Hall, Drumbeg Road/Upper Malone Road, Drumbeg, County Down

Former Parochial Hall, now Drumbeg Bowling Club

This single-storey red brick former parochial hall was built in 1895 for the congregation of St. Patrick's Church, Drumbeg, at a cost to the parish of £800. It stands at the junction of Upper Malone Road and Drumbeg Road, Lisburn, to the south side of Upper Malone Road, and remains in the ownership of the Diocese of Down. The building is of local interest but does not meet the criteria for statutory listing. It sits within an Area of Village Character.

History

The hall was constructed in 1895, the same year a new schoolhouse was built in the village at similar cost. It served the congregation of St. Patrick's Church for a wide range of purposes: Sunday school meetings, mission meetings, lectures and concerts. Before the church vestry was enlarged in 1937, larger vestry meetings were frequently held here. Between June and August 1923, Sunday services were conducted in the hall during a period of church renovation, and renovation work was carried out on the hall itself during the 1930s to correct a dangerous misalignment in its walls.

During the Second World War the hall played a significant role in local life. In the aftermath of the Belfast Blitz of April 1941, many displaced Belfast families sought shelter in the hall, where they were tended by the people of Drumbeg. Once new homes were found for these refugees, the hall was requisitioned as the wartime head office of the Belfast Ropeworks and was subsequently used by the local British Army and later American Army until the invasion of France in June 1944, after which it reverted to its former parish use.

After the war, a single-storey kitchen extension was added by a Mr James Allen. At this time the hall was renamed the Reade Memorial Hall in memory of R. H. S. Reade of Ballydrain Estate, a great patron of the church. Reade is commemorated by a brass plaque above the entrance door recording his services to the parish. A further extension was added in 1997. The building first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1901–02, where it is recorded as an oblong structure to the west of the church, and is similarly described on the fourth edition maps of 1920–21. It is no longer used by St. Patrick's Church and now serves as the premises of a local bowling club.

Exterior

The hall is L-shaped on plan, with a projecting gabled bay to the north-west and later attached extensions to the west and south. The walling is English-garden-wall bonded red brick with a chamfered red sandstone plinth. The roof is pitched natural slate with roll-top clay ridge tiles. At the centre of the roof sits a large square ventilation cowl with decorative leadwork to its base, uPVC weatherboarding to its shaft, and a pyramidal lead capping. The raised verges have flat red sandstone kneeler stones and copings. Rainwater is handled by painted moulded cast-iron gutters carried on a moulded sandstone corbel course, with square cast-iron downpipes.

The windows throughout the original hall are double rebated tripartite timber-framed casements with transom lights, set within flush chamfered red sandstone sills and lintels, with chamfered red brick reveals. Single windows appear to the east elevation.

The principal elevation faces north and has three windows to the left. To the right, a projecting gabled bay contains a large window with a central leaded transom light, surmounted by a sandstone relief panel. A cat-slide roof to the east covers a single-storey entrance porch containing a single window, with double vertically sheeted timber entrance doors on the east elevation.

The east gable contains a single window to the left and right, with a timber louvred opening at the apex. Abutting this gable at the centre is the single-storey lean-to entrance porch, which has double vertically sheeted timber entrance doors to the east and a single window in both the north and south elevations. The entrance is reached via two sandstone steps.

The south elevation is four windows wide, though the second window from the left is reduced to high-level transom lights only. This elevation is abutted at the centre by a single-storey link block connecting to the 1997 southern extension. The west gable is abutted by the later flat-roofed western extension, with the exposed section of the gable left blank.

Later Extensions

The western extension, built around 1950, has a flat roof with metal rainwater goods, timber fascia boards, and painted render walls. Its windows are metal-framed casements with projecting concrete sills. The north and south elevations each contain a single window. The west elevation has a single window to the left and a recessed vertically sheeted timber entrance door to the right, accessed by a concrete ramp with a rendered plinth wall.

The southern extension, dated 1997, is abutted at the north to the hall by a single-storey link. It has a shallow pitched corrugated metal roof, uPVC rainwater goods, timber fascia boards, and prefabricated pebble-dashed panel walls over a concrete plinth, with timber-framed casement windows. The north elevation is abutted to the right by the single-storey link, which contains vertically sheeted timber entrance doors to the east; the exposed section of the north elevation is blank. The east elevation has a timber entrance door to the left and two windows to the right. The south elevation is blank and the west elevation contains three windows to the centre.

Setting

The hall sits within its own grounds, entered from the north through square red brick pillars with shallow pyramidal concrete copings. The site is bounded to the north and east by timber fencing and hedges, and to the south and west by hedges.