Survey Data
Reg No
40308019
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Previous Name
Presbyterian Meeting House
Original Use
Church/chapel
Historical Use
School
Date
1795 - 1800
Coordinates
260075, 314203
Date Recorded
03/07/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four-bay single-storey former Presbyterian meeting house, built 1797, later used as guild hall, school, and cinema, now disused. Half-hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and some cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with sandstone quoins. Evidence of roughcast lime rendered over rubble stone walls where extension has been removed. Window openings with sandstone sills, now boarded up. Door opening boarded up. Most of southeast-facing wall removed when later addition was removed in recent years. Front site enclosed by rubble plinth wall with concrete coping stones and wrought-iron railings.
Appraisal
This building is a former Seceder Presbyterian Meeting House, established when a split formed in the local Presbyterian community. It was still in use by the Presbyterian community in 1837 as noted in Lewis Topographical Dictionary of Ireland. The building later became a guild hall, housed the town’s first secondary school, and was used more recently as a cinema. It retains a strong presence and scale, closing the north side of an urban space.