Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/08/014

Address :
St. Martin's Church of Ireland Kenilworth Place Belfast County Antrim

Townland:
Ballymacarrett

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
17/09/1993 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:
130/14 NW

IG Ref:
J3528 7445

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Owner Category

Church - C of I

Exterior Description And Setting

A free-standing Lombardic-style red-brick Church of Ireland church with three-stage tower, built c.1930 to designs by Henry Seaver; located on the north side of Newtownards Road east of Belfast city centre. Set on an east-west axis, comprising long nave with single-storey apsidal-ends to east and west containing chancel and baptistery respectively; vestry to north; projecting porch to south and square three-stage tower (instepping to each stage) with open arched belfry to northeast. Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles (terracotta ridge tiles to vestry) and raised masonry verges to gables. Terracotta pan tiles to shallow pyramidical roof of belfry tower. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods and square hoppers, on projecting eaves with exposed rafter ends. Walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick with corbel course delineating stages of tower. Windows are tall narrow round-headed lancets containing square leaded quarries; leaded-and-stained glass windows to the baptistery. The principal elevation faces east with gabled bay to left framed by lesenes, having three windows over projecting baptistery which contains three leaded-and-stained glass windows. Three-stage belfry tower at right has original twelve panelled double-leaf entrance doors recessed in Portland stone architrave. The south elevation is six windows wide; at left is single-storey entrance porch having ten-panelled double-leaf timber door accessed by two masonry steps. The west elevation has gable with apsidal end containing three windows and with a masonry half-dome roof. The north elevation is six windows wide; abutted at right by vestry (lower). East elevation of vestry has three windows and an original fifteen-panelled timber door at left, accessed by two masonry steps with a round-headed transom light. At right are steps to undercroft enclosed by a red-brick wall. West elevation has three windows. Setting: Prominently situated at the beginning of a major urban thoroughfare, part of a 1930s housing estate north of the Newtownards Road. Directly to north, and in the same grounds, is a rustic red-brick Church hall in the Modernist-style, also of some architectural interest and complimenting the
setting of the Church. Both are enclosed by a mid-height painted masonry wall with masonry caps, surrounded by mature shrubs and trees; metal railing to east with entrance gates. Roof: Natural slate Walling: English garden wall-bonded red-brick Windows: Round-headed lancets with square-leaded quarries RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Seaver, Henry

