Ballinderry Presbyterian Church, Meetinghouse Road, Aghacarnan, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2NN

Ballinderry Presbyterian Church is a free-standing single-cell rendered barn church dating to the early nineteenth century, located on the north side of Meeting House Road in Aghacarnan. It is a simple church with modest detailing, situated in an attractive rural landscaped setting that remains a focal point for the local community.

The building is rectangular on plan, oriented on an east-west axis, with a two-storey entrance wing to the east gable and a Ministers' Room and extension to the west. The pitched natural slate roof is finished with black clay ridge tiles and timber fascias to both gable ends. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets sits above a rendered eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes completing the rainwater system.

The external walls are rendered and painted with ruled and lined detailing, featuring a smooth render plinth course and rusticated render quoins. Pointed-headed window openings are decorated with render hood mouldings and are now fitted with replacement multi-pane timber windows with Y-tracery and painted masonry sills, though these unsympathetic replacements detract from the overall external appearance. The south nave elevation comprises five windows and the north nave elevation four windows.

The entrance is located on the south elevation within an attached entrance wing, accessed via a square-headed door opening with hood moulding and double-leaf hardwood panelled doors. A pointed arched window sits above the entrance, fitted with a timber fixed-pane window. The entrance wing itself is slightly lower and gabled, containing a single square-headed window opening to the ground floor with a timber casement window. A single-storey extension abuts the northwest corner of the north elevation, featuring a hipped natural slate roof, bipartite timber sash window and steel door. The west gable displays a pointed-headed window opening with hood moulding and stone Y-tracery containing coloured leaded glazing, and is abutted by the single-storey Ministers' Room and extension.

The interior of the hall retains most of its original fabric. However, the building has been altered over time with various twentieth and twenty-first century additions. In the early 1950s a Church Hall, known as the Stables Hall, was added to the site. In 1990 a new hall was erected, which was joined to the Stables Hall by an extension in 2000. In 2003 a further extension was added to the Minister's room.

The building is enclosed to the road by a rendered stone wall with concrete coping and a pair of rendered redbrick pillars with pyramidal capstones and wrought-iron gates. A concrete footpath crosses the front lawn, where several upstanding stone and marble grave-markers date from 1857 to the present. The rear site extends northwards with many marble and stone grave-markers from the twentieth century.

Historical Background

The first Presbyterian congregation in the area was established at Glenavy in 1674, but Ballinderry became a separate congregation in 1713 when the first Meeting House was presumably erected on this site. The current building was constructed in 1805 as a replacement for this earlier structure, which had been founded over a century previously by Reverend John Heastie. The building appears on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1832 as a rectangular 'Presbyterian Meeting House' with one small out office.

The Townland Valuation of circa 1835 records the Meeting House as a class 1a building measuring 60 feet by 25 feet and 16 feet high, valued at £11 4s 3d. The 1838 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it as an 'oblong edifice, 2-storeys high and slated with walls of stone and lime two feet in thickness and a boarded floor, lit by two Gothic windows in front and four oblong windows in the rear.' The building could accommodate a congregation of 330 people.

In 1826 the Meeting House was improved with the addition of a slated roof and interior renovations at a cost of £150, with £25 supplied by the Marquis of Hertford. The Reverend Henry Leebody served as minister in 1838, receiving a total income of £75, of which £50 was supplied by royal bounty. In 1724 Reverend John Hasty became the first minister of the congregation.

The second Ordnance Survey map of 1857 records an adjoining graveyard, the oldest tomb in which dates from 1857. The small out office shown on the 1832 map had been removed by this date. The building is referred to as 'Presbyterian Church and Graveyard' from 1901 onwards. Griffith's Valuation of 1856-64 values the Meeting House at £7 15s, a valuation maintained in annual revisions until 1929.

In 1929 the church was united with Moira under Reverend George McFarland in a joint charge, an arrangement that lasted until Ballinderry Presbyterian Church ended its union with Moira in October 2000. The church was listed in August 1988.