Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB18/15/008

Address :
Elim Pentecostal Church (former lifeboat house), Downs Road, Newcastle, Co. Down BT33 OAG

Townland:
Newcastle

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Church

Former Use
Boat House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
255/11 NE

IG Ref:
J3783 3132

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Owner Category

Church - Other

Exterior Description And Setting

Compact, one and a half storey gabled boat house of 1880 with Arts & Crafts influences. The building is set on the E side of Downs Road, overlooking the shore. In recent years it has been converted to a church and the façade has been altered. The front W gable has a large, slightly projecting, central bay. To the ground floor of the bay there is a flat roofed porch with a central bay. Within the bay is a recessed doorway with plain granite dressings and timber panelled double doors. To either side of the doorway bay is a narrow window with granite lintel and chamfered granite cill. Both windows have fixed lights with that to the left now with a church signboard placed over it and that to the right with wrought iron bars over. The porch has granite coping to the parapet and granite to the base, but is otherwise finished in rough cast. Above the porch (on the main central bay) is a long modern five light window. Modern signboard above window. Above this, near the gable apex is a small original window with a shallow Tudor arch head and a mullioned timber frame with three lights. The window has granite dressings which link to panels on either side of the window. Carved on the left panel are the letters R N I L B signifying Royal National Life Boat Institution and in the right panel the date ‘1880’. Around the panels and window the façade is in basalt rubble. The large central bay has buttressed edges in granite. The central bay has a roof overhang with plain barges and tie beam with uprights (over which a dove shaped sign has been placed). The edges beyond the central bay are finished in rough cast. The roof pitch to these edges is shallower than that to the bay. To the left on the N façade is a recessed canted bay which breaks through the roof line and is topped with a hipped roof. At ground floor level the bay is in basalt rubble with granite quoins, with granite dressings to a now boarded window on the N face. The upper level of the bay beyond the roof line is finished in half timbering (or render to resemble half timbering). There is a single light window to the N face at this level. To the right of this the façade projects. This section of the façade has three narrow windows with modern frames and is finished in rough cast. Until fairly recent times the roof of the projecting section of this façade carried on around the sides of the canted bay to form a veranda. The S façade has two windows to the right (as right on N façade) and is finished in rough cast. To the right the façade projects and is constructed in basalt with granite quoins, with granite dressings to a single window (now boarded). To the immediate left of this section of the façade is a plain sheeted doorway, set slightly back, but still projecting beyond the left hand side of the façade. The N gable must once have had a large doorway for the lifeboat and ground floor level, but today there are three windows with modern frames and thick piers between. The ‘window’ to the left is now abutted by a short ‘corridor’ which links to a large modern Portacabin-like structure to the E. Obviously this ‘window’ is now a doorway. To the upper level on this gable is an oriel window in timber with timber sheeting from either side of window to roof line (this was originally half timbered). The roof to this S gable is half hipped. Granite quoins to S gable. The roof is covered in natural slate and has an overhang. Metal rw goods. Low rubble wall to N, W and S with granite and rendered coping.

Architects

Cooke, Charles

Historical Information

This former lifeboat house was built by the RNLI in 1880-81. It replaced an earlier ‘unpretending boathouse’ dating from 1854, the successor to stations at Rossglass in Dundrum Bay and at St John’s Point, established in 1825 and 1835 respectively. The earlier Newcastle boathouse, paid for by the then Earl of Annesley, was located slightly further to the north and had housed an 8-oar boat - a present to the people of Newcastle from the citizens of Reigate, and named after the latter town. In July 1881 this was replaced by a larger 10-oar vessel (the ‘Farnley’) and the present building constructed to accommodate it. The new structure was designed by Charles Cooke and ‘erected at a cost of about £400 by Mr. Stockdale, of Downpatrick’ and was reputed to be the ‘finest...at any Irish station’. Charles Cooke (c.1830-88), was appointed ‘Honorary Architect’ to the RNLI in 1858 and continued working for the Institution for the rest of his life, with ‘more than 200 boathouses…attributed directly to him, or to the continued influence of his designs during the remaining years of the 19th century.’ ‘Mr Stockdale’ was George Stockdale, a builder and surveyor responsible, amongst other things, for the rebuilding of Downpatrick courthouse (c.1855-56), refurbishments to Down Cathedral (1862-65) and various projects connected with the Finnebrogue estate (c.1860s-70s). The building was officially opened by Countess Annesley in October 1881, with the Belfast News-Letter account of the event describing the building as, ‘a splendid house...built of black stone, relieved in blocks of dressed granite. There is a projection of the roof on each side, forming a covered walk, and at the sea end of the building there is a store for spare gear, which also forms an excellent place for a look-out. To this apartment access is obtained by a staircase inside the house. The walls of the boathouse are neatly plastered, and ranged round them are the tables of signals, instructions for various emergencies, cork jackets, and other articles characteristic of a lifeboat station. The floor is laid with cement, broad and suitably inclined wooden tracks being laid for facility of moving the carriage on which the boat rests. These runs extend a considerable distance down the sandy beach.’ The station remained in use until 1936, when the arrival of a new motorised lifeboat necessitated the erection a new boathouse at the south end of the town. Subsequently the old building was adapted for use as a hall by the local branch of the Women’s Institute. It remained as such until sometime before 1975, and by 1979 it had become a branch of the Elim Pentecostal Church. References- Primary sources 1 PRONI OS6/3/49/2 (1858-60) 2 PRONI VAL12B/19/7A-F (1864-1929) 3 PRONI D1854/6/8 (1881) 4 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 8, July, 11 October, 13 October 1881 5 ‘Down Recorder’, 15 October 1881, p.3 6 OS maps, sheet 255-11 (1975, 1979) Secondary sources 1 P.J. Rankin, ‘Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in the Mourne Area of South Down’, (Belfast UAHS 1975), pp.75, 77 2 Richings, Howard, “House style” in ‘The Lifeboat – The magazine of the RNLI’, Spring 1999, pp.16-17 3 http://www.newcastlelifeboat.info/ [Accessed 2015.02.02]

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

Not listed

Historic Interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Compact one and a half storey gabled lifeboat house of 1880 with Arts & Crafts overtones. This building has served as a hall and a church in recent years and its façade has been much altered, with the former boat doorway now filled in, much of the stonework rendered and a large Portacabin structure linked at the rear.

General Comments

More historical info added 18.02.2016

Date of Survey

06 May 1999