Historical Information

The Irish Builder records that St. Martin’s Church was designed by Henry Seaver (1860-1941), a Belfast based architect who established an independent practise in 1880 and designed many churches for the Church of Ireland. Seaver’s redbrick church in Kenilworth Place was constructed between 1932 and 1933 towards the end of his career; a mission church, St. Martin’s was built with financial assistance from the Southern Church Mission and was consecrated on 8th April 1933 (Irish Builder, Vol. 74, 19 November 1932, p. 1052; Dictionary of Irish Architects). The church was first valued in 1935 when the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland was carried out; at that time St. Martin’s Church was recorded as in fee and valued at £210. The church survived the Belfast Blitz and at the end of the war was included in the second revaluation of property in Belfast. This second revaluation recalculated the value of the church at £450; however this was reduced to £360 under the 1957 Rent and Valuation Act, and in 1958 the valuer noted that the church hall had been added to the site. The joint value of the church and its hall was recorded as £584, at which it remained until the end of the revaluation in 1972. Initially the Belfast Corporation were not convinced that Kenilworth Street was a good location for the church, however St. Martin’s Church was opened on the site in April 1933, six years after its parent church, St. Patrick’s, celebrated it centenary in 1927. Rankin records that when the congregation initially separated from Ballymacarrett in 1930 they met in a hall in Memel Street before moving into the current church in 1933 (Rankin, p. 85). The new church received financial aid from the Southern Church Mission committee who also had a say in the appointment of the incumbent minister; the first minister appointed by the committee after the completion of the church was the Rev. Alan Buchanan. The church organ (which was replaced in 1951) had come from St. John’s Church in Laganbank when it closed; however this organ had received considerable wear during its service and had fallen into a state or disrepair by the late 1930s. During the Second World War St. Martin’s escaped damage, although its parent church St. Patricks was severely damaged when the Luftwaffe bombed the area in 1941 during the Belfast Blitz. When financial assistance for repair work, or for the construction of additions etc, was required in the 1930s the congregation of St. Martin’s applied to the South Church Mission Committee who gathered funds from Anglican Churches in the South of Ireland; however, with the end of the Second World War St. Martin’s congregation was informed that they would have to become more self-sufficient and not rely so heavily on assistance from the Mission as southern congregations were in their own financial difficulties in the aftermath of the war. Plans for the construction of the redbrick church hall, located to the north of the church, were initially drawn up in 1940, however due to the outbreak of the Second World War, and the financial problems resulting from the removal of aid from the South Church Mission, it was not until 1956 that authorisation to proceed was finally given by the Southern Church Mission Committee and in December of that year the foundation stone was laid; the hall was opened on 14th December 1957 after almost two decades of deliberation and delays. A further addition, contemporary to the erection of the hall, was the installation of a new church organ in 1951 which cost between £2,000 and £3,000. By the late 1960s many of the houses in the Memel area surrounding St. Martin’s were designated for demolition and in 1970 the Northern Ireland Housing Trust approached the church committee with an offer to purchase the church and hall as part of the redevelopment of the area. However, the offer was turned down and the church continued to be owned by the South Church Mission; although one benefit of the redevelopment of the area was a brief increase in the membership of the congregation as new parishioners moved into the area. Due to its location at the interface between Short Strand and the Newtownards Road, St. Martins Church was targeted during civil unrest. In 1976, the church’s windows were damaged. During this period of civil unrest, the congregation steadily declined and between 1971 and 1981 the congregation declined from 550 to 220, and in 1983 130 of the (then 200) members attending lived outside of the area. This decrease was also felt throughout the other churches in Ballymacarrett and during the same decade the number of parishioners that attended services in the area declined from a total of 46,000 to 27,000 by 1981. Declining membership increased fears that St. Martin’s would lose its independence as a single church. Later changes to the church included the installation of the current church organ in 1983 which was constructed by Wells-Kennedy Partnership Ltd. of Lisburn, costing the congregation £15,000; and in the early 1990s the church underwent a restoration and renovation project which cost an estimated £50,000. St. Martin’s Church was listed in 1993 during this renovation period. Due to the decline of parishioners in Ballymacarrett, the parishes of St. Martin, St. Patrick and St. Christopher were grouped together between 2000 and 2002; in losing its independence as a single viable church, St. Martin’s lost its church committee but gained representation on the diocesan council with the right to vote in decisions to appoint future rectors. St. Martin’s continues to operate as part of this parish group however its parochial district, incorporating the Bridge End and Short Strand areas, now possesses a very small residential population (McMullen, pp 1-52; Rankin, p. 85). References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1931 2. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/20 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935 3. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/48 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972 4. Irish Builder, Vol. 74, 19 November 1932. Secondary Sources 1. McMullen, G., ‘The story of St. Martin’s Church and the Southern Church Mission to Ballymacarrett’ Belfast: Unknown Publisher. 2008. 2. Rankin, F., ‘Clergy of Down and Dromore’ Belfast: The Ulster Historical Foundation, 1996. 3. First Survey Record – HB26/08/014 (1993) Online Resources 1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

V. Authorship Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity R. Age S. Authenticity T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

A free-standing Lombardic-style red-brick Church of Ireland church with three-stage tower, built c.1930 to designs by Henry Seaver; located on the north side of Newtownards Road east of Belfast city centre. Despite a rather plain exterior, this is an accomplished design with balanced proportions and is an excellent example of an early twentieth-century suburban church. A simply detailed exterior houses a lofty and impressive interior which is almost entirely intact. Prominently sited at the beginning of a major urban thoroughfare, the church and adjacent housing estate illustrates the suburban development of this part of the city during the first part of the twentieth-century. An important local landmark, the church is of significant local interest and social importance to the surrounding community.

General Comments

Date of Survey

13 April 2011