Methodist Church, 26 Loy Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8PE

Methodist Church, 26 Loy Street, Cookstown, County Tyrone

This is an attractive small mid-19th century church built in a neo-Romanesque style, well proportioned and ornamentally treated, with the hall-type rectangular plan typical of nonconformist churches. It appears to have been built in 1858, being shown on the valuation map of 1859 and recorded that year as a "Wesleyan Methodist Chapel". A Methodist Meeting House is shown close to the site, set back from the street line, on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857. An earlier Methodist Chapel is recorded as standing on the east side of the southern end of William Street in the valuation of January 1835, noted as measuring 40 feet by 25 feet by 17½ feet, and was probably on the site of the present number 2 William Street. The authorship of the present building is uncertain, but it shares clear stylistic similarities with a small number of other Methodist churches of the 1850s and 1860s elsewhere in Ulster and beyond — at Ballymoney in County Antrim, Newtownards in County Down, and Donegal Town in the Republic of Ireland — which are almost identical in plan and appearance and are clearly by the same architect, whose identity has not yet been recorded.

The building is constructed of snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings, and roofed in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses. Rainwater goods are cast iron. It is four bays long to its side elevations and presents a symmetrical three-bay gabled front to the west, facing the main street of the town. The church is set back slightly from the street within its own grounds, immediately next to the Methodist Manse, to which it is joined by a short stone balustrade.

The west front is divided into three bays by pilaster piers, with a prominent corbel table raking up beneath the gable copings, which rise to a bellcote at the apex. The central entrance contains a pair of rectangular timber boarded doors decorated with ornamented ironwork hinges and a semi-circular fanlight above, all set within a semi-circular arch and flanked by scallop-capped circular colonnettes. The entrance is reached by a broad flight of original stone steps fitted with a central handrail; two later handrails are also fixed to the front wall on either side of the entrance. Above the doorway is a pair of semi-circular arched coupled windows and a small oculus, all set within a single semi-circular arch and divided by scallop-capped colonnettes, with leaded lights throughout. The outer bays of the façade each contain a semi-circular headed lancet window flanked by similar colonnettes; these windows have translucent glazing set in wooden astragals of five main panes with margin lights. The bellcote is supported by weathered buttresses rising from the gable coping and contains a semi-circular headed opening flanked by miniature colonnettes detailed as elsewhere, surmounted by a stone roof carried on corbels with a large decorative ironwork finial at the apex. Fixed to the wall below the window of the right-hand bay of the gable is a substantial stone shield retained from a previous church, inscribed: "Primitive Wesleyan Methodist and Sunday School, Bible and Missionary Societi (sic), Meeting House 1825". Abutting the south side of the building at the front is a short run of stone balustrading linking it with the adjacent manse.

The side elevations, facing north and south, are each four windows wide and of two storeys. The lower storey accommodates a hall, made possible by a drop in ground level from the street front to the rear. The side walls have random rubble sandstone walling with ashlar dressings to openings, a projecting eaves course, and quoins to the west end. Upper windows, serving the church, are tall semi-circular arched lancets with fixed wooden astragals three panes wide with margin lights, each incorporating a centrally pivoting section of leaded glazing. These are set in ashlar sandstone irregular block surrounds, stop-chamfered, with triangular-shaped upper edges to the voussoirs. Lower windows, serving the hall, are segmental headed timber openings of varying types, set in irregular block surrounds with projecting sandstone cills. A doorway in the side wall contains a panelled door. High in the side walls, between the upper windows and level with their heads, are three projecting cast iron tie-bars with circular plates.

The rear, or east, gable is plain in character, smooth cement rendered, with timber bargeboards. It contains a pair of coupled semi-circular headed windows and a small oculus with stained glass in timber frames set in plain reveals, together with a narrow semi-circular headed lancet opening at the apex, chamfered and fitted with timber louvres. The lower portion of this gable is obscured by a later modern flat-roofed extension leading to a long gabled modern hall complex. This later addition lies at a lower level than the main building and does not detract from the appearance of the front elevation.

The interior is largely intact, with only some minor alterations to the interior of the porch.

To the front of the church is a small forecourt laid with tarmac, enclosed by a plinth wall with gates and railings. The boundary treatment consists of a low smooth cement rendered plinth wall with sandstone copings, surmounted by original wrought iron railings and containing a pair of matching gates. The plinth wall terminates at a smooth rendered pier on the south side, and returns on the north side to the front wall of the church. On the north side, the outer face of the plinth wall is roughcast and acts as a retaining wall where the ground slopes down beside the church. A tarmac driveway skirts the church on the north side, accessed through a modern steel gate, and leads to an extensive tarmac car park to the rear. The south side of the church property to the rear directly overlooks the garden of the manse.