Former St John’s Roman Catholic Church,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A slated and gabled church consisting of a nave and chancel in a simple Gothic Revival style built with rendered walls, with a later projecting gabled porch of rubble stonework in the centre of the main elevation to the road. The porch has been painted dark grey. Windows to the main nave are pointed lancets with drip mouldings, apart from a small circular window over the porch. Surmounting the roof are a pair of cylindrical metal ventilators with conical caps, while there is an iron cross finial to each main gable. The north gable is symmetrical in design with pointed lancets flanking a central doorway, and would appear to have been originally the entrance front before the erection of a gallery, but the lancets are now blocked and the external symmetry is spoiled by a projecting rectangular confessional to one side. At the opposite end of the church there is a low lean-to sacristy beyond the sanctuary gable with a two-storey vestry alongside.

SETTING: The church stands within the built-up area of the village, facing the main road but set back from it within its own walled churchyard; front boundary walling of plain character, of rendered masonry, containing a set of undistinguished iron gates mounted on plain piers; graveyard grassed; no memorials of any special architectural or historic interest. To the rear, approached through a small gateway in the rear boundary wall, is a former 19th century school (HB06/01/004) associated with the church.

Historical information

Built in 1846; closed in 1997 when a new church was built on a site further to the north.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25.
Secondary Sources
1. Rev J. O'Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, Ancient and Modern, Vol IV (Dublin, 1887), p 567.
2. UAHS, Glens of Antrim(Belfast, 1971), p 19.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an early 19th century building, erected as a church but now redundant, which has undergone various extensions and additions and other changes, with the loss of a number of original features all of which has diminished its architectural value.