22 September 2024

How the site of a Victorian
Baptist church in Belfast
has been a ‘temporary’
car park for 10 years

The site of the former Great Victoria Street Baptist Church has been a ‘temporary’ car park since 2014 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Great Victoria Street was once an elegant and fashionable street in Victorian Belfast, leading from College Square at the north end, to Shaftesbury Square at the south end, and lined with landmark buildings including Belfast Central Station, the Grand Opera House and the Crown Bar, which I discussed in a blog posting yesterday.

Great Victoria Street – like so many other streets in Belfast – at one time was also home to a number of churches and places of worship, including Great Victoria Street Baptist Church on the east side and Great Victoria Street Synagogue on the west side.

In recent years, many of the fine buildings on the street have been demolished, leaving the street pock-marked with vacant sites and temporary car parks that do nothing to enhance the streetscape.

I was interested to see last weekend that Great Victoria Street Baptist Church, which once stood at the corner of Great Victoria Street and Hope Street and facing out towards Sandy Row, was demolished ten years ago. Sadly, yet another of Belfast’s rapidly diminishing Victorian properties has been lost to the developers.

Great Victoria Street Baptist Church was designed by the Belfast architect William Hastings (Photograph © FutureBelfast.com)

Great Victoria Street Baptist Church was built in 1863-1866 at a cost of about £6,000. It was designed by the Belfast architect William Hastings (1814-1892), who was then a member of the congregation, in the ‘Italian Gothic’ style in red brick with stone dressings.

Great Victoria Street Baptist Church traces its origins to a small fellowship of Baptists who were meeting above a cobbler’s shop in King Street by 1811. They had about 15 members In 1847 when they reconstituted as a church supported by the Baptist Irish Society with a pastor and large premises in Academy Street.

New premises were being sought by 1861, and the church met temporarily in Victoria Hall in Queen’s Square until a new church was built. A site was acquired on Great Victoria Street, building work was in progress by August 1865, and the church opened on 8 April 1866, with a seating capacity for 430 people.

Additions and alterations were made to the church in 1923 to designs by the architect James A Hanna, who practised in Dublin, Belfast and Coleraine.

Additional land was bought in 1944 and new halls were built in 1961. The seating capacity was enlarged to 720 and for many years it was one of the largest Baptist church buildings in Ireland. The Baptist churches at Mountpottinger, Strandtown, Windsor, Rathcoole and Finaghy were formed largely from members from Great Victoria Street.

The Association of Baptist Churches, of which the church is a member, celebrated its centenary in 1995, and Great Victoria Street Baptist Church celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1997.

The architects’ proposal for a 10-storey building on the site of Great Victoria Street Baptist Church (Image © William Shannon Architects)

FutureBelfast.com has documented the sad loss of this building over the past decade and how the site has remained a temporary surface car park since the former church was demolished.

Belfast’s changing built environment. McAleer & Rushe Group and Todd Architects submitted a planning application in April 2008, proposing to demolish the church building and develop a 10-storey building with basement car parking spaces, church and ancillary halls at the ground and first floor and office accommodation above.

The application was approved in March 2010, and the congregation vacated the once elegant church and church services were relocated permanently to the rear church halls in February 2011.

Another planning application was submitted in December 2011 that proposed demolishing the church building and creating a temporary surface car park. The application was approved in August 2012 with a condition that the surface car park was permitted for only one year until August 2013.

Yet another planning application was submitted in January 2014. The church building had not been demolished by then, and the application proposed amending the conditions of earlier planning decisions on the temporary car park. That application was approved in April 2014.

Meanwhile, the Victorian church building had deteriorated rapidly. Following a stay of execution, the bulldozers moved in to begin demolition on 28 July 2014, and this was completed by the end of September 2014.

A further planning application in November 2015 sought permission for a temporary surface level private car park on the site of the demolished church for up to two years. Permission was granted in October 2016 for a car park for up to one year.

This situation has continued year after year for the past ten years, and the site of the former Victorian church on the corner of Great Victoria Street and Hope Street remains a fenced off temporary surface car park, and an eyesore.

