Lambeg Parish Church, Church Hill, Lambeg North, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, BT27 4SB

Lambeg Parish Church is an important double-gabled rubblestone church set in picturesque landscaped grounds above the Lagan River and Wolfenden's Bridge on the south side of Church Hill Road. The name 'Lann Bheag', meaning 'little church', reflects a long history of Christian use on this site, and the church's characteristic form combines an 18th-century tower with essentially a pair of 19th-century naves.

The main body of the church was built around 1849 to designs by William Butterfield — best known for his church and college buildings in Oxford and Rugby, though he completed few commissions in Ireland — at the instigation of the Reverend Alexander Orr. The rebuilding was driven by population growth linked to the expanding linen industry. In 1869, the architects Welland and Gillespie added a new nave with a semicircular chancel to the south side, contracted by Robert McConnell. The church was extensively renovated and upgraded around 2000, when the roof was raised and reconfigured and a single-storey vestry was added to the northeast corner.

The building is set on an east–west axis and consists of a gable-fronted double-height nave of around 1850 abutted at the front by a three-stage square-plan tower dated 1737, with a further gable-fronted, apsidal-ended nave of around 1870 added to the south side, creating the distinctive double-gabled west elevation. The roofs are steeply pitched in natural slate, with a catslide at a different pitch to the north covering the north side aisle, a lower gable-ended roof to the north chancel, and a semi-conical roof to the east apse. Black clay ridge tiles finish the roof, and the slightly raised front gables have cavetto-moulded stone ashlar copings. There is a lead-lined central valley and replacement ogee-moulded cast-iron rainwater goods to concave corbels.

The tower is built of rubble basalt stone with red sandstone quoins and features chamfered red sandstone string courses to each stage, a stone ashlar parapet, and corner pinnacles. A cast-iron bell sits at the roof. The upper stage has depressed arched stone openings fitted with timber louvres, and the middle stage has similar openings to the sides, with a rectangular sandstone date plaque to the front inscribed '1737'. The lower stage contains a pointed-arched window with a chamfered sandstone surround, stone Y-tracery forming a pair of lancets, and a roundel above filled with stained glass. A lean-to principal entrance porch is attached to the north side of the tower.

The walling throughout is coursed rubble basalt, rock-faced to the south nave, with sandstone ashlar quoins and buttresses with ashlar offsets. Carved sandstone window frames appear throughout, with quarry glazing and stained glass windows.

The west elevation presents two similarly sized gables side by side. The left gable is abutted by the earlier tower. The right gable is dominated by a large rose window with a hood moulding and a voussoired relieving arch, filled with three pairs of interlocking mouchettes forming three circles and containing stained glass. To either side of a secondary entrance in the south gable are several cusped window openings with quarry glazing; the entrance itself has a compound sandstone pointed-arched opening with replacement double-leaf vertically-sheeted timber doors. The lean-to porch to the north side of the tower has a sandstone ashlar pointed-arched door opening with a replacement vertically-sheeted timber door and a battered pier, with a segmental-headed window opening adjacent to the entrance, a pair of cusped windows, and a quatrefoil above. The north side elevation is four windows wide, with four paired cusped windows each flanked by buttresses. The single-storey three-bay stone vestry added around 2000 at the northeast corner is detailed to match the north nave elevation. The east end comprises a gabled chancel to the right abutted by an apsidal end to the left with a central leaded valley between them. The pointed-arched east window to the chancel gable is formed in Portland limestone, comprising three cusped windows with a sexfoil over, containing stained glass. The south side elevation is five windows wide with pointed segmental-arched window openings having three ogee-headed openings and curvilinear lights above, with hood mouldings over.

The interior was substantially altered during the works carried out around 2000, and most of the internal fabric is now a facsimile of the original. Surviving original elements are the roof trusses (which were removed and reinstated), the stone arches, the organ, and the pulpit.

The forecourt is surfaced in bitmac and opens into a pair of short tree-lined driveways, with a car park to the north. The site is entered from Church Hill through two pairs of decorative wrought-iron gates. The gate pillars are square: two have sandstone cappings and two have concrete cappings. Curved screen walls flank either side, with concrete copings; all the gate and screen walling has a modern pebbledash finish.

The surrounding cemetery contains several upstanding marble and stone grave-markers dating from the 18th century to the present. The church has group value with two listed tombs within the adjacent graveyard — the Wolfenden tomb and the Barbour tomb — and enjoys a fine setting close to the listed Wolfenden's Bridge.

Regarding the building's history in more detail: according to the Reverend H.C. Marshall, there has been a church at Lambeg since 1306. In the 15th century a monastery or nunnery was built on the site, and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that some of its stone was used to build an addition to the east end of the church, noting that "a portion of the foundation walls, which is of great thickness and run together by grouted lime, is often discovered in sinking graves on the site." A map of 1598 shows a church on the site. In 1737 a new church was built by the Wolfenden family, and in 1824 a vestry room was added. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists a church and graveyard valued at £5 12s. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3 shows a simple hall with tower attached. The materials of the old church demolished in 1849 were reportedly used to build the Lambeg Village Schoolhouse adjoining the church, which was itself demolished in 1955. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 and the Ordnance Survey map of 1858 record the rebuilt church, now valued at £18, with £2 for the graveyard. Following the 1869 addition by Welland and Gillespie, the east end of the new aisle was used as the chancel from that time until 1902, when the chancel proper was restored; it was further renovated in 1905 by Miss Louisa Neill. In 1921 Sir Milne Barbour gifted land to extend the churchyard, and in 1924 new entrance gates were erected. A parochial hall was opened in 1937 and extended in 1964. The church was refurbished internally in 1949 and again in 1967. In 1969 a robing room was constructed abutting the rear of the church, which was rebuilt around 2000 at the same time as the roof works. In 1976 the stonework was restored.