Coke Memorial Methodist Church, Church Street, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2AH

Coke Memorial Methodist Church

A small late 19th-century basilica-plan church standing set back from the south side of Church Street in Warrenpoint. The building is aligned north-east to south-west with a small gabled porch to the north-east gable and modern halls adjoining the south-west gable.

The pitched natural slate roof features crested terracotta ridge tiles and exposed rafter tails to the eaves, with half-round rainwater goods. A square-section ventilator sits on the ridge slightly forward of centre, with a splayed slated base tied into the roof pitches. Its timber cheeks each contain a pair of short cusped lancet openings fitted with scalloped louvres and fretted spandrels. Above this rises a slender Germanic-style copper spire with an octagonal metal finial, overhanging eaves, and exposed timber rafter tails. A small chimney at the apex of the front gable is dressed as a Gothic gablet. Masonry skews with gablet coping occur at each end and on the rear ridge. The lean-to side aisle roofs have moulded kneelers.

The walls are lined, rendered and painted with a chamfered base course, and feature painted finely dressed sandstone dressing to all openings. The front north-east gable is abutted centrally by a narrow single-storey porch with a steeply pitched natural slate roof detailed to match the nave but with a very low eaves line. The main church walls extend to the porch with single-stage gabled buttresses to the front end of each side wall.

The entrance faces front, accessed up two granite steps. It comprises a pair of wrought-iron Gothic gates within a two-order Gothic doorway with chamfered reveals and hood mould. The gates consist of alternated twisted and plain bars set at an angle, with crested finials. Dog bars display foliated detail enclosed within trefoils. A flush granite plaque set in the wall above reads "THE COKE MEMORIAL METHODIST CHURCH 1885". In the gable apex above is a blind trefoil.

Each cheek of the entrance porch contains four small contiguous cusped lancet windows with splayed cills, all featuring plain leaded and coloured glazing with rectangular quarries. This window detail is repeated throughout unless otherwise noted. Above the porch, in the front gable of the main block, is a large Gothic opening containing four slender cusped lancets. In the common spandrel above are two quatrefoils and a trefoil, all finely executed with splayed cill and hood mould.

Each north-east cheek of the side aisles is flush with the front gable. Each contains a Gothic opening with two cusped lancets and a quatrefoil in the common spandrel. The left opening bears a rectangular granite plaque on the base course with moulded surround, incised with the painted letters "WESLEYAN CHAPEL 1793".

The side elevations of the nave are identical. At ground floor they are completely abutted by lean-to side aisles. The exposed upper clerestorey level contains five openings delineated by single-stage buttresses. All but the front opening are circular eight-foil lights; the front one is a small cusped lancet. Each monopitched side aisle roof has a steeply pitched wall-head gable at its rear south-west end, featuring a crested terracotta ridge and a Gothic window containing three tall cusped lancets with a quatrefoil in the common spandrel; above in the gable apex is a blind trefoil. Two-staged buttresses flank this gable, which possibly mimics the form of a transept.

The remaining side aisle walls each contain seven cusped lancet windows arranged as three equally-spaced pairs, a single lancet to the front end, and are delineated by a two-stage buttress (that at the front end is flush with the aisle front cheek). The blank rear south-west gable of the church and the similar rear of the right side aisle are both abutted by the modern church hall, which runs parallel to the street with a shallow pitched natural slate roof and lined rendered walls. It advances beyond the north-west side aisle.

The projecting front north-east wall of the hall was retained from the former lecture hall. It is rendered and painted and carries a Gothic-headed tongued-and-grooved sheeted door with decorative strap hinges to the right. Above it is a flush granite plaque reading "METHODIST LECTURE HALL 1904". To its right are two lancet windows.

The opposite south-east gable of the church hall is abutted by a flat-roofed porch which advances beyond the line of the south-east side aisle. Its front wall contains a modern recessed porch with a pair of doors. At the join between this porch and the left side aisle is a wide buttress, the only remnant of a building demolished for the erection of the hall.

The front of the churchyard is enclosed by a rendered dwarf wall carrying spear-headed 19th-century railings with moulded heads and bases and plain braces to the rear. The left and right ends have pedestrian gates, each with finialled cast-iron posts carrying gates detailed to match the railings. The left boundary of the church is formed by a lane from the street to the church hall at the rear. The right boundary is formed by the gable of the adjacent shop, and the rear is formed by the church hall.