St. Malachy’s RC Church,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey church with three storey tower and ‘transepts’, set on the E side of the Carrickmannon Road, c.2 miles S of Ballygowan. This church was originally built in 1807 as a simple ‘barn’ structure, with the tower and the ‘transepts’ later additions. The building has been renovated in recent times and has a sharp, almost new, appearance.

The entrance is located on the S face of the tower, which itself is attached to the W gable, and consists of double timber sheeted entrance doors set in a pointed arch recess with Y-tracery fanlight and label moulding above.

High above the entrance is a simple moulded course which continues around all faces of the tower. Above this (to all faces at 2nd floor level) is a pointed arch recess, louvered within. At first floor level on the W face of the tower is a pointed arch window. The tower is topped with an Italian looking shallow hipped roof with overhang. The roof has a cross pinnacle.

At a high level on the exposed sections of the W gable (to either side of the tower) is a small, crude, pointed arch window opening.
The N and S elevations of the nave have three large pointed arch windows with Y-tracery and fairly simple stained glass. At the E end of the nave are ‘transepts’. That to the N is larger and contains a large semicircular arch headed door to its W face with double timber sheeted doors with large semicircular fanlight. To the immediate right of this doorway is a small lean to projection with a window (similar to those on the nave) to its W face. The N gable of this ‘transept’ has a series of modern looking flat arched window openings.

The S ‘transept’ has a pointed arch window (as nave) to its short W face. To its gable are three similar windows, however, between the 2nd and third windows a large ‘boiler house’ projection has been added. To the right of this ‘transept’ (on the ‘apse’ as it were) is another pointed arch window. There is a similar window to the N face of the ‘apse’.

The rear (E) gable is blank.

To the S elevation of the nave, and set at a high level to the left, is a small pointed arch opening beside which is a ‘plaque’ inscribed ‘Built 1807 Reverend Hugh Green Pastor’.

The church is finished in lined render and painted. Eaves course to nave. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates with decorative red clay ridge tiles. Slight over hang to roof. Metal [?aluminium] rw goods.

Late Victorian looking iron gates to roadside to W of church. Graveyard to N.

Historical information

As the inscribed plaque on the wall states, this church was built in 1807 under the auspices of Rev. Hugh Green, on land granted to the church by Lord Dufferin. The original structure, as shown on the OS map of 1834, was of the barn church type, simply consisting of the rectangular ‘nave’ and described in the contemporary OS memoirs as a ‘plain, oblong building capable of holding from 150 to 200 people standing’. The revised OS map of 1858 shows a small projection to the west gable of the church, which could mean that the tower had been added at this stage. Whatever the age of the tower, photographic evidence dating from the early 20th century shows that it originally had gothic pinnacles, the hipped roof being a more recent alteration. The ‘transepts’ appear to be post 1858.

From the church’s present appearance there appears to have been much in the way of renovation carried out, especially to the interior.

This Church belongs to the RC parish of Saintfield and was built as a subsidiary to the parish church at Saintfield. There appears to have been a medieval church a short distance to the east of this in Kilcarn townland. The site of this church has been used as a cemetery since at least 1757, but nothing now remains of the church itself. A few miles to the north of this, in Ballynichol townland, there appears to have been a small RC church marked on the 1833 OS map (next to the ‘Horned Cairn’), but by 1858 it appears to have been abandoned. Could this church have taken over its duties?

Primary sources
1 PRONI MIC 1D/63 Records of Carrickmannan Church.
2 PRONI D.1071 Dufferin Papers.
3 PRONI OS map 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
4 PRONI OS map 1st ed. 1834, Down 16.
5 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p.91.
6 PRONI OS map 1st rev. 1858-60, Down 10.
7 PRONI OS map 1st rev. 1858-60, Down 16.
8 EHS HB24/16/50 1st survey notes and slide.
9 EHS OS map 186-2 (1:2500) 1974.
10 Photograph of Carrickmannan church [?c.1920s] in possession of Mr. D. Porter of The Square, Ballygowan.

Secondary sources
1 R.S.J. Clarke ‘Gravestone Inscriptions…Vol.5’ (UHF 1970), pp.90-95.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Much renovated and now relatively plain single storey church with three storey tower and ‘transepts’. This church began life in 1807 as a simple ‘barn’ structure but appears to have largely taken its present form in the mid to later 19th century. Most of the Victorian gothic detailing has been removed, however, most notably the pointed pinnacles to the tower, which itself is now topped with a shallow continental looking hipped roof, somewhat out of place in a rural Co. Down church. Internally the building has an overwhelmingly plain modern feel, much in keeping with its sharp (almost new looking) external appearance.