St Mary’s Church (RC)

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 4 bay long gabled church with small bellcote, smooth rendered and painted with natural slated roof. Entrance in NE Gable and gabled sacristy to SW gable. The building measures approximately 8 metres wide by 24 metres overall length .

The entrance on NE gable has a central pointed doorway with solid panelled fanlight. Above the doorway and to each side of it narrow pointed lancets light the gallery. Lancets have diamond panes with narrow margin and set in timber frame. Glass is broken. The gable terminates in plastered barges with simulated unadorned kneelers. The apex has a small gabled bellcote in stone with corbels in opening to support bell axle. Bell is missing. Walls are smooth rendered and painted without plinth.

The SE facade has 4 tall narrow sharp pointed lancets with cast iron diamond panes with narrow margin and set in timber frames. The entire cast iron windows are pivoted about a central point to open, though now secured. The glass is mostly broken but the margins were in yellow coloured glass and the diamond panes clear glazed. Walls are smooth rendered and painted. Single C.I. downpipe and half round metal gutter. The SE facade of the projecting sacristy has a 4 panelled door with shallow plain glazed fanlight. 3no. steps lead up to door. A window, boarded up, is set between door and gable. Interestingly the quoins are dressed with bold chamfered sandstone quoins. Walls finished similar to nave. SW gable of sacristy is unadorned except for the sand stone quoins at each corner. There is no barge and a small chimney is centred on the gable. That part of the exposed SW nave gable is plain, smooth rendered and painted with slightly projecting barge, the apex surmounted by a small plain Celtic cross. The sacristy is not centred on the SW nave gable as its NW wall is in line with that of the nave. Centred on the SW nave gable a quatrefoil window with a diamond shaped surround moulding. The stained glass from this window has been transferred to the new church and can be seen in the baptistery there.

The NW facade of the church is similar to the SE except that the window lighting the sanctuary has been reduced in height to allow a much higher cill so that a corridor extension could be constructed between the sacristy and the sanctuary allowing side entry to the latter.

The roofs are slated with Bangor blue slates with plain ridge tiles.

The church nestles on a tiny site placed at the junction of Mill Lane with Gortnahey Road. The church gates fronting onto Gortnahey Road are a pair of decorative C.I. gates fixed to smooth rendered piers. The top gate hinge on each side is in the form of a clenched fist. There are short wing walls.

Historical information

The church was built in 1830 on land given by J.F.C. Hunter. The parish priest of the time was Father Patrick O’Loughlin. The Ordnance Survey Memoir of 1835 records that “ the Catholic chapel in Gortnahey More was erected by subscription in 1830 and cost 140 pounds. It is a plain rectangular building, with a Maltese cross of stone on one gable, and measures 67 feet by 25 and a half on the outside. It has 2 doors, one in each gable, and is lighted by 5 square windows, 3 on one side and 2 on the other. The interior is quite unfinished and there are only 2 pews, 1 on each side of the southern door, which were constructed by 2 of the parishioners for their own accommodation. Being otherwise unprovided with seats, it would hold 300 persons, allowing 4 square feet for each.” In 1858 the chapel had a valuation of £6-15-0 though exempt.

The chapel was rebuilt in 1892 when Father Edward Loughrey was parish priest. Its dimension being as the earlier church except that the sacristy was added to the SW gable. The chapel of 1830 most likely had the altar in the long wall. In the rebuild of 1892 the altar and the sanctuary was placed at the SW gable.

The church was closed in 1990 when a new church was erected further west along the Gortnahey Road and has remained vacant since.

References

Primary Sources
1. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland
Parishes of Co Londonderry V11. 1834-5 Vol 25 p3-23
2. O S Map 1st Edition 1832 Co Londonderry sheet no 24
3. 1858 Griffiths Valuation Book
Parish of Bovevagh, Gortnahey More Townland
4. Dedication plaque New Church St Mary’s

Secondary Sources
1. Seamus Hasson, Dungiven
2. M O’Kane, the Early Revival of Catholic Church Architecture, 1978
Unpublished dissertation QUB p.139
3. Edward Daly and Keiran Devlin: The Clergy of the Diocese of Derry p.183

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A simple barn church with gable entrance and rudimentary bellcote on gable apex above entrance door, devoid of interesting detail except the manner of opening the diamond paned narrow lancet windows. The quatrefoil over the sanctuary gableis a good piece of turn-of the-century stained glass. This glass has now transferred to the new church of St Mary opened in 1990. The church has been stripped of all its fittings and greatly vandalised within. All the glazing has been shattered and gallery front damaged. There is much deterioration of interior and exterior plasterwork. The bell is missing from the bellcote.

The church site retains its entrance gates and rendered piers. The gates have lost several of their decorative finials.