St Mary's RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

19thC Catholic church in Gothic Revival Style situated in a small churchyard on the SE side of the junction of Newry Road and Newry Street.

Pitched natural slate roof aligned N-S with overhanging painted granite skews. Open granite two-stage bellcote, with bell and metal Celtic cross finial on N front gable; granite cross finial to S (rear) gable. Walls are wet dashed in cement and painted, with smooth rendered basecourse.

N gable is the front elevation. Main entrance is to centre. The two stage door case is slightly advanced under a shallow pitched cross-topped moulded cornice. The door is contained within a Gothic headed opening with stop-end chamfered reveal and comprises a pair of diagonally-sheeted stained timber doors with ornate cast iron strap hinges. Over the doorway is a large rose window with quatrefoil centre and radial glazing framed by stone mullions. Its architrave is smooth rendered and has a semicircular hood which continues over the flanking lancets.

To left and right of the entrance are tall windows that rise up to flank the rose window. Each consists of a pair of horizontally divided lancets. Each section has a cusped head; the bottom panels are infilled and the top ones are glazed and their spandrels are filled with a distorted quatrefoil (lower portion may once have been glazed also). The glazed sections all have security grilles over.

The moulded dripstone over the rose window continues (with a punctuated leaded flashing) over the two lancets. In apex over the rose window are three narrow lancet ventilators (with central one taller) all with a common cill.

Left (E) elevation is five window openings wide and also has a small leaded quatrefoil window to the extreme right end. All windows are tall and Gothic headed with painted cills. Three (2nd, 3rd and 5th from left) are divided into pairs of lancets by timber Y-tracery and have coloured leaded glass; each lancet has a casement opening inset. The extreme left window and the second from right (excluding the quatrefoil) have lost their tracery and now contain five horizontally divided panes of painted and stained glass (see interior).

Rear (S) gable of the main church is blank and abutted by the sanctuary. The latter is lower and narrower, under a hipped natural slate roof with plastic half-round rainwater goods. Each of its cheeks (W and E) has a leaded lancet window. Its S (rear) wall is abutted by the sacristy, the pitched roof of which ties into the hip of the sanctuary roof and catslides to the E with a modern metal flue. The sacristy’s W cheek is flush with the W cheek of the sanctuary but its E cheek advances until its in line with the E elevation of the main church. It has a Gothic headed window with pair of lancets on its W wall, a small rectangular window with Y tracery divisions on its S wall, and a modern window and an eight panelled stained timber door on its E wall.

W (right) elevation of main church is the mirror image of the E wall, but without the quatrefoil window. The four left windows are Y-tracery with coloured and leaded glass. That to extreme right end has stained and painted leaded glazing (see interior)

Church is set within a graveyard to its S (rear) and W sides. It is enclosed by modern cement dashed wall to sides and (to front) by a dwarf wall supporting modern wrought iron railings; matching decorative gates and piers.

Historical information

General Meade gave the site to the Bishop of Dromore under a 500 year lease, rent free, on 10 November 1829. Ordnance Survey Memoir states that it was built by public subscription in 1832 at a cost of £250 and capable of accommodating 400 people. Appears on the 1833 OS 6” map without chancel or porch – these are first shown on 1860 OS town map thus indicating that they were mid-19th century additions.

Primary Sources;
1. OS 6" map, 1st edition (1833) Co Down sheet 41 (PRONI OS 6/3/41/1)
2. Ordnance Survey Memoir, Drumballeyroney Parish (1834).
3.OS 1:500 scale town map, Rathfriland (1860), (PRONI OS 8/24/1/3)
4. 1978-9 photograph in Architectural Archive 5-33 Hill Street.

Secondary Sources:
1. P.J. Rankin “Hilltown and Rathfriland List” Belfast (1978-9).
2. Information (untitled) in Public Library, John Street, Rathfriland.
3. A.M. McCracken “Rathfriland” in Public Library, John Street, Rathfriland.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This early 19thC church has been much altered and remodelled in the Gothic Revival Style some time in the late 19thC, and retains no original features. It has been further altered to accommodate modern liturgical requirements. One window by Clarke Studios (1947) is worthy of mention.