Belfast church built in 1906 proposed for listed status

Research centre is also nominated

A 19TH century church and an experimental physics research centre in Belfast have been proposed for listing.

The construction of the current All Saints’ Church building on Canterbury Street was completed in 1906, while the International Research Centre for Experimental Physics at Queen’s University dates back to 1962.

Buildings of special architectural or historic interest are assessed by the Department for Communities Historic Environment Division and proposed to local councils for listing.

Statutory listing of buildings began in NI in 1974 and the first survey of buildings took more than two decades to complete.

Now there are almost 9,000 listed buildings here. When a building is listed it is given a level of protection to prevent any changes that would result in the loss of their significance.

The first interaction of All Saints’ Church dates back to the late 1800s, when services were held at a temporary iron building at the Canterbury Street site. It sat 750 people and cost £700.

As the congregation grew, a permanent building was constructed, facing onto University Street. Seating 1,000 people, the new structure cost £8,000. It was designed in the early English gothic style and the nave — the central aisle of the church — was completed in 1898.

The section of the church near the altar that is reserved for the clergy and choir, the chancel, was completed in 1906. The contemporary architectural journal, the Irish Builder, wrote at the time that the church was “one of the largest and most beautiful in the city”.

According to a briefing document prepared for Belfast City Council’s (BCC) planning committee: “The Lord Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore, in his opening sermon, remarked that one of the greatest beauties of architecture, ‘more than florid or enriched ornamentation’, was ‘the beauty of proportion’ which had been achieved at All Saints by the construction of the chancel.”

The briefing document adds that All Saints’ is of “local interest and social and cultural importance”.

It has been proposed that the church, boundary walls, piers and original gates be listed.

The International Research Centre for Experimental Physics at Queen’s was designed in 1955 by John Macgeagh, who also designed part of St Anne’s Cathedral. Construction was completed in 1962.

It came at a time when the university was growing rapidly and there was a great interest in physics, in part due to the role physics played during the Second World War with the creation of the atom bomb.

“The building features a distinctive entrance tower with towers being a traditional feature of academic physics laboratories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the height facilitating experiments on pendula and freefalling bodies,” a BCC briefing document reads.

“The new building had several unique features specific to its function: delivery points equipped with cranes and hoists were to enable heavy equipment to be brought into the building.

“The building was designed to be easily decontaminated from radioactive dust, with three distinct systems of mechanical ventilation.”

It has been proposed that the building and railings be listed.