Saint Mark's Church, Parish of Dundela, Diocese of Down and Dromore, is on the Holywood Road, East Belfast. The building is situated on 'Bunker Hill', an elevated position, which allows this beacon of Witness, to be seen from many miles around. The site was acquired and vested in a group of trustees chaired by William Ewartt, a wealthy linen magnate, for the purpose of building a parish church. The foundation stone was laid on 13th October 1873. At this time the location would have been in the countryside at the edge of the City of Belfast.
In contrast to other churches of the period, the trustees didn't chose a local architect, but instead decided on the celebrated English architect William Butterfield. His work includes All Saints Margaret Street (the tallest church spire in London), and Keble College Oxford. Saint Mark's Dundela is the only Parish church in Ireland to be designed by Butterfield. The church building was consecrated on 22nd August 1878, however only the nave and the tower were complete at that time. The work was completed to Butterfield's design and consecrated on 4th July 1891.
The church exhibits many characteristics of Butterfield's work including: the high ceilings, arches, pillars, mosaic tiling and contrasting coloured stonework.
The cache is a standard black nano. The street is busy during the day so stealth is required and included in the difficulty rating for the cache.
The Church Micro IE series is open to everyone; if you have a church you would like to place a cache at then please contact THE_Chris through Geocaching.com. This is to keep track of the numbers of the churches and give you the general format for the cache page. In the UK there are ~1500 caches in the series so we have some catching up to do! Also, if you currently have a published cache at a church that you would like to include in the series, get in contact.