Survey Data
Reg No
41401301
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1785 - 1840
Coordinates
260791, 331024
Date Recorded
22/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Freestanding Board of First Fruits Church of Ireland church, built c.1788, having four-bay nave, lean-to vestry to north-east, and three-stage square-plan entrance tower to west gable. Pitched replacement artificial slate roof, with cast-iron rainwater goods, truncated finial to chancel, and hipped natural slate roof to vestry. Cut limestone pointed pinnacles and crenellations to tower. Roughcast rendered walls to nave and ground floor stage of tower. Exposed coursed limestone walls with dressed quoins to upper levels of tower and to vestry, with tooled limestone string courses to tower. Pointed-arch window openings to nave (none to north elevation) with stained glass, stone sills and rendered reveals to nave, tripartite window with stone tracery mullions and stained glass to east elevation, having dressed stone surround. Pointed-arch window openings to vestry, with dressed stone surround and decorative latticed windows. Pointed-arch window openings to bell tower, with cut-stone voussoirs and timber Y-tracery mullions and timber slats to second stage. Pointed-arch door opening to south elevation of tower, having dressed voussoirs, and replacement timber battened door having decorative wrought-iron hinges. Chamfered pointed-arch door opening to west elevation of vestry, having timber battened door with decorative cast-iron strap-hinges, lock and handle surround. Church set within graveyard, on elevated site bounded by coursed rubble wall. Wrought-iron double-leaf vehicular gate, hung on octagonal-plan tooled stone piers, to east. Interior has with flat herringbone-panelled ceiling, smooth rendered walls with panelled dado, pointed-arch window openings to south elevation having plain moulded architraves with stained glass. Nineteenth-century memorial plaques to walls. Square-headed timber panelled door to bell-tower from nave, original carved timber pews and pulpit to nave. Marble baptismal font to west end. Antique Doherty reed organ to east end. Replacement rope in porch connected to brass bell at second floor level. Detached three-bay two-storey schoolhouse to south, now disused, with hipped slate roof and cast-iron rainwater goods, camber-headed window and door openings, now blocked up.
Appraisal
Saint Mollua's Church is a good example of a late eighteenth-century Board of First Fruits type church, acting as the local place of worship for the Church of Ireland community in Drumsnat. The church is picturesquely located, forming part of an group with the former schoolhouse to the south and glebe house to the east. The graveyard contains some interesting nineteenth-century gravestones and iron railings, and the grave of two half-sisters of Oscar Wilde. The church, constructed in 1788, has retained its original form and character. Lewis wrote in 1837 that the church and tower were recently repaired and it is likely the vestry was added at this time. The stained-glass window to the east end is of artistic interest and possibly contemporaneous with the construction of the church in the late eighteenth century. The retention of original fittings to the interior, notably the organ, is also significant and enhances the site's architectural heritage and cultural value.