I wondered last weekend how long anything remains temporary before it becomes permanent.

Great Victoria Street Baptist Church is still planning to develop a replacement church building. Despite the temporary appearance of the present buildings, Great Victoria Street remains one of the largest Baptist churches in Ireland. Although its members are drawn from a very wide geographical area, it retains an interest in the life and work of the city centre.

Across the street, Hope International Christian Fellowship at 113 Great Victoria Street, Belfast, stands on the site of the Apostolic Church, which was demolished in 1993. Previously, it was the site of Belfast’s first synagogue, built in 1871. I hope to look at this building again some evening when I am discussing Great Victoria Street Synagogue.

Further along, Great Victoria Street Presbyterian Church was originally Sandy Row Presbyterian Church and is also known as South Kirk Presbyterian Church. But technically it is on Shaftesbury Square, and is worth looking at in another posting.

• Steve Auld has been the pastor of Great Victoria Baptist Church since 2017 and Simon Farewell has been the assistant pastor since 2021. Sunday services are at 11 am and 7 pm.

Great Victoria Street Baptist Church stood on the corner of Great Victoria Street and Hope Street (Photograph © Future Belfast)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2024:
135, Sunday 22 September 2024,
Trinity XVII

‘Then he took a little child and put it among them’ (Mark 9: 36)’ … a stained-glass window in the north transept in Saint Mary’s Church, Youghal, Co Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and today is the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XVII, 22 September 2024). Later this morning, I hope to be present at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘Then he took a little child and put it among them’ (Mark 9: 36) … a detail in the window in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 9: 30-37 (NRSVA):

30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Mark 9: 37) … Children of the Kindertransport seen in Frank Meisler’s bronze sculpture at Liverpool Street Station in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Sophie’s Choice is a disturbing American film (1982) based on a best-selling novel by William Styron (1979). Meryl Streep plays the title role of Sophie Zawistowski, a Polish immigrant who shares a boarding house in Brooklyn with Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline) and a young writer, Stingo (Peter MacNicol).

One evening, Stingo learns from Sophie that she was married, but her husband and her father were killed in a Nazi work camp, and that she was sent as a prisoner to Auschwitz with her two children.

When Sophie arrives at Auschwitz, a camp doctor forces her to choose which one of her two children would be gassed and which one he would send to the labour camp. To avoid having both children killed, she chooses to have her son Jan sent to the children’s camp, and her daughter Eva sent to her death. It is a heart-wrenching decision that leaves her in mourning and filled with a guilt that she never overcomes.

The name Sophie means wisdom, but the choice Sophie faces is not between what is wise and what is foolish, between good and evil, nor even between the lesser of two evils, but between evil and evil.

This morning’s lectionary readings introduce a number of similar themes, including comparisons between the Wisdom of God and a wise wife and mother, the choices we face between good and evil, and the innocence of children in the face of competition for power and status.

Ashort set of readings from the Book of Proverbs ends this morning where the book ends, with a poem that gives a detailed description of the roles and qualities of ‘a capable wife.’

Before this reading begins, we are told that the words in this closing section are ‘the words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him’ (Proverbs 31: 1).

But who is the good wife?

A good wife is mentioned earlier in this book, and several of her qualities are those of Wisdom, Sophia (Σοφία). So, is the good wife Wisdom herself?

Then the psalm (Psalm 1) compares the ways of the wicked and the ways of the godly.

In the Epistle reading (James 3: 13 to 4: 3, 7-8a), Saint James reminds his readers of the qualities of wisdom. Godly wisdom is pure, peace-loving, merciful and bears good fruits, and seeks to make peace.

In the Gospel reading (Mark 9: 30-37), Christ tells the disciples he is going to be betrayed and killed, and that he will rise again.

They do not understand what he is saying – how could they, they cannot yet expect the Crucifixion and the Resurrection? Both these future events are beyond their understanding and they are afraid to ask Jesus what he is talking about, either because they do not want to show their ignorance or because they are afraid that they too may become innocent victims and suffer the consequences of being followers of Christ.

