Mass & Service Times
Sunday
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About Groomsport Presbyterian Church
Groomsport Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in Bangor, County Down.
History
The Presbytery of Bangor first recorded a worshipping Presbyterian community in Groomsport in 1839, when the Presbytery minute reported that Rev William Patterson of Second Bangor had been preaching in the village once a month, and that with assistance from the ministers of Donaghadee and Ballygrainey preaching would be supplied more frequently. A preaching station was established in the village in 1840, and in 1841 the Presbytery granted the request for the establishment of Groomsport Presbyterian Church, with around 150 subscribers. The first recorded meeting place was 17 Main Street, the home of James Kennedy.
The congregation took possession of the present church site on 28 June 1841. The first minister, Rev Isaac Mack, was ordained on 10 August 1841 in a marquee on the Holme Field and served until 1877. The meeting house was built within a couple of years of the ordination.
The building
The tower and clock were gifted and erected in 1863. Extensions and alterations were made in 1970/71 and again in 1990/91, the building reopening in the congregation's 150th anniversary year.
A redevelopment of the church buildings, begun in 2021, was completed with the official opening of a new entrance foyer and a refurbished coffee bar, The Hub, on 29 and 30 June 2024. The original coffee bar had opened in 1978. The Hub has floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing the harbour, the sea and the Copeland Islands. The work was carried out to designs by the architects Knox and Markwell, with Wishart Contracts as main contractor.
Clergy
- Minister Rev P T Dalzell
