Zion Priesthill Methodist Church, Kesh Road, Hillsborough, County Down, BT27 5RR

Zion Priesthill Methodist Church is a small double-height, T-plan Methodist church built in 1838 and extended around 1850, situated to the east of Kesh Road, Hillsborough, in the townlands of Aghnatrish and Annacloy. Despite later alterations and extensions, the character of the original late Georgian church remains apparent, and the T-plan layout together with the retention of box pews in all three arms of the plan give the building genuine interest, though it has been judged not of sufficient interest to warrant listing.

ARCHITECTURE AND APPEARANCE

The church is a double-height, single-cell structure, T-shaped on plan. The rear return dates from around 1850, and there is a single-storey extension to the north and a porch to the south. The roof is pitched, covered in natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout: ogee-profile to the main building, half-round to the rear return, with cast-iron hoppers. Walling is finished in ruled-and-lined cement render with quoins. Windows are a variety of round-headed leaded and stained glass with masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces west towards the road and is three bays wide, with the central window raised higher than those to either side. The north elevation is almost entirely abutted by the single-storey extension, which is set on a slight slope; the gable is blank. On the north elevation's west face there is a slightly projecting porch under the eaves, fitted with a modern half-panelled timber door and a modern timber window to its left. The north elevation's east face has a modern window to the right. The east elevation has a window to either side of the return; the return itself has a single window to the gable, a window to the right of centre on its north elevation, and a window to the left of centre on its south elevation, along with a small timber-sheeted door to the right. The south elevation is abutted by the porch, which opens to the west and is fitted with a five-panelled double-leaf replacement timber door beneath a canopy supported on a square cement-rendered column.

SETTING

To the north is a small church hall (the former schoolroom built around 1870), and to the south is a larger church hall built in 1999. The addition of the recent refurbished extension to the north and the large modern church hall to the south compromise the setting of the original building. The church sits at a lower level than Kesh Road, with a shrubbed and lawned garden to the front, and overlooks unspoiled countryside to the rear. The tarmacadamed entrance to the west is accessed via cast-iron gates on square gate piers with ball finials. The boundary wall is rendered brick with masonry coping, with minor gate piers marking the start of a curved entrance drive. To the rear is a tarmacadamed car park enclosed by modern timber fencing.

HISTORY

The congregation of Priesthill has its origins in 1786, when the first meeting house was erected at a time when there were very few places of worship in the immediate area, and fewer still representing the Methodist faith. That original building, located approximately half a mile south-east of the current church, was a simple structure of mud walls with a thatched roof. In 1798, when the rest of Ireland was in a state of upheaval, around 200 members of the congregation seceded from the Methodist Church and joined the New Connexion Methodist Church, an English denomination established in 1797 that emphasised the union of the church and its members with other societies on a circuit basis. By the 1830s the original meeting house, still occupied by members of the New Connexion, had fallen into dilapidation, and the congregation organised a building fund for a new church. The Marquis of Downshire contributed 10 guineas to the fund and also provided stone from his quarry. The congregation acquired the current plot of land in 1838, and on Christmas Eve that year the new church was dedicated by the Reverend William Cooke, superintendent of the New Connexion mission in Ireland.

The name Priesthill derives from the church's proximity to either the small hamlet or a house of that name depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833. The new church first appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, shown as an oblong building on the Kesh Road — which at that time led from Hillsborough to the Maze Racecourse — described as a Methodist Meeting House and accompanied by a very small out-office to the east, since demolished. In 1861 Griffith's Valuation recorded it as a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, exempt from valuation but assessed as worth £6. By the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1919–20, the building had grown and was shown as a rectangular structure with two north-east-facing returns, a Sunday school (a small oblong building to the north-west), and a manse.

Originally the church was a modest rectangular building lit by four windows in the rear wall and heated by a central stove. In 1839 the congregation consisted of 93 members who sat on forms, the church having no pews at that time. Around 1850 the capacity was increased by the addition of the rear return, and with this extension the orientation of the church was altered, with the dais repositioned to the west wall. As a member of the Lisburn circuit — which included congregations at Broomhedge, Lisburn, Ballinderry, Stoneyford, Ballyskeagh, Ballymacash, Moyrusk, Englishtown, Moira, Bog, Longstone, and Halftown — Priesthill did not have its own minister until 1854, when John Shuttleworth became the first incumbent, residing in a manse constructed in the same year. The schoolhouse to the north, currently used as a hall, was built around 1870; prior to that, Sunday school had been held in the church itself and at teachers' residences.

In 1888 the church celebrated its 50th anniversary jubilee, and the following year a new harmonium organ was installed to mark the occasion. In 1905 the New Connexion Methodists in Ireland reunited with the Wesleyan Methodists, and from that year the congregations of Priesthill and Broomhedge were integrated into the Wesleyan Methodist circuit of Lisburn and reorganised into a joint congregation led by the Reverend Henry Kevin, who resided at Broomhedge Manse. By 1907 attendance had declined slightly to 85 members with 13 on trial, though the building was well maintained. In 1926 the building and its manse were whitewashed, and a heating system replaced the central stove that had been in use since the 1830s.

The year 1938 marked both the centenary of the church's construction and the bicentenary of the conversion of John and Charles Wesley. Shortly afterwards the congregation was affected by the Second World War: in 1939 blackout material was purchased for the windows, evening services were brought forward by several hours, and by 1941 most evening services were discontinued as the Blitz intensified. The greatest impact on the congregation was the influx of new attendants following the establishment of an RAF base less than a mile to the north-east at the Maze, with Priesthill becoming the spiritual home of a number of English airmen stationed in the area. In 1949 the original wooden frames of the rear windows were replaced with leaded lights, and in 1952 mains electricity reached the area and a new lighting system was installed. The kitchen and toilets were attached to the schoolroom in 1955, and the current porch was added to the south elevation in 1956. In 1961 the manse, by then no longer occupied by the minister, was rented out, though the church retained the front room as a vestry until the current vestry room was added. A church hall was constructed to the south in 1974, built by Mr Sydney McCready, who laid the foundations in June and completed the hall by November, when it was dedicated. The harmonium organ of 1889 was replaced by a new electronic organ in the same year. Two stained glass windows were installed in 1979, dedicated to the memory of a Miss Edith Stewart. A new central heating system was fitted in 1979 and new light fittings in 1985.

The congregation of Priesthill is notable in the history of Irish Methodism as one of the first churches to secede from the parent body, and the building continues to be used as a place of worship.