By the time they arrive in Capernaum, the disciples have been arguing over who among them is the greatest (verse 34). The disciples are shamed into silence when they realise Jesus overhears what they say. He chides them, telling them being a disciple is not about rank or power, position or prestige, but is about service. He tells them: ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all’ (verse 35).

To illustrate his point, he takes a little child and places him or her among them. The Greek word used here (παιδίον, paidíon) means a little child, but it could mean a young servant or even a child slave (verse 36).

He takes the child in his arms and says to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me’ (verse 37).

We are not told whether this child is a boy or girl, free or slave, Jew or Samaritan, Greek or Roman, a street urchin or the child of one the Disciples.

Perhaps the Disciples never even noticed, because at that time a child was of no economic value and a burden on families until the child could earn his or her own way, or until the child had the potential of being the equivalent of a pension scheme for parents.

But when someone welcomed a child slave or servant sent on an errand or with a message, they welcomed or received the master. Jesus reminds the disciples that whoever receives the servant receives the master, whoever receives a child receives Christ, whoever receives Christ receives God the Father, who sent him.

How can we relate the first part of our Gospel reading (verses 30-32), when Jesus talks about his own impending betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection, with the second part of the Gospel reading (verses 33-37), when Jesus takes an innocent, small child and makes him or her an example of how we should behave with Kingdom values?

Sometimes, I fear, we make it too difficult to talk about the Crucifixion, and so we make it too difficult to talk about the Resurrection, unless we are talking about them in the context of Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter.

But sometimes too, I fear, we make it too easy to talk about children because we romanticise childhood in our comfortable settings. Quite often, even in stained-glass windows in our churches, we romanticise this little child, thinking of a well-dressed, well-fed, well-loved child from our own family or own parish.

Yet, it is a paradox that we also find it too difficult to talk about children because so often we have to turn away, mentally and emotionally, when we see the suffering of children in the world today.

All of us have been disturbed for some years now about the terrors that are rained down on children in the world today. I say ‘children’ and not ‘innocent children,’ because there is no such being as a guilty child – there are only innocent children.

And the suffering and plight of children is all the more distressing when it is caused by the calculations of adults who dismiss this suffering as merely collateral damage brought about by political decisions or by war.

For Christians, this distress must always be acute, must always demand our compassion, must always call for our response.

In Saint Matthew’s version of this story (Matthew 18: 1-14), Christ tells us: ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost’ (verses 10-14).

It cannot matter to us what label is placed on these children:

● whether a suffering child in the Gaza Strip or a child taken hostage in an attack on a musical festival in Israel is a Jew, Christian or Muslim;

● whether the frightened refugee child crossing the Channel or the Mediterranean cramped into a tiny boat in the Mediterranean, is a Christian or a Muslim;

● whether the children targeted by Saudi fighter bombers in Yemen are Shia or Sunni, going to a school or a wedding;

● whether the sobbing and distressed child separated forcibly from his parents on the border between Texas and Mexico speaks Spanish or English;

● whether the homeless children who sleep in cramped hotel rooms with their mothers tonight, not knowing where they are going to sleep tomorrow night or still traumatised by a recent attack by far-right rioters, are the children of local people or immigrants.

It seems these are last in the world’s priorities today. Yet Christ says, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last … Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Mark 9: 35, 37).

‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Mark 9: 37) … ‘Spectral Child’ on Thomas Street, Limerick, by Dermot McConaghy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 22 September 2024, Trinity XVII):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Our God is Able.’ This theme is introduced today in reflections by the Revd Thanduxolo Noketshe, priest in charge at Saint Mary and Christ Church, Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba, Province of the West Indies:

In early 2021, my family and I moved from the Diocese of Port Elizabeth in South Africa to serve in St Kitts and Nevis as part of the USPG Exchanging Places Programme. The programme is a joint venture between USPG, the Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba (NECA) and the Diocese of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I am grateful my time here has been extended for another three years so I continue my mission on the island.

I wanted to share a glimpse of what I have learnt during my journey.

Our God is able.

