St MacNissi’s College Chapel,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A church in a Lombardic Romanesque style built of reconstituted stone, comprising a long nave and chancel with short twin towers flanking the entrance gable, a taller tower to one side, and flat-roofed ancillary rooms to the rear. Main entrance faces east.

Entrance front: walls of reconstituted stone, rock faced and snecked, with smooth dressings; shallow projecting plinth to main body of building, smooth-finished, in regular courses with angled weathering; raised smooth strips to outer corners of towers; moulded cornice and mock machicolations to towers. Nave gable surmounted by a plain cross on apex; main entrance comprises a rectangular surround with recessed angled stages, containing a pair of rectangular timber double doors, each leaf 10-panelled, raised and fielded. Above entrance is a circular rose window with cruciform tracery incorporating a modelled figure of Christ on the cross in a white material. Above, on apex of gable is a plain stone cross. Entrance doors approached by a flight of seven cement screed steps bounded by low plinth walls of artificial ashlar stonework in regular courses, with angled copings.
Roof of natural slates in regular courses; look like green Westmoreland slates.
Set back from nave gable are short square towers to each side: pyramidal roofs, slated as previous. Rectangular section metal gutters and downpipes.

Elevation to south beyond short end towers comprises a long nave and chancel with continuous roof; projecting lower flat-roofed aisle to right of a central tall side porch tower, with projecting flat-roofed transept to left of central tower, with a slightly lower flat-roofed sacristy to the left of that. All windows semi-circular arched containing tinted leaded lights of neo-Georgian pattern, except four stained glass windows in transept. Tower has a pair of coupled tall timber louvred lancets in upper stage of each face; pyramidal slated roof as previous, surmounted by a circled-cross finial. Tower contains a side doorway to the chapel in its base: comprises a projecting entrance bay of ashlar stonework in regular courses surmounted by a pedimental top, and contains a pair of panelled double doors; one step.
Ancillary block contains a smaller doorway at left-hand extremity: single leaf timber panelled as previous recessed in projecting smooth dressed surround with flat lintel over; lead dressing over lintel; three steps to doorway, bounded by raking plinth walls.

Rear elevation, facing to west, consists of a blank gable to the chancel surmounted by a plain cross on the apex, with a lower single storey flat-roofed ancillary block projecting at the base and returning back along the sides. Rear of ancillary block contains 10 windows arranged as a set of 5 coupled windows.

North elevation: similar to south but without a tall central tower. Two flush rectangular roof ventilator panels, slightly raised. Elevation contains a central side doorway to church in a projecting flat-roofed porch: timber panelled double doors as previous set in plain smooth dressed surround; one step.

Surrounding the perimeter walls of the chapel is a concrete flagged pavement, extending to a larger paved area at the main entrance front; paved area at front approached axially by a symmetrical arrangement of steps, dwarf walls, and a pair of piers, all in reconstituted stone, with a wrought iron lamp standard mounted on each pier.

SETTING: The chapel stands on a slightly elevated position within the grounds of a school from which it is viewed against a steep wooded escarpment. Lawns and grassed areas to each side of chapel and to rear, containing some mature trees and shrubs. Front boundary walling to left of exterior flight of approach steps is new, of smooth render, lined and blocked, with concrete copings, replacing the previous timber fence, all of lighter tone than the adjacent original reconstituted stonework. The school grounds are located in a very rural and scenic area on a headland above the Antrim Coast Road.

Historical information

Built in 1956 to the designs of Padraic Gregory, architect of Belfast, as the private chapel for St MacNissi’s College; contemporary stained glass windows by Daniel Braniff and Watson, both of Belfast.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1972-73, Sheet 35.

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Glens of Antrim (Belfast, 1971), p 23.
2. P. Larmour, 'A Gifted Poet and Architect: Padraic Gregory (1886-1962)', Perspective (J.R.S.U.A.), Vol 4, No 1 (September/October 1995), pp 47-49.
3. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), pp 107-8.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
V. Authorship

Evaluation

This is a good example of a mid-20th century church in a distinctly proportioned Lombardic Romanesque style designed by a leading Irish ecclesiastical architect which retains almost all of its original features including contemporary stained glass of high quality. It enjoys a pleasant setting and together with the adjacent 19th century 'castle-style' school building (HB06/01/027) forms an interesting and attractive group.