History

in 1957 the Diocese of Down & Dromore purchased a 1¼ acre site near Parliament Buildings, Stormont, which lay equidistant from St Columba’s, Church Knock and St Elizabeth’s, Dundonald. The area had once been part of a primeval forest and was near an ancient bridle path which must have been known to St Columcille (Columba) and St Finnian and his pupils as they travelled from Movilla Abbey, through the Dundonald Gap to the Lagan and Carrickfergus Bay, as Belfast Lough was then known.

There had been little church building in the Diocese for nearly fifteen years; none at all during the 1939-45 war years. In the immediate post-war period, strict government control of scarce building materials meant that these were mostly allocated to replace bomb-damaged or obsolete housing. By 1958 these restrictions were less stringent and the Church Extension Committee of the Diocese was able to make plans to provide new church buildings for the growing and spreading population.

On 1 January 1960 the Parish of Stormont was constituted and on 16 April 1960 a temporary ‘Hall Church’ was dedicated for worship.

Tenders were invited from builders for both the new church and a parish hall. On 18 March 1961, the first sod on the site was cut and, on 30 September of that year, the foundation stone of the present church building was laid by Lord Wakehurst, then Governor of Northern Ireland.

The Curate-in-Charge, and later Rector, was the Revd Edgar Hamilton, then Dean’s Vicar of St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast and formerly Curate of St Donard’s Parish Church, Bloomfield. A native of Dublin, he was educated at Kingstown Grammar School and St Andrew’s College and Trinity College in Dublin. A former talented rugby player, capped for Leinster, his undoubted stamina stood him in good stead as, on foot or on his bicycle, he criss-crossed the parish to meet and gather in his new flock. By the time the temporary hall was ready for use some three hundred families had promised the parish their support.

Just under a year after the first sod had been cut, the parish hall was ready. It was opened on 3 March 1962 by Mrs Mitchell, wife of the Rt. Rev. F.J. Mitchell D.D., Lord Bishop of Down and Dromore. The temporary hall was removed and transferred to St Gall’s Church in Carnalea, Bangor, County Down.

The church itself was completed towards the end of that year and consecrated by the Bishop on 3 November 1962. The preacher on this important day was the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, Dr James McCann. The anthem was Parry’s ‘I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord’ and the hymn ‘All people that on earth do dwell’ was sung to Vaughan Williams’ setting. A week of special services followed for different groups in the parish and a service of Holy Communion was held each morning at 7.30am. Two days after the consecration, the first wedding took place in the church.