Survey Data
Reg No
16314001
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social, Technical
Previous Name
Saint Kevin's Catholic Chapel
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1845 - 1855
Coordinates
313879, 196919
Date Recorded
05/08/2003
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached six-bay single-storey gable-ended Gothic style Roman Catholic church, with two-bay chancel, built in 1846-51 to designs by James Joseph McCarthy. The building has a simple rectangular nave with the chancel to the east and gabled porch to the south and a gabled vestry to the north. The walls, which are of squared granite rubble with dressed granite to the openings and a moulded granite string course, are interspersed with reducing buttresses. The pitched roof is slated and has granite parapets with a bellcote and cross finials. The original entrance is to the west gable and consists of a pointed arch timber double door set in a moulded reveal with three-quarter colonettes, however the entrance used today is set within the porch to the south and consists of a pointed arch opening with wrought-iron ‘gates’, splayed reveal and drip stone, with the decorative stops in the form of human heads. The windows are generally tall and narrow with pointed arch heads; most are filled with geometric pattern stained glass with pictorial stained glass to those to the east gable. The church is set within relatively large well tended grounds. The single-cell interior has plain plastered and painted walls, exposed roof timbers and a part tiled and part terrazzo floor. There are two groups of late 19th-century bench pews set at either side of a central aisle and to the west end there is a timber Gothic style confessional and a tall similarly styled door screen. The altar has c.1990s fittings.
Appraisal
Neat, well preserved Roman Catholic church of 1847 in the simple unadorned Gothic style much favoured at that time. The church is of considerable local significance, having been built (along with Saint John's Church) as part of a Famine relief programme.