St Guaires Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A freestanding Gothic hall-and-tower type basalt Parish church with three-stage square tower and cemetery; built 1797 and extended c.1870 possibly to designs by Joseph Welland, to include chancel and robing room to east. Located to the north side of Ardreagh Road in Aghadowey, south of Coleraine. Rectangular plan with square entrance tower to west; chancel (1870) to east abutted by vestry at north and robing room to south.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles, raised stone verges with kneelers and finial to gable. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on brackets. Walling is coursed and squared basalt stone with lime pointing and sandstone dressings; tower is random rubble coursed with sandstone string course between stages. Original windows are cusped metal lattice lancets with margin panes, all in ashlar stone surrounds with chamfered sills. Geometrical decorated tracery window with hood mould, carved head stops and voussoirs to east; simple geometric leaded lattice tracery window to west face of tower.

West gable is abutted to centre by the three-stage entrance tower, which is instepped with corner piers, rising to castellated stone parapet with broached corner pinnacles. Tower has pointed-headed Y-tracery louvered opening to four sides at belfry and oculus with louvered circular openings to four sides at second stage. Ground floor has, to north, slated lean-to with chimneystack and timber-sheeted doors; bipartite tracery window to west and entrance to east. Entrance comprises pointed-headed timber-sheeted doors with cast-iron strap-hinges in a sandstone ashlar surround with moulded archivolt and hood mould having carved head stops; stone voussoirs and relieving arches over.

The north elevation is lit by three cusped lancets.

The east gable is abutted by the chancel, having triple tracery window to gable. Chancel abutted to right cheek by the vestry with hipped slated roof, having cusped leaded lattice windows to north and east face and opening to west with a timber-sheeted door having ornate cast-iron strap-hinges, in a shouldered sandstone surround. Vestry accessed via two stone steps. To left cheek is the robing room with slated lean-to roof, cusped leaded lattice window to east face, and opening to south with a timber-sheeted door in a shouldered sandstone surround.

The south elevation is detailed as at north.

Setting:

Situated in an unspoiled rural
setting on a rectangular plot to the north side of Ardreagh Road Aghadowey, with cemetery to three sides. Bounded to river to north by grassy verge and a low rubblestone boundary wall with cement coping. Basalt stone boundary wall runs from west to east, with dressed coping stones to south side. Two square ashlar gate piers with pointed caps to west support a modern cast-iron gates. Two red-brick square piers to southeast with pointed stone caps support an original cast-iron latch gate. Small coursed rubblestone hall to west has three oculi in red-brick surrounds to east elevation; south gable is roughcast rendered with central oculus. Large late twentieth-century pebbledash church hall with tarmacadamed parking area to west. Cemetery has a wide variety of headstones dating from the late eighteenth-century to present day, some Victorian tombs with decorative cast-iron railings.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Coursed and squared basalt with sandstone dressings
Windows: Cusped metal lattice lancets and leaded-and-stained glass lancets
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

St Guaire’s Church, Parish of Aghadowey dates from 1797, with a spire added at the expense of the Earl Bishop of Derry (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe; Lewis). The church is shown, captioned, on the first edition OS map of 1832 as a simple hall with tower. Enlargements made in 1870 are shown on the third edition of 1904-5.

The church, which is situated in what Lewis called ‘a fertile vale near the centre of the parish’ is situated on a site of some antiquity. St Guaire (thought to be a corruption of Jerome) founded a monastery here, it is said, in the 7th century. (Lewis; Clergy of Derry & Raphoe)

A church was noted in existence here in 1622, when it was in ruins and was to be repaired, the land at plantation largely falling to the Ironmongers’ Company and the Mercers’ Company. (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe) The church was rebuilt in 1797 and a ‘handsome tower’ with octagonal spire erected at the expense of the Earl Bishop of Derry. The spire was destroyed by lightning in 1828 and the surviving tower structure was subsequently embattled and crowned with pinnacles. (Lewis; OS Memoirs) Two thirds of the spire was demolished in the lightning strike and the bell was knocked down, ‘tearing a hole in the north wall of the church and flinging twenty pound stones on to a nearby bleach green. Andrew Orr’s pew was torn six feet away from the wall, other pews were shattered and the lightning finally exited through the east window which it smashed into pieces’. (Mullin)

In the 1830s the Ecclesiastical Commissioners granted £183 for the repair of the church at which time it was repewed so that 100 extra people could be accommodated. (OS Memoirs) The OS Memoirs give a lengthy description of the church but rather scathingly comment that the building is ‘but an attempt at Gothic’ only redeemed by its setting surrounded by mature trees.

