Architecture
The part of Belfast south of Queen's University between the Malone and Lisburn roads, known as the 'Malone Ridge', underwent rapid expansion from the middle of the 19th century, as a prosperous and fashionable suburb of large detached villas and grand terraces. At the time, the Church of Ireland presence in this area was limited to the old Malone Church, as well as Christ Church in College Square, neither of which was deemed an appropriate place of worship. Following a generous bequest by Andrew Thomas McLean for the endowment and construction of a new parish church, the architect John Lanyon of Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon, then Belfast's leading architectural practice, was appointed in 1866. Building work commenced in 1869 and St Thomas's was consecrated on 22 December 1870.
The same year had seen the completion of Belfast Castle by the same practice. Other notable examples of their then recent work in the city included Clarence Place in May Street (now occupied by Lambert Smith Hampton), Richardson Sons and Owden's warehouse in Donegall Square North (now part of Marks & Spencer) and the main building at Queen's University (now called the Lanyon Building).
On a grand scale and designed to impress, St Thomas's is one of the grandest and most fully finished examples of High Victorian Gothic ecclesiastical architecture, not only in Belfast, but in Ulster. Inside the Church, cool monumentality gives way to warmth and richness. Built of white Scrabo sandstone with finely dressed masonry round doors and windows, it is adorned with red sandstone banding and coloured marble discs and colonnettes to the tower and spire. The exterior is a confident exercise in eclectic design: generally the style is Early French Gothic, but the polychrome effects point to an Italian Gothic influence. There may also be an Early Christian Irish reference in the round stone-capped stair turret. The date 1870 is inscribed over the North doorway. Probably because of constraints imposed by the sloping site, the orientation of St Thomas' is unusual, the chancel facing North. In 1888 the church was enlarged at the South end, to a John Lanyon design, when the South West porch was added, as well as the internal gallery with its Gothic timber stairway. Along with the increase in the length of nave and aisles, this extended the seating capacity to over 1,000.
The interior with its tall, open timber-trussed roof is decorated with string courses and brickwork of contrasting colour, as well as good carvings and mosaics. In spite of being so large it gives an impression of comfort and warmth. Elegant features, such as the narrow Gothic windows in the chancel and the slender timber trusses, mingle happily with the robustly carved, almost overgrown, foliage which adorns the capitals to the nave columns and the black-banded red brick arcade itself.
Read more about this topic: St Thomas' Church, Belfast
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