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Fisherwick Place, BELFAST, BT1 6DU

Church House and Assembly Buildings stands at the corner of Howard Street and Fisherwick Place, Belfast. It is the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Built in 1905 to the design of Robert Young it was altered internally in the 90’s to provide ground-floor shops and is now known as “The Spires”. This is the tower (which includes a bell striking every quarter hour) seen from Howard Street.

The building with the ornate tower and spire was the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, designed by Robert Young, 1905. It included The New Fisherwick Presbyterian Church. See Victorianweb http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/churches/22c.html. It now has a mall of small shops on the ground floor, and a conference centre above. View along Great Victoria Street.

The former Church House is undergoing a major renovation with much of the building surrounded by scaffolding. The tower has been cleaned. Image shows how it looked before.

Pictured along Great Victoria Street

See Image (October 2008). Time for another look at this narrow street although nothing seems to have changed. It was built before 1843 when it had a few houses. Jury’s Inn Image is in the background. The former Eagle Star House Image is on the right.

See Image The building is undergoing a major renovation including cleaning of the stonework – something obvious when the two photographs are compared.

The towered building on the right - "The Spires" is the former administration centre of the Ulster Presbyterian Church. The building once described as a "harsh and craggy pile of blackened Scottish-Tudor stone" has been totally refurbished after being repeatedly bombed by the IRA during "The Troubles". The ground floor of the building now houses a mall of small and fashionable stores.

Because of a need for an assembly hall, the congregation of the Presbyterian Fisherwick Church agreed to vacate their church in order to build what is now known as Assembly Buildings, which was opened in 1905. It was designed as a Gothic structure in the style of a Scottish baronial castle with a 40 m high clock, a bell tower, and several exquisite stained-glass windows. For almost 80 years, the Assembly Buildings (Church House) operated entirely as headquarters and general assembly of the Presbyterian Church. In 1992, the building took on a commercial persona with a retail facility on the ground floor (Spires Mall) and use of the Main Hall and a ten room suite, able to accommodate up to 1,150 people, as conference venue.

A balcony, facing Howard Street, with the coats of arms of Bandon, Dundalk, Monaghan, Newry, Galway, Tralee and Kilkenny below.

The building on the right is the former Presbyterian Church of Ireland Assembly Buildings, also known as Church House, now converted into the Speers Shopping Mall.