The church, offices and graveyard are listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) at £6.18s and in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) at £11.10s and 10s for the graveyard. There are no further changes in Annual Revisions.

In 1870 the church was enlarged by the addition of a chancel, robing room and gallery and a new door and window were fitted in the tower. East and south windows by James Ballantine & Son of Edinburgh were fitted, the former at the expense of the parish, the latter a memorial to the husband and son of Mrs Maddison of Agivey House. An organ by Frederick Holt of Edinburgh also formed part of the remodelling. Communion rails, reading desk and other fittings of oak which had been made by John C Dunlop of St Stephen’s Street in Edinburgh were recovered from the house of ‘Mary of Guise’ (taken down in 1848), an ancient Blackfriars monastery and Cardinal Beaton’s house, all buildings which had been taken down under the Edinburgh ‘City Improvement Act’. The church re-opened on 31st March 1871.(Belfast Newsletter) There is some contradictory evidence concerning the architect of the chancel extension. Signed undated drawings by Joseph Welland, architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, have survived but Welland had died by 1860 and it appears that the project was taken over by John Guy Ferguson, who was appointed architect to the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe in 1868. (www.dia.ie) There are two bells in the tower, the older said to be a gift from Queen Anne to her chaplain, local man Rev Robert Gage who was also Prebendary of Aghadowey parish in the early eighteenth century. The bell is dated 1695 and a further bell was mounted in the tower in 1899. (www.garvaghtown.com)

A war memorial obelisk at the church is attributed in the Irish Builder to J Robinson and cost £700 in 1921. It is unclear whether the J Robinson referred to is James Moore Caldwell Robinson, architect and partner in the firm of Robinson & Davidson or John McFarlane Robinson, architect with offices in Derry. (www.dia.ie) At the time of the First General Revaluation in the 1930s the church could accommodate 300 people and a plan is given showing the nave, tower and chancel with attached vestry. Outbuildings comprise two stable blocks ‘used for horses during the service’ and joined by a coach house which appear to have been added to the site in the early twentieth century and are first shown on the fourth edition OS map of 1924-33.

The parish was amalgamated with Kilrea in 1976 and the church was listed in 1977. A new church hall was built in 1985 but one of the stable blocks to the west of the church has been retained. (HB file; Clergy of Derry and Raphoe)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/18/1 First Edition OS Map 1832
2. PRONI OS/6/5/18/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-53
3. PRONI OS/6/5/18/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904-5
4. PRONI OS/6/5/18/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1924-33
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/51 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/1A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/1 First General Revaluation 1933-57
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/A/1 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. Griffith’s Valuation online
10. HB file – 03/04/004
11. Belfast Newsletter 4th April 1871

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry VI, 1831, 1833, 1835-6, Vol. 22.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1993.
2. Fawcett, FW Rev Canon; Crooks, DWT Rev Canon; Leslie JB Rev “Clergy of Derry and Raphoe” Ulster Historical Foundation, 1999
3. Lewis, Samuel. “A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” London: S. Lewis & Co., 1837.
4. Mullin, Rev T H “Aghadowey, A Parish and its Linen Industry” Belfast, 1972
5. www.dia.ie
6. www.garvaghtown.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
R. Age
S. Authenticity
U. Historic Associations

Evaluation

A freestanding Gothic Revival hall-and-tower type basalt parish church with three-stage square tower and cemetery; built 1797 and extended c.1870 possibly to designs by Joseph Welland, to include chancel and robing room to east. Located to the north side of Ardreagh Road in Aghadowey, south of Coleraine. Architectural detailing is well-preserved and largely intact with some fine examples of high quality masonry techniques and carved stonework, representative of the evolutionary stages of the building. An attractive basalt stone boundary wall and a wide variety of headstones to the graveyard, dating from the late eighteenth-century to the present day, adds to the historic interest of the site and enhances the quality of the setting. A fine example of a Gothic Revival church, in a picturesque rural setting, St Guaire’s is of significant social importance and local interest to the surrounding community.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and U - Historic Associations also apply.