Sexton's house at St Patrick's RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey gabled vernacular dwelling of perhaps c.1835, originally the sexton’s house and vestry for neighbouring St Patrick’s RC church. The building is situated in a secluded rural location, just to the SW of the church (at the S end of the wall) to the south of Barnfield Road, less than half a mile north of the small village of Milltown, c.2½ miles west of Dunmurry.

The front elevation faces roughly W and is asymmetrical. To the front (W) façade of the house there is a timber sheeted door to left of centre, with projecting flat roofed surround (too shallow to be termed a porch). To the left of this is a boarded up window, with another to right. To right again is another timber sheeted door (leading to a shed section). The gables have no openings (in true vernacular fashion). To the rear there appears once to have been a low level window to the left of centre. The gabled roof has two rendered chimneystacks, one to N gable, the other to S of centre of the ridge.

The walls are finished in roughcast and the gabled roof is slated.

Historical information

St Patrick’s RC Church and sexton’s house
The land on which this church sits was held by the O’Hamill (or Hamill) family in the 17th century. It is not known when a church was first built on the site but it is possible that a member of the O’Hamill family in holy orders, Rev Phelomy O’Hamill, built one here shortly after his ordination in 1667. At this point, and until the building of St Mary’s Church in Chapel Lane in 1784, the parish of Derriaghy, in accordance with its medieval boundaries, took in a large area to the south-west of Belfast as well as the town itself.

In 1744, during disturbances occasioned by the threat invasion of Young Pretender, the church was burnt. It was rebuilt the following year by Rev McMullan. Later evidence provided by the OS Memoirs (1837) states that the post 1745 church was 48ft long and thatched. The building was burnt again during the rising of 1798 and not reopened until 1802, by which time it had been reduced in length (to the present 36ft) and slated. It is not known whether the reduction in length involved the complete demolition of the structure and the construction of a new one, or simply the knocking down of part of the old structure; as the building is graded C+ (i.e. ‘old’) in the valuation of 1835, it is likely that much of the mid 18th century structure remained.

In 1836 the church was completely refurbished and the roof replaced at a cost of £100. The OS Memoirs of the following year describe the building as ‘lighted by 4 Gothic, 1 arch and two oblong windows…[with] the altar in the east end elevated some feet above the floor, and on the north side of it a small place enclosed by timber railing for the choir…’. ‘There is a good yard enclosed by a quickset fence and the exterior of it planted with forest trees. Entrance by a wooden gate and only one person buried in the yard’. The Memoirs do not mention the small dwelling to the south of the church (which acted as the vestry and sexton’s house), nor is the house shown on the OS map of 1832 or recorded in the valuation of 1835. It was in place by 1858, however, for it is shown on the OS map of that year.

The church remained its early 19th century form until the 1920s, when the porch was added. In 1984 electricity was installed, and following a malicious fire in 1986, the roof was replaced.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/1/64/1 OS map, Co Antrim sh 64, 1832
2 PRONI VAL/1B/125 First valuation, Derriaghy, 1835
3 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland- County Antrim II…’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p.104 [1837]

Secondary sources
1 Rev William Reeves, ‘Ecclesiastical antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore…’ (Dublin 1847)
2 Rev J. O’Laverty, ‘Diocese of Down & Connor ancient and modern vol.II’ (Dublin 1878), pp.342-53
3 Rev H.C. Marshall, ‘The Parish of Lambeg’ (Lisburn 1933), p.13
4 Information supplied by Mr Gerry Gordon

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Single storey gabled vernacular dwelling of perhaps c.1835, originally the sexton’s house and vestry for neighbouring St Patrick’s RC church.