1878 – Presbyterian Church, Ballymacarret, Belfast, Co. Antrim

Architect: Young & Mackenzie

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A church, at Ballymacarrett on the Newtownards Road, completed in 1878 to a design by Young and Mackenzie. The graceful round tower adds vertical emphasis to what is rather a squat composition – as well as containing a staircase to the galleries.

“The Building will be a parallelogram on plan with a circular tower attached to one extremity of the vestibule. A commodious vestry-room will be added at the rere. Sittings will be provided for 430 persons on the ground floor and the galleries will accommodate 270 persons. The church will be entered by wide and lofty doorways, with two others of deeply recessed columns, having carved caps and moulded bases, above which rest boldly moulded arches and labels. Large mullioned windows with traceries heads will be places in the front gable over the doorways. The sides of the church will be pierced between the buttresses with coupled windows having trefoil cusped heads. Triples lights in two heights are placed in the transepts. The round tower, which terminates at a height of one hundred feet in a lofty weather vane will provide in conjunction with another staircase, ample access to the galleries. All the external walls will be of the local Silurian slates, in random-coursed work, with dressings of Scrabo sandstone. The windows throughout the church will be filled with cathedral glass, of varied tints in lead quarries. The ceilings will be plastered between the tie-beams, which will be stained dark and varnished. The pews, which will be of the approved modern form, and all the other internal joinery will be of pitch pine, stained and varnished.” From The Irish Builder, January 1 1878.