Moravian Manse, Ballinderry Moravian Church, Portmore Road, Lower Ballinderry, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2BF

Moravian Manse, Lower Ballinderry, built c.1835 (following fire damage to an earlier structure)

This is a symmetrical, double-height, roughcast rendered former manse built around 1835, positioned to the north side of Portmore Road at Lower Ballinderry. The building is rectangular in plan, oriented north to south, and is physically attached at its south end to the two-storey Moravian church. Together with the adjacent graveyard, the manse and church form an important group. This arrangement — a linear run of associated but separate functions joined under one roof — is characteristic of the Moravian tradition, and is closely paralleled by the nearby Kilwarlin Moravian Church in County Down. The group is considered to be of local, national, and international significance, and makes a substantial contribution to the social history of the district.

Exterior

The roof is pitched and clad in natural slate. There are two roughcast rendered, corbelled chimneystacks, each carrying four decorative pots. The southern chimneystack sits on the party wall shared with the church. A bell-cote is positioned at the south gable. Rainwater goods are replacement metal, carried on corbelled rendered eaves. All external walls are roughcast rendered.

Windows throughout are timber-framed, six-over-six sliding sashes set in cambered openings with painted projecting masonry sills. Doors are replacement timber panelled with replacement transom lights above.

The principal, west-facing elevation is symmetrical, with a centrally placed replacement timber door in a cambered opening, surmounted by a replacement transom light and a wall-fixed lantern. Access is via a single stone step. A single window flanks the entrance on each side, and three equally spaced windows run across the first floor.

The north gable has a replacement entrance door positioned slightly off-centre to the left, with a small central timber casement window at first-floor level. The east elevation has at ground floor a replacement casement window at the centre, a second replacement casement window to the right, and a replacement timber door to the left — the latter is likely a converted former window opening, since its presence disrupts the symmetry maintained elsewhere on the building. The south gable is abutted by the double-height Moravian church, of similar height.

Setting

The manse occupies a narrow site running perpendicular to Portmore Road. The graveyard lies to the east, separated from the manse by a narrow gravel pathway, a rubble stone wall, and hedging. The complex can be entered from Crumlin Road to the east, or from the church entrance to the south, which consists of a central wrought iron vehicular gate supported on square roughcast rendered piers with stone pyramidal caps, flanked by a plinth wall and diminished piers of similar character, carrying replacement painted metal railings. The building is included within the Lower Ballinderry Area of Village Character Local Landscape Policy Area.

Interior

The plan layout remains largely intact, though the internal fabric has been partially altered.

Historical background

The Ballinderry Moravian Church and Manse first appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 as a lengthy oblong building. The Moravian Church at Ballinderry was recorded in the Townland Valuation of 1838 as a "Moravian Chapel," classed as a 1b+ building measuring 60 feet by 25 feet and 14 feet high, valued at £4 14s. Two small outbuildings appear on the first edition map, but only one survives to the second edition of 1858, when the site is first identified as "Moravian Church." No further changes are apparent in later Ordnance Survey editions. The combined length of the building on the map confirms that the chapel and manse were joined from at least 1832, and the current layout has not been altered since the 1830s.

According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Ballinderry Moravian Church was established in Lower Ballinderry by the Moravian minister Reverend John Cennick (1718–1755) in the 1750s. Cennick is credited with founding around 200 Moravian communities throughout Ireland. The land for the chapel was purchased from a local farmer named Ben Haddick, and the Marquis of Hertford charged £1 10s. in rent for the site. The first Moravian chapel was a thatched building, erected with the assistance of Moravian congregations in Ireland and England. Kelly records that this original chapel opened on Christmas Day 1751, though it was not formally recognised as a congregation until 1755, at which time the manse was presumably a separate structure from the chapel. The Moravian Church is an early European Protestant movement considered to predate Lutheranism.

In 1821 the chapel was rebuilt and slated; it is likely the manse was also reconstructed at that time. The minister at that period, the Reverend John Chambers, received an annual income of £40 and lived in the manse attached to the chapel. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the chapel as "a very neat oblong edifice, one-storey high and slated, and situated nearly north and south," and the manse as "attached to the north end; a very handsome two-storey and slated house for the minister's dwelling." The church interior measured 38 feet by 23 feet; deducting this from the 1838 valuation measurements suggests the manse was approximately 20 feet in length by 25 feet in breadth. The Townland Valuation of 1838 valued the manse at £9 17s. 10d.

In 1805 a girls' school was organised in the manse parlour by the Reverend Chambers' wife, and in later years a young ladies' academy was also established there. On Easter Sunday 1835 both the chapel and manse were destroyed in an accidental fire. The current manse was quickly rebuilt, and the church reopened on 16th June 1836. By Griffith's Valuation of 1859, the chapel was valued at £8; the manse was presumably the next property recorded in the valuation book, occupied by the Reverend Henry Shaw and valued at £7. Neither valuation changed before the Annual Revisions concluded in 1928.

Brett noted the "oddity" of building the chapel and manse end to end, but approved of the practical arrangement, citing comparable examples at Taghmon in County Westmeath and a Methodist church in Castlebar. The Kilwarlin Moravian Church in County Down, also founded by John Cennick, follows the same distinctive arrangement and is served by the same minister as Ballinderry. The following of the Moravian Church in the Republic of Ireland has greatly diminished, but Ballinderry remains one of a small number of congregations continuing to practise the Moravian tradition.

The manse was listed together with the chapel in 1991. It is no longer used as the residence of the incumbent minister, and has been in private ownership since 1963. Kelly records that many improvements and repairs have been carried out on the manse in recent years.