St. Patrick’s Church,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing gable-fronted single-storey stone church, built c.1856, facing west with a bellcote and gabled entrance porch to its front gable, and three gabled projections to the rear (east) gable. Rectangular-on-plan (seven windows wide), located to the east of Glen Park Road and to the south of Main Street Gortin on a corner site.

Steeply pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and stone ashlar fractable to all gable ends, resting on corbelled kneeler stones. To the principal west gable a stone ashlar bell-cote with offsets to the base and a short buttress rising from a secondary gable wall having offset stones. The bell-cote has a shouldered bell arch containing an iron bell and fleur-de-lys mouldings to the coping. Cast-iron box-guttering on convex sandstone corbels and cast-iron downpipes.

Rough hewn rubble-stone walling with tooled ashlar quoins to all corners, an ashlar splayed plinth course and a projecting string course below sill level. Low level diagonal buttresses to all corners, except to rear gable which has buttress extending in line with the gable. Cement rendered wall to rear gable with a blind trefoil panel, some cement strap-pointing to entrance porch and to south elevation.

Gothic window openings formed in flush chamfered sandstone ashlar, arranged in pairs to the north and south nave elevations and to the rear gables of the lower east projections. Large tripartite arrangement of gothic window openings to the rear east gable. Cast-iron quarry glazing with margin lights, with etched and coloured glass to some windows, stained glass to others. Trefoil opening above paired window openings to both the lower rear gables.

Front west gable with a projecting secondary gable wall with offset head and single buttress rising to meet the large bell-cote above. To either side of projecting wall is a single window opening. The lower gabled entrance porch has a single window opening to the gable with a paired opening to the south side and a gothic door opening to the north side with a hood moulding, deeply splayed stone ashlar surround and double-leaf tongue-and-groove wood-grained timber doors with iron furniture, opening onto a large stone step and wrought-iron boot scraper.

North side elevation is seven bays wide with all windows arranged in pairs. To the vestry is a door opening with a shouldered pseudo arch in chamfered sandstone ashlar and a tongue-and-groove wood-grained timber door with iron furniture, opening onto a stone platform and steps.

Rear elevation comprises three gabled projections to the cement rendered rear gable, with short buttresses to the flanking lower gables. Tripartite window arrangement to the chancel gable and paired windows to the lower gables.

South side elevation as per north side elevation.

Setting:
Set on an elevated corner site with a gravel drive opening onto Glen Park Road to the northwest, through a pair of cast-iron gates to sandstone ashlar piers, and a further pedestrian iron gates to stone arch opening onto Main Street, Gortin. Site enclosed by rubble-stone wall with stacked coping containing many stone and marble grave markers dating from early nineteenth-century to present, including some box-tombs.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Stone rubble / ashlar
Windows: Cast-iron
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The building is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1905-6, and the site is recorded in Griffith’s Valuation of 1858 as a ‘church, national school house and graveyard’, the building valuation being £38.

According to Rowan, the church was built in 1856 to designs by Joseph Welland, ‘…replacing the first lower Badoney church of 1730’. The second window on the north is by J.B Capronnier of Brussels, 1872. (1979, pg 311).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/18/1 -First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/18/2 -Second Edition OS Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/18/3 -Third Edition OS Map (1905-6)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/45A -Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/39/6A-E -Valuation Revisions (1860-1929)
6. PRONI VAL/12/E/178/2 -Town Plan of Gortin.

Secondary Sources

1. Rowan, Alistair. The Buildings of Ireland-North West Ulster. Penguin: 1979.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Free-standing gable-fronted single-storey stone church, built c.1856. This picturesque stone church occupies a prominent site, opposite the entrance to Beltrim Castle (HB11/16/013) and surrounded by a collection of interesting buildings including the Ulster Bank (HB11/16/010) which was the former rectory built for the church, and the former Beltrim National School (HB11/16/019) to the West. Retaining all its original features and located in a substantial churchyard this building displays a high degree of nineteenth-century craftsmanship and a strong historic association with the Cole-Hamilton family of Beltrim Castle.