I have seen God working wonders in our lives and we are grateful for the great things he has done. We have seen him as a God who provides, heals and comforts. We do not know our future, but we know he will direct us to the right pathways. Therefore, the journey with God is a practical experience.

As we participate in his mission, God provides the people and resources for us to use in our earthly pilgrimage.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 22 September 2024, Trinity XVII) invites us to pray:

Use these hands to carry the burden.
Use this voice to carry your word.
Use these feet to walk in your footsteps.
Use this heart to transform the world.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord, we pray that your grace
may always precede and follow us,
and make us continually to be given to all good works;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Gracious God,
you call us to fullness of life:
deliver us from unbelief
and banish our anxieties
with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’ (Mark 9: 37) … a window in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Great Victoria Street in
Belfast has lost many
of its Victorian buildings
but retains its elegance

The Crown Bar typifies the Victorian elegance that once graced Great Victoria Street in Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It is said that great cities are defined by their great buildings and great streets. In Belfast, Great Victoria Street was once one of the city’s most elegant streets, lined with great buildings, although many of these disappeared in recent years, and the street is now pock-marked by vacant lots and building sites.

Like many journalists, I have mixed memories of the Europa Hotel. During my CND campaigning days and a student placement in Belfast in 1980s, I became familiar with places like the Crown Bar and neighbouring Robinson’s.

And everyone who has travelled into and out of Belfast has memories of Great Victoria Street Station, which closed permanently four months ago.

Despite some appearances of dereliction, Great Victoria Street remains one of the busiest streets in the heart of Belfast city centre and it is one of the main thoroughfares in and out of the City.

During our recent weekend stay in Belfast, we were staying off Botanic Avenue, and I walked a few times that weekend along Great Victoria Street, which begins at Shaftsbury Square, and runs straight down into College Square and the heart of central Belfast’s shopping district, including Royal Avenue and other streets off Donegall Square.

Great Victoria Street should not be confused with Victoria Street, another city centre street with a similar name. Victoria Street, which is marked by the Jaffe Memorial Fountain – which I was discussing last night – was created in 1843, linking Cromac Street and Corporation Street.

On the other hand, Great Victoria Street was built in 1823 and became known as Great Victoria Street in honour of Queen Victoria in 1848, after the opening of the new railway line connecting Belfast and Dublin. A year later, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Belfast in 1849 during their first official engagement in Ireland.

The 1848 terminal building at Great Victoria Street was demolished to make way for the development of the Europa Hotel in 1971 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The first railway terminus in Belfast opened on 12 August 1839 on the site of a former linen mill, beside where Durham Street crossed the Blackstaff River at the Saltwater Bridge, now Boyne Bridge.

A new terminal building, probably designed by the Ulster Railway engineer John Godwin, was completed in 1848. Godwin later founded the School of Civil Engineering at Queen’s College, later Queen’s University Belfast. The station was originally called Belfast but was renamed Belfast Victoria Street in 1852 and then Belfast Great Victoria Street in 1856.

The Ulster Railway became part of the Great Northern Railway (GNR) in 1876, making Great Victoria Street the terminus for a network that extended south to Dublin and west to Derry and Bundoran.

Great Victoria Street station was modernised in 1961, and a bus centre was incorporated into the facility. Then in 1968, a large section of the 1848 terminal building was demolished to make way for the development of the Europa Hotel, which opened in 1971.

The station was attacked several times during the ‘Troubles’, and the remaining parts of the station were damaged by two bombings in 1972. A car bomb on 22 March 1972 injured 70 people, a train was destroyed and the station was significantly damaged. Another bomb explosion on 21 July destroyed four busses but caused no casualties. It was one of 20 bombs planted by the IRA that day, which became known as Bloody Friday.

Northern Ireland Railways closed both Great Victoria Street station and the Belfast Queen’s Quay terminus of the Bangor line in April 1976, and replaced them both with a new Belfast Central Station, now known as Lanyon Place. The remainder of Great Victoria Street station was demolished.

A new development was commissioned for the site in the late 1980s and involved reintroducing the Great Northern Railway. The Great Northern Tower was built on the site of the old station terminus in 1992, and the second Great Victoria Street Station opened in 1995, metres away from the site of its predecessor.

