Brigh Presbyterian Church, 40 Legmurn Road, Brigh, BT71 5JR

Brigh Presbyterian Church is an early 20th-century church built in 1909 in a simple Gothic Revival style. It replaced an earlier church on the site dating from 1781, which had been repaired in 1834. The building was designed by the architects Young and Mackenzie, with the tender from William Dowling of Belfast accepted. The foundation stone was laid in March 1909 and the church was completed by October of that year. Three memorial windows were created by Ward and Partners.

The church is of hall-and-tower type construction and stands on an elevated, open site forming a local landmark in a very rural area. It is a consciously proportioned example of its type, retaining most of its original character and detail intact despite some minor and inappropriate alterations to the ancillary accommodation.

The main structure comprises a nave with roughcast walls and artificial stone dressings, including a plinth, eaves course, gable copings, and two-stage diagonal buttresses at the corners. The nave roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with cast iron rainwater goods featuring moulded gutters and circular downpipes. Five windows punctuate the nave walls—simple Gothic arched lancets with timber frames and tinted glazing in lozenge pattern lead cames, except for the central window which contains stained glass. Some of the artificial stone blocks show signs of cracking.

A three-stage tower with similar materials stands set back at the north end of the nave, surmounted by octagonal corner pinnacles joined by crenellated and pierced parapets in artificial stone. The tower also features diagonal buttresses rising through two stages. The bottom stage contains the main entrance: a pair of rectangular timber sheeted doors with an elliptical sheeted timber tympanum set in a moulded and stop-chamfered elliptical arched surround. Above the doorway is a segmental-headed polished marble foundation stone dated 1909, set in a moulded label surround with shaped brackets, which rises into the second stage. Above it, also in the second stage, is a small pair of blind Gothic-headed slits giving the appearance of lancet windows. The third stage contains a simple Gothic-headed opening filled with timber louvres surmounted by a moulded stringcourse which arches over it within a rectangular recess. Similar louvred openings appear in the other faces of the third stage.

The south gable of the nave contains three narrow Gothic lancets in the centre surmounted by a simple chimney with three pots. Below projects a low ancillary block with hipped roofs slated to match the nave. The walls of this block are largely of roughcast except for a later portion of smooth cement render, lined and blocked, below a new window on the west side inserted in a former doorway. Windows are modern rectangular uPVC fixed lights and vents, with a modern rectangular timber glazed and panelled door on the east side and a flush timber door on the west side. Rainwater goods match those of the nave.

The west elevation of the nave is similar to the east except without stained glass. Abutting the right-hand corner buttress is a short flight of concrete steps and plinth walls leading to the former doorway in the ancillary block. The west elevation of the tower is similar to the east except there is no foundation stone, and the slope of the ground requires a short flight of three concrete steps and a plinth wall to the doorway, which is no longer in use.

The north elevation comprises the north gable, which contains one tall Gothic-headed lancet window of tinted leaded glazing on each side of the projecting tower. In the bottom stage of the tower is a triplet of narrow trefoil-headed lancets of tinted leaded glazing surmounted by a drip moulding with decorated stops, all set below a shallow two-centred Gothic relieving arch. In the second stage is a Gothic-headed lancet glazed as before, with a blind segmental opening and drip moulding above it.

The church stands within its own grounds on an open site near the junction of two roads. The grounds are grassed and contain burial plots and a few mature trees, with a tarmac path leading to and along the east side of the church. The area immediately outside the main entrance is laid with modern concrete pavings ramped up from the tarmac path and flanked by modern tubular steel handrails affixed to the church. Between the graveyard area and the road on the north side is an extensive tarmac carpark bounded by low modern roughcast walling and chain link fencing. The gates from the carpark to the churchyard are modern. The boundary wall to the east side of the graveyard is of roughcast and contains a small plain original iron gate at the south end, now blocked on the church side by stonework, and a slightly ornamented original gate near the north end, set in plain artificial stone piers.