Bloomfield Presbyterian Church

The Ordnance Survey maps record that by the mid 19th century very little development had been made to the townland of Ballyhackamore which, at that time, remained predominantly rural in character.

The Irish census records that between 1891 and 1901 the population of Belfast increased by almost 100,000. As a result of this population increase, Belfast’s municipal boundary was extended by the 1896 Belfast Corporation Bill. The development of the Upper Beersbridge Road (including residential streets such as Cyprus Avenue) had commenced in the early 1890s and with the resulting increase in the local population there was increasing demand for new houses of worship. A history of congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland states that the current site on the Beersbridge Road was acquired in autumn 1895 for the newly formed Bloomfield Presbyterian congregation.

The new Gothic church was designed by JJ Phillips & Son, an architectural partnership between James John Phillips (1841-1936) and his son James St. John Phillips (1870-1935). Bloomfield Presbyterian Church was one of the firm’s earliest contracts.

The church was constructed in 1897-98. During that period the congregation held services in a national schoolhouse on Bread Street East. The completed church was officially opened on 4th December 1898 although, due to debt incurred during its construction, the frontage of the building was not completed until the 1950s. Between 1898 and 1956 the entrance to the church was via a temporary porch built of wood and corrugated iron.

The church was first depicted on the third edition Ordnance Survey map (1902) which depicted the church as a generally square shaped building (neither its towers nor its hall had been completed at that time). The length of the church was increased in 1925-26 when its lecture hall was erected.

The two storey Gothic hall was designed by Hobart & Heron, a Dromore based partnership who also operated in Belfast from 1905. The hall’s foundation stone was laid in March 1925 with John Elliott of Hillsborough contracted as builder. Later additions to the church include the installation of a pipe organ which was dedicated in 1948, it was replaced with an electronic one in 2003 but its pipes were retained for aesthetic reasons. The temporary wood and corrugated iron porch was replaced with the current stone towers and vestibule in 1956.