Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB03/10/017 A

Address :
Holy Trinity Parish Church 62 Main Street Portrush Co. Antrim BT56 8BN

Townland:
Portrush

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
25/05/1976 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Church

Former Use
Church

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
6-05

IG Ref:
C8587 4085

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

A large Gothic blackstone Parish church with three-stage square clock tower, dated 1841 and located to the east side of Main Street in Portrush town centre. Essentially cruciform plan with infill side aisles resulting in square footprint with chancel (c.1880) to northeast; abutted to southeast by vestry and choir rooms housed in flat-roof concrete extension (1971) to northwest. Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and raised stone verges. Cast iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting eaves with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers. Walling is rock-faced squared blackstone built to courses on a chamfered stone plinth with sandstone dressings and ashlar quoins. Windows are generally pointed headed cusped lancets to principal elevations (all in chamfered surrounds with flush stone voussoirs and label moulds having plain stops. Variety of leaded lattice and stained glass lights. Southwest facing and symmetrically arranged comprising central three-stage square clock tower to central gable, flanked by gabled aisles. Tower is framed by ashlar piers rising to castellated parapet with corner pinnacles. Belfry has paired louvered lancets; second stage has roman numeral clock face (added 1883) in moulded sandstone surround with voussoirs, over sandstone datestone with dripstone reading “ERECTED BY/ VOLUNTARY/ CONTRIBUTIONS/ A.D./1841”. Gothic doorway to ground floor in ogee sandstone ashlar surround with hood mould having carved finial to apex and flush stone voussoirs; double-leaf cusped four-panel door having twin circular motifs to central panel, cast-iron latch handle, and surmounted by transom light in interlocking lead carnes. To left and right of tower is a slender lancet over small Gothic doorway containing double-leaf timber-sheeted doors in cusped sandstone surround with label mould and plain stops. Gabled aisles to left and right each have stained glass tracery rose window over triple cusped lancets. The northwest elevation has two intersecting bar-tracery replacement hardwood windows to aisle; transept to left with three-pane geometrical tracery window and lit by single lancet to left cheek; abutted at far right by the single-storey flat-roof concrete extension (of no interest). To northeast elevation, the nave gable is completely abutted by the chancel, lit by large perpendicular tracery window and cat-sliding to either side to incorporate porch and gabled vestry with lean-to addition at left. Porch has a pointed-headed timber-sheeted door with cast-iron strap hinges and latch handle surmounted by plain transom light, in a sandstone surround and accessed via a stone step. Vestry has large pointed-headed leaded lattice window in sandstone surround; slightly recessed lean-to abutment at left with small timber-framed bipartite lancet window with frosted glass; stone steps at left lead down to metal door to basement. The southeast elevation is as described in the northwest elevation. Setting: Situated on a level rectangular plot between Bath Street and Main Street in Portrush town centre, adjacent to The Northern Bank (HB03/10/021), with views over the Irish Sea to northeast. Set back from Main Street and lawned to front with central concrete pathway to entrance, bounded by low stone plinth wall with rounded coping stones topped by steel railings. To centre are polygonal ashlar gate piers with polygonal caps topped by finials, supporting ornate steel gates. Side entrance to southeast has large polygonal stone pier with polygonal cap and ornate steel latch gate to wall. Twin blackstone square piers with pointed sandstone caps to rear garden at southeast, support an ornate steel latch gate; ashlar pier with cornice and pointed cap to east corner of garden. Rear yard is laid with flagstones and enclosed by a tall blackstone wall, accessed via a modern steel gate. To east of the site is a gabled two-storey Parochial Hall, dating from c.1841 but subsequently altered and extended. In similar style as the church, built of roughly coursed blackstone with pitched natural slate roof, raised verges and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods; windows are replacement square-headed bi and tripartite timber casements with projecting stone sills and hood moulds. Modern four-storey rendered apartment block to southeast. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Rock-faced roughly coursed blackstone with sandstone dressings Windows: Variety of leaded-and-stained glass and leaded glass casements RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Gordon, Stewart

