Raloo Church of Ireland Parish Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A small gabled rectangular church in Gothic Revival style built of snecked greystone in courses, with sandstone quoins and dressings and projecting string course at plinth level, with a gabled porch to the front and a gabled vestry to the rear.

Main entrance front faces east: symmetrical with a single lancet window each side of projecting porch. Recessed pointing, appropriate. Roof of Bangor Blue slates in regular courses between gable upstands with sandstone copings and kneelers; black ridge tiles. PVC guttering and downpipes, replacements; moulded fascia in timber. Modern bronze plaque affixed to front wall of church to left hand side recording consecration of Raloo Parish Church on 18th August 1842; re-hallowed 6th January 1980 following restoration of 1979-80. Windows of Gothic lancet form in projecting chamfered sandstone surrounds, with cusping to heads in white painted stone; leaded glazing of lozenge pattern with clear glass; splayed sandstone cills. Gabled porch with sandstone copings and kneelers; Tudor arch over entrance with dressings of chamfered ashlar sandstone; rectangular timber double doors, each leaf three-panel, below leaded fanlight, lozenge pattern; plain bronze doorknob. Quatrefoil panel, sunken, in lozenge shaped stone in apex of porch gable. Concrete doorstep. One Gothic lancet in each side wall of porch, similar to main wall of church but smaller and cusped framing is of wood painted white.

Ecclesiastical west gable actually faces south: contains three-light window, detailed as to main front, central lancet taller than others, all set in a projecting breakfront with chamfered pinnacles to shoulders and surmounted by an ashlar sandstone bell-cote projecting on a corbel course and hung with a bell in a pointed opening. At ground level near left hand extremity is a recessed rectangular opening dressed in chamfered sandstone containing a cast iron perforated door inscribed ‘Armagh Foundry’.

West elevation symmetrical with a central projecting gabled vestry, all in rubble masonry. Main wall to right of vestry blank; wall to left contains a single lancet, as previous to entrance front except that it is glazed direct without cusped subframe and is set in smooth cement rendered surround, lined. Walling is greystone rubble in rough courses; projecting string course at plinth level. Projecting eaves course in stone with moulded fascia, PVC rainwater goods as previous. Roofs slated as previous but overhanging verges to vestry, without gable coping. Vestry gable contains rectangular timber ledged door with tongued and grooved Gothic tympanum, set in three recessed Gothic arches in smooth cement render. Three concrete steps. North side of vestry blank; south side has one window, Gothic lancet as previous, with chamfered sandstone surround, but plain wooden subframe.

Ecclesiastical east gable actually faces north: contains three-light window of similar lancets to west gable, surmounted by a narrow blind lancet in apex of gable above a blank panel.

Setting: the church stands on an elevated site overlooking the main village, with a deep ravine to its rear where there is a waterfall amongst mature trees. Concrete driveway and area to front of church with grassy graveyard on undulating ground which contains 19th and 20th century grave slabs but none of special architectural interest.

Entrance gates of rectilinear pattern in flat ironwork set between square granite piers with weathered caps, all original. Rubble stone front boundary walling now overgrown by hedges.

At northern end of front boundary, a small pedestrian gate with granite piers, similar to main entrance. Rear boundary formed by modern wire fence with steep drop to river beyond.

Delissted/Relisted 19ht December 2001

Historical information

Designed by Charles Lanyon, architect, who provided his services free; built partly by subscriptions totalling £125 and partly by a grant of £311 from the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society made on 5th May 1840; church started in 1840 and consecrated 18th August 1842. The site was given by the Lord Viscount Dungannon who also presented the font and communion plate, books, pulpit, reading-desk and communion table, and enclosed the churchyard. Built “on or near the site of the cottage formerly occupied by Miss McClaverty ... on the bank near the waterfall”. Renovated 1979-80.

References - Primary Sources

1. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 32: Parishes of Co Antrim XII (Belfast, 1995), pp 90, 95 and 121 [“a church is about to be erected by the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society in the hamlet of Glenoe” in 1840].
2. Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall, Ireland: its Scenery, Character Etc (London, 1843), p 121 [“a new church is building by the waterfall, endowed by Lord Dungannon, and erected by the ‘Church Accommodation Society’].
3. Fourth and final report of the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society (Belfast, 1843), p 31, with lithographic plate.

Secondary Sources

1. L. Ewart, Handbook of the United Diocese of Down and Connor and Dromore (Belfast, 1886), p 33.
2. P. Larmour, Sir Charles Lanyon, Irish Arts Review Yearbook 1989-90, pp 200-206 [illustrated at p 202].
3. C.E. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), p 227.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

This is an early Victorian church in Gothic Revival style which exhibits the proportions, plan form, spatial organisation, and structural system that are characteristic of the style, and retains almost all its original features both inside and out. It also enjoys a particularly picturesque setting. Designed by a leading Irish architect, it is a building of some local interest and social importance.