Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/12/008

Address :
Magherally Presbyterian Church Kilmacrew Road Banbridge Co Down BT32 4ES

Townland:
Magherally

---

Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
25/10/1977 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

---

OS Map No:
221/2

IG Ref:
J1637 4776

---

Owner Category

Church - C of I

Exterior Description And Setting

A T-plan rendered Presbyterian meeting house, located in a declivity on Kilmacrew Road, south of Dromore. Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and metal ventilation lanterns; cast-iron gutters over projecting rendered eaves. Walling is painted roughcast. Windows are generally segmental-headed 9/6 timber sashes with margin panes and crown glazing, having slightly projecting rendered reveals and painted masonry cills. Modern double-leaf timber doors in rendered reveals. The lateral part of the meetinghouse is aligned north-south, with projecting gable to west. Each gable has a door with a window over. The west elevation is centrally abutted by the projecting section of the T, having a window to each side. Re-entrant angle to left is abutted by a flat-roofed boiler house with chimneystack; there is a single window to each cheek. Each of the three gables is identical, having a window to upper level directly above each entrance (main access is to south gable). The long wall to east is six windows wide; those to centre are taller round-headed with hubs. Uneven thick masonry walls. Setting The meeting house is set slightly back from the road in a declivity, with a burial ground to east and west (older part to east), containing grave markers dating from c.1832. Tarmac forecourt and driveway, accessed by a pair of cast-iron gates with matching open-ironwork piers supported from roughcast boundary walling. There is a modern church hall to immediate left. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Roughcast Windows: Timber RWG: Cast iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Magherally Presbyterian Church is one of the earliest surviving meeting houses in the Banbridge District having been originally constructed in the mid-18th century. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 described it as a ‘very plain stone building ... 86-and-a-half by 56 feet [in a] T-shape.’ The memoir writer noted that the meeting house could accommodate 800 persons, although the average attendance at that time was only 500; the date and cost of building was not known at that time, however the memoirs stated that it was thought to be only the eighth building erected in Ireland for Presbyterian worship at the time of its construction (Ordnance Survey Memoirs, p. 115). The layout of the church has not been discernibly altered since the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1833 which depicted the building’s distinctive T-shape, although the map also depicted a schoolhouse to the south-side of the meeting house on the current location of the Church Hall. There was no change to the site by the second edition of the map in 1860; however the map noted that the school adhered to the National School system whilst the contemporary Griffith’s Valuation (1861) valued the meeting house, and the schoolhouse, at £25. There was no change in the valuation of the meeting house and national school by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. Magherally Congregation was formed c. 1650; Martin and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland website’s biography of the church state that the congregation was formed in 1656 and that the current building, erected in the 1730s, was ‘the Mother Church of Presbyterianism in the greater Banbridge district.’ There is no trace of any church that preceded the current structure on the site. Martin states that when originally erected Magherally Presbyterian Church possessed a thatched roof. In c. 1790 the first major alteration to the building was made when a gallery was installed; this gallery was removed in 1908, however the current gallery was installed above the entrance into the church during the 1840s when major repairs to the building were carried out. Peculiarly the surviving gallery cannot be accessed but was originally accessed by exterior stairs (these were removed at an unknown date). The c. 1840 repairs cost £88 and it is likely that the thatched roof was replaced with slate during the same period (Martin, Walker, p. 35). There were no additional alterations to the church until 1908 when the c. 1790 gallery was removed and the church was renovated at a cost of £156. With the end of the First World War the congregation installed the granite war memorial in front of the church; this was unveiled on 24th October 1920. The slate roof was rebuilt in 1937 and during the church’s closure the congregation met in the adjoining schoolhouse, however soon after reopening, Magherally National School closed in 1939. Later additions included the installation of electricity within the church in 1958 and the erection of the current church hall on the site of the former school in 1959, the construction costing almost £6,000 (Martin, pp 11-103). Magherally Presbyterian Church was the charge of the Rev. John D. Martin, a minister who resided at Kilmacrew House (HB17/12/011) and was also the brother-in-law of Helen Waddell, a medieval scholar and novelist. Martin ministered at Magherally until his death in 1946; behind the pulpit a bronze tablet was erected to his memory (Walker, p. 36). A plaque on the current church gates records that they were erected in 1931 as the gift of Mary and Margaret J. Adams who resided in the parish. The Church Hall was extended in 1998 and can accommodate between 300 and 360 people. Magherally Presbyterian Church was listed in 1977 and continues to be used as a place of Presbyterian worship; in 2006 Kirkpatrick noted that the membership of the church stands at around 200 families (Kirkpatrick, p. 268). References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 – First edition Ordnance Survey map 1833 2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1860 3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1903-1918 4. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/27 – Townland Valuation map 1833 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/345 – Townland Valuation c. 1830 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/40 – Griffith’s Valuation 1861 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/19A – Annual Revisions 1864-1875 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/19B – Annual Revisions 1876-1889 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/19C – Annual Revisions 1889-1901 10. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/19D – Annual Revisions 1902-1911 11. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/19E – Annual Revisions 1912-1929 12. Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Co. Down III Vol. 12 (1834) 13. Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) 14. Ulster Street Directories (1843-1918) 15. First Survey Record – HB17/12/008 (1969) Secondary Sources 1. Kirkpatrick, L., ‘Presbyterians in Ireland: An illustrated history’ Booklink, 2006. 2. Martin, M., ‘Magherally Presbyterian Church: 1656-1982’ Banbridge: The Banbridge Chronisl Press Ltd., 1983. 3. Walker, S., ‘Historic Ulster Churches’ Belfast: Queens university Belfast, 2000. Online Resources 1. Presbyterian Church in Ireland website http://www.presbyterianireland.org/congregations/magherally.html

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A plain T-plan early eighteenth-century Presbyterian meeting house. Its historic character survives in its simple early plan form and symmetry, and an early aspect with original fenestration. The simple interior retains its original layout and the interior fabric generally dates from the later nineteenth century, representing the development of the building. Although its setting has been compromised by the modern church hall, the church is a fine example of the type in original condition and an unusual survival of significance as one of the earliest Presbyterian meeting houses established on the island of Ireland.

General Comments

Date of Survey

24 January 2012