Church of the Sacred Heart

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached single-cell double-height Romanesque Roman Catholic church, built 1911, to designs of E & J Byrne, located to the south of Doagh Road. The church is rectangular on plan with single-storey sacristy and porch to the south-east and porch to the west. There is an engaged round tower to the north-west.

The roofs are pitched and slated with fretted ridge tiles and stone verges. There is a St John’s cross to each gable. The walls are squared-and-snecked rock-faced basalt with sandstone quoins, plinth, sill course and window surrounds. The eaves have sandstone machicolation moulding with cavetto moulded verge and kneeler stones. The windows are round-arched with stepped masonry surrounds.

The principal elevation faces north. It is gable ended with a circular tower to the right. There is a quatrefoil sandstone oculus window to the apex. There is a grouping of three windows with sandstone surround (larger to the centre) to the upper level, with cavetto moulded string course below. To the ground floor is a centrally located round-arched opening surmounted by a triangular hood-moulding with label stops. The entrance is set beneath a moulded archivolt and impost, within which is a secondary arch resting on marble colonnettes which terminate to top and sill level, in decorative sandstone capitals. The entrance doors are double-leaf square-headed raised-and-fielded timber panelled with cast iron handles and a panelled tympanum. The tower is three-staged. The first stage has a single window to upper level surmounted by a stepped string course and second stage which also contains a single window, although diminished in size. The third stage is a sandstone belfry with Ionic columns supporting round-arch-headed colonnade, surmounted by conical roof and ironwork cross.

The east elevation has six pairs of windows, each set within a recessed bay with machicolated cornice and separated by pilasters with quoins. The bay to the left is abutted by the sacristy and porch, which has three timber casement windows with masonry surrounds. The sacristy is entered from the north through pair of double-leaf vertically sheeted timber doors within a shouldered chamfered masonry surround, accessed by modern paved steps.

The south elevation has a grouping of three windows with sandstone surround (larger to the centre) to the upper level, and a blind oculus to the apex. It is abutted to the right by the sacristy containing two square-headed windows.

The west elevation has six pairs of windows, as the east elevation. The tower abuts the left corner. The fourth bay from the left is abutted by a gable-ended porch which contains two windows. The north elevation of the porch has entrance door was that of sacristy, and the south elevation has a single window.

Setting

The church is sited within a residential area in a modern churchyard, with car-park and a modern parochial house to the east. It is bounded to Doagh Road by modern squared-and-snecked rock faced masonry walling surmounted by steel railings, and supporting modern double-leaf gates with a cross motif.

Roof Natural slate
Walling Squared-and-snecked basalt with sandstone dressing
Windows leaded stained glass
Rainwater goods Cast-iron ogee profile

Historical information

The church is first shown on the fourth edition OS map of 1921. The first edition OS map of 1833 shows a previous church on the site marked as ‘Roman Catholic Chapel’ and recorded in the Townland Valuation Fieldbook, dated 1834, as 50.0 length, 28.0 breadth, 16.0 height and valued at £12. 0s 0d.

The Sacred Heart Roman Catholic church was built in 1911 in the Romanesque style, from stone quarried at Ballycarry (McCudden). Land had been donated by Edward Hill, a local Protestant solicitor whose father had donated adjacent land for the parochial house; the costs were £6000, entirely funded by subscription. The Catholic population in the parish was around 500, a considerable increase from the 90 Roman Catholics which had been recorded in the OS Memoirs less than 100 years earlier in 1832.

The Church of the Sacred Heart was built to replace an earlier church which had been built in 1832 and had a capacity of 170. Prior to this, before Catholic Emancipation, there were two recorded Mass Rocks in the parish.

Father James O’Boyle was the driving force behind raising funds for the new church, raising subscriptions in neighbouring parishes and travelling, according to McCudden, as far as Glasgow in order to find funds. The next Parish Priest, Father James Marmion, saw the church completed and dedicated on the 11th of June 1911 by Bishop Tohill.

On opening, the church had no Pulpit, Font or Stations of the Cross, all of which were later gained by donation. McCudden records ‘the side windows were given by an anonymous donor, and the main and side altars were donated by Miss McMullan who was well known for her charitable works in the diocese’. Electric heaters were not installed until the 1940s, at which time the church was being used by American and Belgian soldiers who were billeted in Ballyclare (McCudden).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/45/4 Ordnance Survey (1921)
2. PRONI VAL/1/A/1/51, Townland Valuation Map, (1834)
3. PRONI VAL/1/B/17B, Townland Valuation Fieldbook, (1834)
4. PRONI VAL/2/A/1/45A - Griffith's Valuation Map (1857)
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/7A - Griffith's Valuation Fieldbook (1857)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/1/4D - Valuation Revisions Fieldbook (1887-96)

Secondary Sources

1. McCudden, Ted. “The Parish of Ballyclare and Ballygowan” (September 2002). [Internet Source]. Available from: Accessed 16/10/08.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

A substantial double-height Romanesque style Roman Catholic in a prominent location on the Doagh Road. The church is elegantly detailed and well preserved with rubble walling in contrast to the sandstone dressing, built to designs of architects E & J Byrne in the early twentieth century. The round tower gives the building some character and serves to indicate it as a landmark in the town. The church has been recently renovated and, although there has been significant loss of historic fabric intrnally, it remains a noteworthy example of the style and the work of prominent local architects.

General comments

this was previously numbered as HB21/02/007.