Elmwood Hall is a concert hall and former Presbyterian Church on University Road in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

.Walker, Brian M.; Dixon, Hugh (1984). ''In Belfast Town, 1864-1880: Early Photographs from the Lawrence Collection''. Belfast: Friar's Bush Press. It is situated opposite Queen's University Belfast.

History

Elmwood Hall was built originally as the Elmwood Presbyterian Church. It was designed in 1859 by amateur architect John Corry, but not actually erected until 1862. The pulpit and other internal furnishings were removed, along with the stained glass windows.Larmour, Paul (1987). ''Belfast: An Illustrated Architectural Guide''. Belfast: Friar's Bush Press. The stonework was restored and the golden weathercock was added by HA Patton & Partners in 1975. The polished granite pillars around the front courtyard had lost some of their elaborately carved sandstone capitals, but these were restored in 2000. Queen's University Belfast converted the church into a concert hall and renamed it Elmwood Hall. The building was deconsecrated and for a time became the home of the

Ulster Orchestra The Ulster Orchestra, based in Belfast, is the only full-time professional orchestra in Northern Ireland. The orchestra plays the majority of its concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Waterfront Hall. It also gives concerts across the United K ...

. Following the closure of the Queen's University Student Union for redevelopment, the Mandela Hall team will be relocating many of their live concerts, comedies and student events to the Elmwood Hall until Mandela Hall re-opens in 2021-2022 within the new Student Centre.

Architecture

The building has a mixture of styles, principally

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

with a spire on top of a campanile. It has been described as one of Ulster's best High Victorian church designs – a triumph of eclecticism, where the combination of apparently discordant elements such as a Renaissance arcade with chunky Venetian columns, mediaeval machicolations, a classical cornice and balustrade, a Moorish well canopy and a French needle spire are all absorbed into a coherent but very elaborate Irish version of a Lombard Gothic church (Irish Builder). Behind the polychrome freestone façade, the interior is surprisingly large, having a great width uninterrupted by roof supports, and a deep gallery running back over both vestibule and loggia, reached by a winding staircase beneath the tower (which, while part of the 1859 design, was added in 1872).

References

{{coord, 54.5863, -5.9363, display=title, region:GB_scale:2000 Queen's University Belfast Buildings and structures in Belfast Concert halls in Northern Ireland Former Presbyterian churches Churches completed in 1862 Grade A listed buildings 1862 establishments in Ireland