Historical Information

The Church of the Holy Trinity, Portrush, dated 1841, was built between 1839 and 1843, to designs by Stewart Gordon. (Milner) The church has been much enlarged since that time, notably in 1858 and 1887, in line with the rapid expansion of the town as a bathing resort in the late nineteenth century. The church replaced the former parish church of Ballywillan, whose ruins are still present to the south east of the town. The old church is thought to have originally dated from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, by 1835 it was said to be at an ‘incommodious’ distance from the town and a chapel of ease was contemplated in Portrush, then starting to expand due to the recent construction of a harbour. The Methodist chapel served as a chapel of ease and a schoolhouse for the entire Protestant population before the new church was built. (OS Memoirs; Milner) In 1837 the old church was condemned by the Provincial Architect and a petition for a new church sent to the Lord Lieutenant and the Privy Council. The first stone of the new building was laid on 5th August 1839 and the church was consecrated on 19th July 1843. The English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited Portrush in 1842, visited the new church, calling it a ‘neat and convenient [edifice] of a rather irregular Gothic’. (Girvan; Milner) The architect, Stewart Gordon, was County Surveyor for County Londonderry from 1834-60 and undertook a number of commissions in the area including Presbyterian churches in Londonderry and the Court House in Coleraine. (www.dia.ie) The cost was £1,800 raised mostly by private subscription. Part of the roof to the old church, made of timbers grown in the townland of Islandflackey was re-used in the construction of the new church including a door from the old church, used as a door to the vestry. The church is first shown on the second edition OS map of 1853 as a simple nave and attached tower, with a ‘School House’ (still present) facing the main street. A radical enlargement of the church occurred in 1858 when the nave was brought forward to subsume the tower and side aisles were added to designs by Joseph Welland , architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. (www.dia.ie) The church, tower and parish school house are listed in Griffith’s Valuation of 1856-64 at £50 and no significant changes are recorded to the valuation before the 1930s. Transepts were built in 1863, the south transept covering the church well. A christening font was donated by parishioner Rebecca Rice in 1870 and a window beside the side chapel dedicated in her memory in 1875 (www.dia.ie; Milner; www.holytrinityportrush.org.uk) In 1883 a clock was erected in the church tower at a cost of about £80 and in 1885 shutters were applied to the tower window openings. (Milner) A chancel designed by James John Phillips was added in 1887 and on the third edition OS map of 1906 the church appears much as today. The Rev Canon Ffolliott, who had been incumbent for many years, died suddenly after conducting divine service in August 1884. He had expressed his ‘earnest desire’ to build a chancel and a list was opened for subscriptions soon after his death. The new chancel, which extended eight feet into the nave, was described as ‘most beautiful both as regards architecture and harmony of detail’ in the Belfast Newsletter in 1888. The chancel consisted of two bays, the arcading of which opened at one side into an organ chamber and on the other side into the clergy porch. Crenellated screens of pitch pine (still present) were added at this time. (Belfast Newsletter) The total cost was over one thousand pounds. In 1890 in response to the ‘large influx of visitors into Portrush’ during the summer season it was decided to replace the organ with a new one which would assist the choir in ‘rendering the praise in the best style and in making the church’s services bright and hearty’ and would also provide additional space for worshippers. The building of the new instrument was entrusted to Conacher & Co, of Huddersfield and the cost including hydraulic machinery was about £600. By the time of the church’s fiftieth anniversary in 1892, the building could seat 1,000 worshippers and was said to be one of the largest in the North of Ireland. (Belfast Newsletter) In 1902 a chair was donated to the church by the Earl of Antrim which was said to have been in used in Dunluce Castle in the seventeenth century. (www.holytrinityportrush.org.uk) In the 1930s the valuer identified the former school house at the street front as a ‘working mens’ club’ with membership confined to members of the parish. The roofline of this building has been somewhat altered at the south-western end since photographs were taken c1900 but retains its original character. (McDonald and Anderson) By the 1930s the church had central heating and electric light but was only thought to accommodate 700 people. After modernization in 1935 the organ was moved to its present position on the south side of the chancel. (www.holytrinityportrush.org.uk) In 1942 an air raid shelter for public use was added to the site (now gone). A choir robing room and a small lecture hall were added to the north transept in 1971 at a cost of approximately £2,000. (Milner) The church was listed in 1976 and in 2001 restoration work was carried out including the installation of a reredos from the former Ballywillan Church Hall in the side chapel. The roof was replaced and the tower and windows repaired. A false ceiling in the nave dating from the 1960s was removed. Further work in 2003 included repairs to the tracery of a south elevation window and replacement of the moulded tops to the tower pinnacles. (www.holytrinityportrush.org.uk; HB file) Girvan notes that the church, the Belfast bank and the group of buildings opposite them ‘form the best composition in the town – almost the town square’. He also notes the ‘excellent gate piers’. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/1/2/1 First Edition OS Map 1831-2 2. PRONI OS/6/1/2/2 Second Edition OS map 1853 3. PRONI OS/6/1/2/3 Third Edition OS Map 1906 4. PRONI OS/6/1/2/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1921-31 5. PRONI OS/6/1/2/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1946-50 6. PRONI OS/8/42/1-2 – Town Plans of Portrush (1895-6) 7. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/30B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/6/2A-E – Annual Revisions (1859-1895) 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/4/22A-D Annual Revisions (1895-1930) 10. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/30 First General Revaluation 1933-57 11. PRONI VAL/3/D/1/15/A/33 First General Revaluation 1933-57 12. HB File – 03/010/017 13. Belfast Newsletter 25th September 1884 14. Belfast Newsletter 18th July 1885 15. Belfast Newsletter 10th August 1888 16. Belfast Newsletter 4th March 1890 17. Belfast Newsletter 29th September 1892 Secondary Sources 1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry XII, 1829-30, 1832, 1834-6, Vol. 33.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1995. 2. Girvan, W D “Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in North Antrim including the towns of Portrush, Ballymoney and Bushmills” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1975 3. McDonald, T and Anderson, R “Memories in Focus: NE Ulster from old photographs 1850-1950 Volumes 1 to 4” 1981-83 4. Milner, T W R “A History of the Church of Ireland in the Parish of Ballywillan (Portrush)” 1972 5. www.holytrinityportrush.org.uk 6. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form H+. Alterations enhancing the building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

R. Age S. Authenticity V. Authorship X. Local Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A Large Gothic blackstone church with three-stage square clock tower, side chapels and chancel, dated 1841 and located to the east side of Main Street in Portrush town centre. A well-preserved example of a Victorian parish church, displaying proportions and detailing typical of the period. The building retains much of its original character and has a well-preserved interior. The Parochial Hall, also dating from c.1840 adds to the historic integrity of the site and makes an important contribution to the historic character of Portrush town centre. Of significant social importance and local interest, Holy Trinity Parish church is a finely detailed example of the Gothic-Revival tradition.

General Comments

Additional listing criteria apply -R- Age, S- Authenticity

Date of Survey

31 May 2012