Survey Data
Reg No
41401408
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Previous Name
Clontibret Presbyterian Meeting House
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1915 - 1920
Coordinates
273903, 329744
Date Recorded
08/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding Presbyterian church, built 1916, having two-bay nave, later gable-fronted porch recessed to west gable, and single-storey lean-to vestry addition to east. Pitched slate roof, having replacement metal rainwater goods, and with square-plan roof-lights to porch. Roughcast rendered walls, having smooth rendered quoins and plinth course. Round-headed window openings to nave, having smooth rendered surrounds and tooled stone sills, and replacement uPVC windows with stained glass, having two mid-twentieth-century stained-glass windows to south elevation. Round-headed window opening to east and west long walls of nave having nineteenth-century stained glass. Round-headed window opening over porch door having replacement uPVC window. Square-headed replacement uPVC windows to vestry, having tooled stone sills. Round-headed replacement timber door to porch, with moulded surround. Square-headed door opening to north elevation of rear extension having concrete steps and recent timber door. Interior has smooth rendered walls to interior, having marble memorial wall plaques and decorative carved timber hymn-board to east wall, timber battened panelled ceiling with exposed scissors truss roof supports, nineteenth-century timber pews, and similarly-dated pulpit to east end having bow-fronted decorative cast-iron balustrade with timber rail. Decorative round-headed double-leaf glazed timber door into nave from porch, with latticed over-light. Square-headed timber panelled door leading from pulpit to vestry. Church set within graveyard at crossroads in rural setting, bounded by recent metal gates and flanking roughcast-rendered wall to west, timber fencing to north and mature tree and hedge boundary to east and south.
Appraisal
The present church appears to be on the site of an earlier one of c.1800. Clontibret First Presbyterian Church was founded at Legnacreeve about 1715, and split into two communities in 1798, with a new Seceders' Meeting House built at nearby Braddocks in 1802. The two Presbyterian communities were re-united in 1905 and the churches at Legnacreeve and Braddocks are maintained to this day. The stained-glass windows of the church add artistic interest to the structure, in addition to the decorative funerary monuments of the graveyard in which the church is set. Of particular interest, too, is the bow-fronted pulpit to the interior, the cast-iron detailing of which shows some fine craftsmanship. Clontibret First Presbyterian Church played an important social role acting as a focal point for the predominantly milling rural community.