Hillsborough Presbyterian Church, Lisburn Street, Hillsborough, County Down

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church is a free-standing, double-height, neo-classical rendered church built in 1885 on an elevated site on the east side of Lisburn Street, with its south rear elevation fronting onto Meeting Street. It is a plainly detailed late 19th-century provincial Presbyterian church, rectangular on plan and set on a north-south axis. Although an interesting building, later additions detract from its character and it does not meet the criteria for listed status, though it lies within a conservation area.

The church has a hipped natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, gabled to the north end (the narthex), and is topped by a central octagonal copper lantern. A rendered, profiled chimneystack sits to the northwest. The eaves are moulded and fitted with ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering on iron brackets, with cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are finished in painted, ruled-and-lined cement render with a rendered plinth course. Rusticated rendered pilasters articulate the narthex and corners, and continuous impost and sill courses run around the building. The window openings are double-height and round-headed, with moulded architrave surrounds, keystones, impost blocks, and sill corbels. The windows themselves are timber-framed leaded stained glass, made by Clokey of Belfast.

The principal west nave elevation is four windows wide. The north entrance elevation is abutted by a flat-roofed rendered entrance porch built around 1990. A shallow breakfront is surmounted by a pediment defined by four rusticated render pilasters flanking five square blind panels at upper level. The east nave elevation mirrors the west and is abutted to the south end by a flat-roofed porch connecting the church to a 1960s block. The south elevation, which faces Meeting Street, has a pair of blind bays detailed to match the window openings elsewhere.

The church sits on an elevated site with a large front lawn and a tarmac drive, enclosed to the street by decorative cast-iron railings on a basalt ashlar plinth wall, with a matching pedestrian gate and swept entrance leading to a pair of decorative basalt ashlar piers supporting matching iron gates. To the east stands a single-storey 1960s building, a single-storey red brick former school dated 1914 with timber sash windows, and a further double-height rendered hall built in 1973, beyond which there is an extensive tarmac parking area.

The history of Presbyterian worship on this site is long and well-documented. As early as around 1803, an illustrated plan of the town of Hillsborough records that the plot of land on which the church stands had already been purchased with the intention of building a meeting house. The first Presbyterian Meeting House on the site was constructed in 1833 at the corner of Lisburn Street and Meeting Street (as the northern part of Wapping Lane was then known), first appearing on the Ordnance Survey map of that year as a square building described as a "Presbyterian Meeting House." The contemporary Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it as "a plain, stone building 54ft by 39.5ft," built in 1833 at a cost of £700 raised by public subscription. However, the Townland Valuation map of around 1830 depicted the building as an oblong structure, with a layout similar to the present church. In the 1830s, approximately 40 percent of the population of Hillsborough was Presbyterian (matched by 40 percent Church of Ireland and 20 percent Roman Catholic), and the meeting house could accommodate a congregation of 500, though average weekly attendance was closer to 400. The minister was supported by means of the Regium Donum — literally "King's Money" — a grant made to Presbyterian ministers of Ulster since 1690, when King William III issued it while stopping at Hillsborough Fort on his way to fight the Jacobite Army, in recognition of Presbyterian loyalty. This event is commemorated by a stone plaque at Hillsborough Fort, to the south of the meeting house. Construction of the meeting house began in 1832, during which time the congregation worshipped in the Market House in Hillsborough's Square; the building first opened for public worship on 29th December 1833.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows little change to the site, though a National School had by then been built to the south-east of the meeting house, fronting onto Meeting Street. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 recorded the meeting house and school together at a value of £30. Between 1861 and 1864 this valuation dropped to £28, but returned to its former level in 1885 when the meeting house was completely rebuilt and a new schoolhouse was constructed alongside it. A teacher's residence, valued at £6, was also built to the rear of the building at the same time. By 1914, the current red brick building to the east of the church had been erected and the school met there from that year. The fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1919–20 shows the teacher's residence as an oblong building to the east of the church, with the new schoolhouse occupying the site of its predecessor along Meeting Street. There was no further recorded change to the site until the Annual Revisions ended in 1930.

The minister of Hillsborough Meeting House originally resided at a manse at Nos. 9–11 Main Street from at least 1864 until it was sold in 1891 by the Reverend W. C. Steele, who then constructed a new manse on the Hillsborough–Lisburn Road. Under the Penal Laws, Presbyterians in Hillsborough had worshipped in a barn in the nearby townland of Listullycurran, but the grant of Regium Donum in 1690 gave Presbyterianism a more secure footing in Ulster and led to the construction of meeting houses across the province.

In 1929 the current church organ was installed. In 1959 a number of stained glass windows were fitted within the church and the former teacher's residence was replaced with practical facilities including a committee room and a kitchen. The incumbent minister continued to reside at the manse on the Hillsborough–Lisburn Road until 1963, when it was sold and a new manse was purchased adjacent to the church, known as "the Lawn." In 1973 a new Church Hall was constructed adjoining the church, built in memory of the Reverend J. H. Orr who had served the congregation between 1915 and 1963. Around 1990 the modern flat-roofed entrance porch was added to the north elevation. The 1885 schoolhouse has since been connected to the 1914 schoolhouse, and both former school buildings are now used as part of the Church Hall. The congregation continues to use the church and has a membership of 345 families.