance elevation is the most architecturally elaborate face of the building. A shallow central breakfront rises to a round-headed bellcote with three sandstone pinnacles to its cement coping and a round-headed bell arch containing an iron bell. The gable itself has a concrete coping terminating in raised piers at either end, each with truncated rendered pinnacles and ornate black chimneypots. At the centre of the breakfront is a round-headed blind panel containing a black marble date plaque inscribed: "The Ancient Episcopal Church of The United Brethren, commonly called Moravians, erected A.D.1755, rebuilt October 13th 1834, restored 1987." Beneath this is a square-headed door opening with a cement hood moulding and recessed double-leaf hardwood panelled doors. To either side of the blind arch is a pair of diminutive round-headed openings with latticed lights and concrete sills. Small buttresses with sandstone pinnacles anchor each end of this elevation. The doorway opens onto a paved platform with steps and a ramp, enclosed by a low rendered wall also finished with sandstone pinnacles.

The windows throughout are round-headed, set into round-headed recesses on the nave elevations, with sandstone sills and leaded coloured glazing inserted in 1955. The north nave elevation is four windows wide, as is the south nave elevation. The east elevation is abutted by the Manse.

The complex as a whole — church, manse, Moravian Hall, and gate screen — forms a rare and largely intact integrated ecclesiastical site. To the north-west of the church, the grounds have been landscaped into a battle garden designed to represent the terrain at Thermopylae, a reference to the ancient Greek struggle for independence. To the rear of the church is a burial ground.

The original Moravian Church on this site was built in 1755, founded by John Cennick, an English preacher and founder of the Moravian Church in Ireland. By the time of the first Ordnance Survey in 1834 it had fallen into a very ruinous state and was being used principally as a schoolhouse. The rebuilding of 1834 was carried out entirely at the expense of Basil Patras Zula, a Greek preacher of remarkable character and history. Zula had fled the Greek War of Independence (1821–30) with considerable personal wealth, subsequently settled in Ireland, married a Dublin Moravian named Ann Linfoot, and offered himself for ministry in the Moravian Church. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the rebuilt chapel as "a neat, slated and stone building, roughcast and whitewashed," measuring 41 feet long and 26 feet broad internally, with walls 2 feet thick. The entrance at the west end led through a passage 3 feet 6 inches wide and 13 feet long, flanked on each side by a small vestry, above which a gallery looked into the body of the chapel. The pulpit was described as very neat, and in place of pews there were forms providing accommodation for 150 persons including the gallery. In the years immediately following reconstruction the church was valued at £7.0.0.

Between the first and second Ordnance Surveys (1834–58), the church, manse, and a separate rear building — later used as a Sunday school and church hall — were consolidated into one large interconnected structure, shown on the second edition map as a single building named "Moravian Chapel."

Zula died of natural causes in Dublin on 4 October 1844. In the ten years he served the congregation he raised its membership from an original six to nearly one hundred and fifty, and left behind him the new church and manse. One account suggests around fifty were in the congregation by the time of his death, with the larger figure likely reflecting the new seating capacity rather than active membership. The Thermopylae battle garden to the north-west of the church is among the most visible surviving reminders of Zula's Greek heritage.

In 1987 the church was restored. It has been noted that following this restoration the walls were finished in what has been described as rather dreary grey cement render, and that the building would benefit considerably from annual whitewashing, as had been the practice since 1837. The church continues to be used as a place of worship, with a current congregation of over 180 members and friends.