Kilkeel Presbyterian Church, 28 Newcastle Street, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4AF

Kilkeel Presbyterian Church

A late-Victorian Presbyterian church in subdued Gothic style, located on the south side of Newcastle Street in Kilkeel. Designed by Cardiff-based engineer and architect David C. Salmond, with drawings dated February 1894, the foundation stone was laid in July 1894 (with copies of the Belfast News Letter of 2 July 1894 and the Newry Reporter of 5 July 1894 sealed within), and the building was completed in 1895.

The church comprises a six-bay hall church with vestry and gallery, orientated north-south. It is constructed of quarry-faced ashlar granite with cement strap pointing. The pitched natural slate roof features cockscomb crested red clay ridges and dressed granite verges, with cast iron ogee gutters fixed to painted timber fascia boards and matching downpipes. The front north gable is surmounted by a decorative iron finial on a square block.

A single-storey porch with coped block parapet almost completely abuts the front gable, containing two centred Gothic doorways with modern three-panel stained mahogany doors. To the left of the porch rises a decorative bell tower, its first stage containing a small Gothic lancet window to the front. The second stage is broached back to an octagon with Gothic louvred bell vents in each unattached face. A pulvinated moulded cornice forms the base of a modern copper-clad octagonal spire with decorative iron finial. The porch's right cheek has a small leaded lancet window with security glazing. Flanking the porch are pairs of two-stage buttresses. In the apex of the front gable (over the porch) is a single small louvred lancet, below which are three lancets with storm glazing, the middle one taller.

The side walls have seven simple leaded Gothic windows with sloping cills, demarcated at both ends by two-stage buttresses, with similar buttresses between openings one-two and four-five-six as measured from the street. The sixth window has security glazing. At the right corner to the front and side walls are single two-stage buttresses set at right angles. At ground floor right, the main gable wall continues as a screen inset with a Gothic arched opening giving access to the side and rear of the church.

To the front, on the street boundary, stands a pair of decorative wrought iron gates, each leaf hinged to fold behind its respective monolithic granite hanging pier. The piers are square with sunken Gothic panels and projecting pyramidal caps. Dwarf screen walls to each side are smooth rendered with canted granite coping and a matching low railing.

A large two-storey hall built in the 1970s abuts the rear gable. It has a gabled concrete tiled roof, concrete brick walls, timber windows, and no features of special interest.

Major alterations were carried out in 1985. The nave was extended forward by one bay, the roof was reconstructed, and the original façade was rebuilt. The original timber scissor trusses were replaced with steel, and the spire was added at this time. These alterations relocated the front façade and replaced a significant portion of the interior joinery at the front along with the original roof structure.