Riverside Reformed Presbyterian Church, Basin Walk, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6HU

Riverside Reformed Presbyterian Church

This is a brick Italianate church with a distinctive corner tower and a lower hall to the rear, located on the banks of the Newry River in Newry, County Down. The church façade faces east.

The church is constructed of red brick with sandstone dressings and platbands, featuring courses of brick specials and blue engineering brick. The pitched roof is clad in artificial slate with modern vents, and the façade has a coped sandstone gable with bargeboards to the rear gable. Metal rainwater goods are present throughout.

The façade has a two-stage raised brick base course. At its centre is a pair of semicircular sandstone arches on foliated capitals with a central sandstone pier. Each arch contains a stained herringbone sheeted timber door beneath a sandstone hood mould with foliated stops. Above each opening is a recessed brick roundel. Sandstone platbands run across the façade at the arch capital level and three courses below, continuing around the tower and south elevation.

Above the doors, two further sandstone platbands set three courses apart extend into the brick roundel. The centrepiece is a rose window set within a splayed and stepped recessed brick roundel with sandstone free flowing tracery. A sandstone platband sits at the mid-point of the rose window, with blue engineering brick string courses above and below. A stone hood mould with foliated bosses crowns the window. The gable features a decorative cornice of projecting brick specials set alternately, and is coped in sandstone with a small central roundel just below the apex.

The tower occupies the south-east corner, abutting the façade to its right. It has a steeply pitched helm roof of diagonal slating set at 45 degrees, with four small gables rising from the walls. The roof is crowned with a metal finial and lightning conductor. The tower base has a double stepped brick plinth in line with the front façade. Above the lowest pair of platbands, the walls are battered inward to the line of the next sandstone platband above.

In the lower tower walls are three small round-headed blind lancets to the south and east sides. The tower rises elegantly above the church, with two pairs of long narrow lancets at the upper platband level and offset single lancets above. Below belfry level are small round-headed windows (one each to the south and east walls), joined by a further sandstone platband. The belfry has three openings to each façade – all gothic-headed with the centre ones taller – dressed in sandstone with timber louvre panels. Above are steeply pitched gables formed in brick specials with sandstone copings, similar to the front façade.

The left (south road) elevation comprises four bays with broad flat piers with chamfered edges forming shallow segmental three-order brick arches, with sandstone dressing to keystone and ends. The recessed panels formed have a battered apron running down to a projecting base course. Each bay contains two semicircular-headed openings with sandstone dressings and a central brick mullion with chamfered edges. They are generally fixed pane, though two have small opening casements. All glass is modern patterned. Below each opening is a recessed ventilator. At wall head is a three-course projecting brick cornice of alternately placed single canted bricks, with a sandstone eaves course above. Metal tie plates are visible above the piers, and there is considerable evidence of settlement.

The right (river) elevation is similar to the left but without stone dressings. The first bay on the left, corresponding with the tower on the south side, is recessed back to the line of the façade. A short brick wall runs from the façade to the river retaining wall. The rear gable is abutted by the church hall. The exposed section of this wall is plain red brick with a rose window matching the façade design but smaller in scale.

The hall is set at right angles to the church and projects forward from the line of the church. It has a high two-storey façade bay to the south backed by a lower block containing the hall proper. The roof is clad in artificial slate with a coped gable to the front and an overhanging verge to the rear.

The south road frontage of the hall has a central round-headed doorway in a brick arch with rendered platbands in line with the rest of the elevation and a keystone. The doors are round-headed framed and sheeted timber with decorative strap hinges. The brick plinth continues on the front elevation from the church. Flanking the doorway on each side is a round-headed window opening also with brick arch and rendered keystone, with artificial stone cills. The windows have a radial paned top light and a central thin mullion below.

Above, directly above the lower of two string courses (the upper one does not continue around this building) are three window openings – all semicircular-headed with the central one wider and taller than the side ones. The brick arched head has a connecting rendered platband at eaves level and a rendered keystone. The windows have radial paned top lights (as those below) and vertical mullions (one mullion to side lights, two mullions to the central window). Above is a brick roundel with a recessed granite plaque with incised letters reading "Lyons Memorial Hall 1915". The gable is coped with concrete, now with metal flashing over.

The lower section of the hall has plain cement rendered walls. The side wall to the west has one semicircular-headed opening on the two-storey right section and three pairs of semicircular-headed openings to the main section of the hall. The exposed section of the gable of the front block is cement rendered. The rear wall of the lower section has a raised base course but is otherwise blank.

A small boiler house annex is located at the rear corner of the church and hall, with a plain brick chimney. It has a steep pitched roof clad with large natural slates and stone copings, with later lean-to extensions to the rear and side of this building.

In front of the façade is a tarmac forecourt with brick paviors, enclosed by a modern red brick wall with cast stone coping and decorative metal railings with a pair of matching architectural double gates on metal posts. A granite rubble low wall fronts the river. To the left of the hall, a modern high brick wall encloses a side yard running across to the river, with modern double metal gates immediately to its left.