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

Riverside Reformed Presbyterian Church is a single-volume Italianate brick church with a distinctive tower and a lower hall to the rear, set on the banks of the Newry River. It was designed in what its architect described as a 'Lombardo-Venetian' style by the notable local architect William J. Barre and built by McLaughlin and Harvey of Belfast. The foundation stone was laid on 1 September 1865 and the church opened on 31 August 1866. It represents a confident and accomplished exercise in polychromatic brickwork and stone detailing, and sits within a conservation area.

HISTORY

The church was originally built for Third Newry Presbyterian Church, itself an offshoot of Sandys Street First Presbyterian congregation. Declining numbers forced the sale of the premises in 1883 to the Reformed Presbyterian congregation, who had previously met in the old Meeting House on Church Street (demolished in 1983, with only its graveyard surviving). The church reopened for Reformed Presbyterian worship on 6 January 1884. The attached hall was added in 1915 to a design by Newry architect S. Wilson Reside at a cost of £600, and was named the Lyons Memorial Hall after the Reverend A.S. Lyons, minister from 1872 to around 1908, who was instrumental in the congregation's move from Church Street to Riverside. Subsequent works include extensive renovation in 1945, installation of new windows in 1958, erection of the boiler house in 1966, re-roofing in 1981, and extensive repairs following bomb damage in 1993.

EXTERIOR — CHURCH

The church is a single volume with a pitched artificial slate roof fitted with modern vents. The east-facing façade has a coped sandstone gable, while the rear gable has bargeboards. Rainwater goods are metal. The walls throughout are of red brick with sandstone dressings and platbands, incorporating courses of brick specials and blue engineering brick.

The façade is given additional formality by a two-stage raised brick base course at its foot. At the centre, a pair of semicircular sandstone arches spring from foliated capitals and a central sandstone pier, each arch containing a stained herringbone-sheeted timber door. Each opening carries a sandstone hood mould with foliated stops. Above the doors, a recessed brick roundel sits between two sandstone platbands — one running at arch capital level and a second set three courses below — both of which continue around the tower and the south (road-facing) elevation. Two further sandstone platbands, set three courses apart, run up into the brick roundel above the doors. Higher still is the central rose window, set within a splayed and stepped recessed brick roundel filled with free-flowing sandstone tracery. A sandstone platband cuts across the rose window at its mid-point, with blue engineering brick string courses above and below it. A stone hood mould with foliated bosses sits over the whole composition. The gable is finished with a decorative cornice of projecting brick specials — mostly single cant bricks placed alternately — and is coped in sandstone. A small central roundel sits just below the apex.

The tower occupies the south-east corner of the building, immediately to the right of the façade. It has a steeply pitched helm roof of diagonal slating set at 45 degrees to four small gables that rise off its walls, crowned with a metal finial and lightning conductor. The base of the tower has a double-stepped brick plinth in line with the front façade. Above the lowest pair of platbands, the walls batter inward to the line of the next sandstone platband above. In the lower walls of the tower, three small round-headed blind lancets face south and east. Above these, the slender tower rises elegantly, with two pairs of long, narrow lancets at upper platband level, offset by 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 itself has three openings to each face: Gothic-headed, with the central one taller than the flanking pair, all dressed in sandstone and fitted with timber louvre panels. Above the belfry, steeply pitched gables formed in brick specials with sandstone copings repeat the treatment of the main front gable.

The south elevation, facing the road, continues the two pairs of sandstone platbands from the façade and tower. It is divided into four bays by broad flat piers with chamfered edges that form shallow segmental three-order brick arches with sandstone dressings to the keystone and ends. The recessed panels formed by these arches carry a battered apron running down to a projecting base course that runs the length of the elevation. Each bay contains two semicircular-headed openings with sandstone dressings and a central brick mullion with chamfered edges. The windows are generally fixed-pane, though two have small opening casements; all glazing is modern patterned glass. Below each window is a recessed ventilator. At wall-head level is a three-course projecting brick cornice of single cant bricks placed alternately, with a sandstone eaves course above. Metal tie plates sit above the piers, and there is considerable evidence of settlement in this elevation.

The north elevation, facing the river, is similar in composition to the south but without stone dressings. Its first bay on the left — corresponding with the tower on the south side — is set back to the line of the façade. A short brick wall runs from the façade to the river retaining wall.

The rear gable is partly obscured by the hall. The exposed section of wall is of plain red brick and carries a rose window matching that on the front façade but smaller in scale.

EXTERIOR — HALL

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

The south-facing frontage of the two-storey bay has a central round-headed doorway within a brick arch with rendered platbands at the same level as those on the church elevation, and a rendered keystone. The arch has a moulded brick surround. The doors are round-headed, framed and sheeted timber with decorative strap hinges. The brick plinth continues along this elevation from the church. Flanking the entrance on each side is a round-headed window opening with a brick arch, rendered keystone, and artificial stone cill. Each window has a radial-paned top light with a thin central mullion below. Above, aligned with the lower of the two string courses from the church elevation (the upper string course does not continue onto this building), are three window openings, all semicircular-headed. The central opening is wider and taller than those on either side. Each has a brick arch head with a connecting rendered platband at eaves level and a rendered keystone, a radial-paned top light matching those below, and vertical mullions — one mullion to each side light, two to the central window. Above this tier of windows is a brick roundel containing a recessed granite plaque with incised lettering reading "Lyons Memorial Hall 1915". The gable is coped in concrete, now with metal flashing over.

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

A small boiler house annex sits at the rear corner where the church and hall meet, with a plain brick chimney. It has a steeply pitched roof with large natural slates and stone copings. Later lean-to extensions have been added to the rear and side of this outbuilding.

SETTING

To the front of the church façade is a tarmac forecourt with brick paviors, enclosed by a modern red brick wall with cast stone coping and decorative metal railings. A pair of matching architectural double gates on metal posts provides the entrance. A low granite rubble wall runs along the river frontage. To the left of the hall, a modern high brick wall encloses a side yard extending to the river, with modern double metal gates immediately to the left of this wall.