St Mary's Roman Catholic Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Exterior Description and Setting
A Victorian stone-built church in Gothic Revival style of Early English type, laid out on a cruciform plan consisting of a nave, transepts, shallow chancel and transepts, a square tower in the angle of nave and the right-hand transept, with the original sacristy and later flat-roofed accommodation in brickwork extending from the rear.

It stands in a very rural area within an extensive car park facing the public road.

The main entrance faces south-west in a later modern porch which encloses the original main entrance in the front gable of the nave.
The later main porch is built of modern reconstituted stone of different coursing and character from the original building, with a flat roof behind a stepped crenellated parapet. There are modern rectangular panelled doors in the front and sides, with a deep projecting steep rectangular box-like canopy in concrete over the front entrance. A broad flight of concrete flagged steps fixed with modern tubular steel handrails leads up to the front entrance.

The walling of the original church is hammer dressed snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings. There is a projecting pinth around the building, and short lateral buttresses to the four main gables and an eaves-height clasping buttress to the tower. Three of the main gables are surmounted by an ornamentally treated ironwork cross.
Roofs are of Bangor blue slates in regular courses.
Rainwater goods are of aluminium.
Windows in main gables and the nave are narrow cusped Gothic arched lancets which contain stained glass with small quatrefoil traceried ocular windows also appearing high in each main gable.

The tower is of square plan and rises in three main stages to a parapet which has stepped 'Irish' crenellations. Its windows are of the same general character as before, with timber louvres in the top stage. There is a Gothic arched doorway in the east wall of the tower at the base, containing a pair of arched timber boarded doors fitted with later metal handles.
An octagonal stone font stands outside the door, presumably the original font for the church, which is now used as a flower tub.

The sacristy, located in the angle between the chancel and the east transept, has essentially the same architectural character and detailing as the rest of the church but has been altered following the removal of the original parochial house to which it was joined, resulting in a partly swept roof and the addition of a modern porch with modern rectangular door and glazed screen and a tympanum panel of asbestos-cement slates below an oversailing gabled roof. Loose stonework quoins to the sacristy have been supported by iron cramps. There is a modern rectangular three-light window in the gable of the sacristy, while loose stonework quoins to one corner have been supported by iron cramps.

The modern single storey accommodation across the rear of the church is in brickwork and contains modern rectangular windows and doors.

SETTING:
The ground to the front and sides of the church is laid with tarmac with no boundary enclosure to the front. To the rear there is a rough grass area. Standing to the east side is a low single-storey modern parochial house with white painted walls and roof of mansard form replacing the original parochial house which was in Gothic Revival style in stone, contemporary with the church.

Historical information

The precise date of building is not recorded but it was after 1854 as a previous church on the other side of the road is indicated on the OS map of that year. It has been dated by one authority to c. 1870.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map of 1854 (previous church shown on other side of road).

Secondary Sources
1. A.J. Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979), p 327.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

This is a good example of a Victorian church in a Gothic Revival style, which exhibits both good proportions and detailing. The building is of both local and social interest despite the inappropriate addition of the front porch and the loss of the original setting to car parking.