Second Presbyterian Church, 8 Circular Road, Moneymore, Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, BT45 7PY

Second Presbyterian Church, Moneymore

This Presbyterian church, erected in 1831, exemplifies the Draper's Company's improvement plans for Moneymore and forms part of a coordinated development with a pair of semi-detached houses on Circular Road. Designed by William John Booth, it was built at a cost of 800 pounds, of which 250 pounds was contributed by the Drapers Company and the remainder raised by subscription. The building accommodates 300 persons and originally measured 61 feet long and 40 feet wide. Originally known as the Seceders' meeting house, it is now referred to as the Second Presbyterian Church, with services held every second Sunday rotating with the First Presbyterian Church in Stonard Street. The church creates a pleasing vista when viewed from Market Street.

The building is a four-bay long hall church with a gabled, slated roof and a projecting gable porch on its entrance elevation. The entrance faces west, with a central pedimented porch containing a pair of four-fielded panel doors reached by three steps. Above the doors rises a plaster pediment; the flanking and return walls are finished in rusticated rendering, painted. The main gable features a large unmoulded plaster pediment with a smooth rendered tympanum. The wall below employs rusticated rendering with shallow clasping plaster pilasters at the quoins, and all paintwork is applied to the plinth. Semi-circular windows feature throughout: a 15-pane metal window with moulded architrave and keystone sits over the porch and on the main gable, while single tall semi-circular headed 51-pane metal windows with moulded architrave and keystone flank each side of the entrance elevation.

The north wall extends four bays with four semi-circular headed 51-pane metal windows, each with moulded architrave and keystone. The walls are smooth rendered, lined, and painted, with shallow pilaster quoins and a plinth. A half-round metal gutter with two downpipes serves the natural slated roof, which lacks barges. The south wall mirrors the north wall's fenestration and detailing but retains its original metal windows.

To the rear, a hipped slated low return provides the building's single-storey extension, to which flat-roofed and lean-to roof extensions have subsequently been added. The rear gable pediment includes a small louvred circular roofspace vent and has smooth rendered walls, unpainted. A new hall has been erected to the rear of the church building.

The church's interior offers a pleasing nave with good fittings and box pews. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1833-7 describes it as "a very neat but plain building, stone finished, neatly fitted up internally". This interior quality contrasts with the externally dull appearance created by the main pedimented front.

The church sits at right angles to Circular Road, broadly observing the general building line. Prior to 1970, the building gained its projecting porch and likely underwent external rendering at the same time. The south wall's original metal windows were later replaced to match the original specification. The churchyard is surrounded by bitumac surfacing with a metal-railed front boundary featuring vehicular and pedestrian gates combined with cast iron posts, which may be original. The building benefits from group value within the conservation area as part of Moneymore's planned development scheme.