Great Victoria Street was the busiest railway station in Northern Ireland when it closed, with a peak of 5,347,662 passengers passing through the station in 2018-2019.

The station closed four months ago (10 May 2024) to make way for a new public transport hub, Belfast Grand Central Station, that is to combine rail and bus services. The Europa Bus Centre, once Belfast’s main bus station, closed last month (7 September 2024), and bus services were transferred to the new station the following day. The Europa Bus Centre is being transformed into a new food market known as Great Victoria Street Market under plans by the developer McAleer and Rushe.

The Grand Opera House is one of the landmark Victorian buildings that survive on Great Victoria Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The landmark buildings that survive on Great Victoria Street include the Grand Opera House, Belfast, an ornate late Victorian theatre, the Crown and Robinson’s, ornate late Victorian pubs, the Europa Hotel, the most bombed hotel in Europe and Great Victoria Street Presbyterian Church – although the original, Victorian Great Victoria Street Baptist Church has been levelled in recent years, leaving yet another large car parking lot as a blight on the streetscape.

The Crown Bar, the most famous pub in Belfast, is at 46 Great Victoria Street. It was opened by Felix O’Hanlon as the Ulster Railway Tavern in 1849, facing the new railway terminus. It was later bought by Michael Flanagan. His son Patrick Flanagan, who had studied architecture in Spain and Italy, renamed it in 1885 and decided to replace the old interior with the glorious wood-pannelled version that survives to this day.

Flannigan had contracted the Belfast architects Edward and James Byrne to design the façade. The elaborate tiling, stained glass and woodwork were created by Italian craftsmen Flanagan had persuaded to work on the pub after hours. Many of these craftsmen had come to Belfast to work on the new churches being built in the city at the time. The high standards displayed in their work made the Crown one of the finest Victorian pubs.

Sir John Betjeman and others persuaded the National Trust to buy the Crown in 1978, and a £400,000 renovation and restoration project brought the bar back to its original Victorian state. Further restoration was carried out in 2007 at a cost of £500,000. Its fittings include 10 ‘snugs’ and it has been a location in many film and television productions.

A few doors away, Robinson’s dates from 1895 and has an interesting collection of memorabilia from the Titanic, including the ‘Philomena Doll’ recovered from the wreckage, letters and postcards written onboard and first and second class china used on all White Star Liners.

The Grand Opera House on Great Victoria Street has provided a variety of entertainers that have ranged from Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy to Nellie Melba, Vera Lynn and Luciano Pavarotti.

The building was designed by Frank Matcham,the most prolific theatre architect of the period, and it opened on 23 December 1895. It was originally called the New Grand Opera House and Cirque, but it was renamed the Palace of Varieties in 1904, and the name was changed to the Grand Opera House in 1909.

The stage has also welcomed Laurence Olivier, Lyn Redgrave, Albert Finney, Geraldine McEwan, Anthony Hopkins, Liam Neeson, Rowan Atkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Ian McKellen, Darcey Bussell and Lesley Garrett.

The building has been damaged by bombs on several occasions, usually when the nearby Europa Hotel had been targeted. It was badly damaged by bomb blasts in 1991 and 1993. More recently, the Grand Opera House was restored and developed, and reopened in 2020.

The Europa Hotel was bombed no less than 33 times during the ‘Troubles’. President Bill Clinton chose to stay at the Europa during his 1995 Christmas visit, a year after the 1994 ceasefire was signed. Bill and Hillary Clinton stayed in the hotel several times since, and their rooms have since been named the Clinton Suite. Today the hotel hides its tough past and shines bright like a beacon in its pride of place.

No 113 Great Victoria Street is the site of the Belfast’s first purpose-built synagogue, built by the merchant David Jaffe. He is commemorated by the Jaffe Memorial Fountain on Victoria Street – but more about Belfast’s synagogues in the days to come, hopefully.

Sir John Betjeman and others persuaded the National Trust to buy and renovate the Crown in 1978 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)