Rademon Unitarian meeting house, Listooder Road, Rademan, Crossgar, Downpatrick, Co Down

Rademon Unitarian Meeting House

A large, two-storey, T-shaped rubble-built meeting house of vernacular classical style, constructed in 1787. The building stands on the east side of Listooder Road, approximately two miles west of Crossgar, and is surrounded by a graveyard containing headstones from the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the finest examples of its type in Northern Ireland, the building remains largely unchanged since construction and retains significant architectural and historical importance.

The asymmetrical front façade faces roughly southwest. The main entrance is positioned left of centre on the ground floor, comprising a timber-sheeted door with a semicircular fanlight and painted stone Gibbs-style surround. The fanlight features radial spider-web tracery with leaf decoration. Directly above the doorway is a painted stone panel inscribed: "This house was built in the year of Our Lord 1787, which was the 21st year of the Revd Moses Nelson's ministry in this place", with moulded decoration above the text. To the left of the doorway are three semicircular-headed sash windows with Georgian gothic panes (18/6), and to the right are four similar windows. The first floor contains eight much smaller fixed-light windows, similarly styled with 12 panes each. The northwest and southeast gables each have stone steps leading to first-floor doorways serving the galleries, with timber-sheeted doors. Each staircase has a recessed ground-floor doorway beneath it. A small brick lean-to stands at the rear of the steps on the northeast gable. The rear elevation features a centre full-height gabled return with its own staircase and gable. The northwest face of this return has two ground-floor windows and two first-floor windows corresponding to those on the front. The southeast face is blank. The rear façade of the main building, either side of the return, is blank except for a small flat-arch window at the far right. The walls are rendered random fieldstone rubble with rendered parapets. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout. The gabled roof is slate-covered, and a rough-cast rendered wall encloses the graveyard perimeter, with simple wrought-iron gates at the front set between square pyramidal-capped pillars.

The interior remains intact with original panelled box pews, galleries, and a tall pulpit with double staircase, preserving the spatial organisation and detail of the original arrangement.

This meeting house was the third building to occupy the site since the Rademan congregation, an offshoot of that at Saintfield, was formed in 1713. Two earlier structures preceded it—the second built in 1723—both thatched. The inscription records that the present building was erected during the ministry of Reverend Moses Nelson. His son, William, succeeded him as minister and became an important linguistic scholar, authoring works on the teaching of Gaelic. He was arrested by the Yeomanry in 1813 for teaching the language and subsequently changed his name from Nelson to its original Norse-Gaelic form, Neilson. In 1819 he became Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at the Belfast Academical Institute. In 1831, following the Non-subscription or Arian controversy, the Rademan congregation split, with the orthodox Presbyterian minority building a new church to the south at Drumaghlis.

The building underwent renovation in 1954, when electricity and a new boiler were installed. Extensive renovations were carried out again in 2000 under architect Donal Mac Randal, with grant assistance from the Environment and Heritage Service and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The listing encompasses the church, walling, and gates.