St. Patrick’s RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

St. Patrick’s RC Church is situated on the west side of the Ballygalet Road within the tiny ‘hamlet’ of Ballygalet.

It is a long simple, single storey, rough cast rendered, gabled building, with the sanctuary gable facing the road. Recent gabled porch and sacristy extensions have been added to the W gable and the left hand side of the N facade. The main timber sheeted entrance door is located to the far right hand side of the N facade on the side of a gabled porch extension. The door itself is framed with pilasters and a semicircular fanlight. To the left of this (in the main body of the building) are five evenly spaced lancet windows with smooth cement surrounds. To the left of these windows is a small flat roofed entrance porch (for the priest’s access) and a boiler room. A stainless steel flue rises from the flat roof to above the eaves of the main building. Immediately to the left of this small extension is the blank gable of a larger sacristy extension.

Slightly off centre on the W gable of the main building is the gabled porch extension which has paired lancet windows to its W side. To the S side of (and flush to) the porch is a small flat roofed extension with a squat equilateral window to its W facade. All windows to these extensions, as to the rest of the church, have smooth cement surrounds. High on the W gable of the main building are two lancet windows.

On the S elevation of the main church are seven equally spaced lancet windows.

To the E gable is a triple lancet window arrangement, with centre window tallest, with all windows on same cill. To the right hand side of this gable is the E side of the sacristy with paired lancet windows. All gables, except the sacristy, have cross motif finials.

All pitched roofs have Bangor blue slates with dark grey//blue fire clay ridge tiles with fleur-de-lis (or shamrock) like motifs. Cast iron gutters and down spouts.

Graveyard to S and W of church with headstones dating to 1839. Low rendered wall to road to E of church with square rendered gate posts, square pyramid caps and cast iron gates.

Historical information

St. Patrick’s Church Ballygalet was originally built in 1784, with the assistance of the Savage family of Rock Savage, and replaced an earlier thatched mass house, where the parochial house now stands. The building was enlarged in 1835 by Rev. John Maguire, and rebuilt in 1878.

Roughly half a mile directly to the north of St. Patrick’s, is Knockdoo, a hill which was the site of a medieval church and graveyard, mentioned in the 1306 records of the taxation of Pope Nicholas under the name ‘Ecclesia de Sithe’ (‘Church on the hill’). The burial ground on this site may have been in use up until the seventeenth century, but there now appears to be little trace of the church. North of the former burial ground once stood a castle, built by Rowland Savage in the early 1600s, but nothing of this remains either.

References- Primary sources
1 “Ecclesiastical taxation in the Dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore”, ed. William Reeves, in Ecclesiastical antiquities of Down Connor and Dromore, ed. William Reeves (Dublin 1847) p. 22. [Records of the medieval church.]
2 Montgomery’s MSS ‘History of the Ards’ (1683), pp. 6-7. (Original MS in the Linenhall Library, Belfast). [Montgomery mentions the Savage Castle at Ballygalet.]
3. PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 25.
4. PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision, 1860, Co. Down 25.

Secondary sources
1 Rev. J. O’ Laverty 'Diocese of Down and Connor Ancient and Modern' (1878, reprinted 1980), Vol. I p. 420.
2 G.F. Savage-Armstrong 'A genealogical history of the Savage family in Ulster, being a revision and enlargement of certain chapters of “The Savages of the Ards'” (London 1906).
3 R.S.J. Clarke (compiler) 'Gravestone Inscriptions Vol.13, County Down, Barony of Ards' (U.H.F. Belfast 1975), pp. 26-33.
4 Amy Anderson ‘The Manor of Ballygalet’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.1' (1977), pp. 2-3.
5 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards' pp. 125-26.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Simple, unassuming, but ultimately bland, rural parish church, rebuilt in 1878 on the site of an eighteenth century structure.