Survey Data
Reg No
41401819
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Previous Name
Drumkeen Presbyterian Meeting House
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1800 - 1890
Coordinates
261505, 322566
Date Recorded
29/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached single-cell Presbyterian church, built 1803, renovated and modernised in 1828 and 1889, having five-bay front elevation, and lower recessed two-bay two-storey block to north end, with cast-iron rainwater goods. Pitched slate roof with rendered copings, with rendered chimneystack to junction of blocks. Roughcast-rendered walls with rendered quoins. Pointed-arch window openings to long walls, with rendered surrounds and Y-tracery stained-glass windows.. Pointed-arch doorway to west end of front elevation with timber battened door, having plaque overhead. Recessed block has similar roof and walling treatment and square-headed openings with replacement uPVC windows and timber door. Smooth rendered walls to interior, having carved marble memorial plaques to north elevation, flat plastered ceiling with chamfered coving, plaster medallions to light fixtures, nineteenth-century timber pews with trefoil ornament, open choir boxes to north-east corner, nineteenth-century carved timber pulpit to centre of north end approached by steps on west elevation and having carved quatrefoil ornament to canted front. Square-headed door opening from north-east of nave, accessing meeting rooms and sexton's house. Two square-headed timber panelled doors accessing vestibule at south end, with smooth rendered walls and timber panelled dado. Timber stairs from vestibule to gallery. Gallery having carved timber pews and carved quatrefoil balustrade, supported on single fluted cast-iron round-plan column.
Appraisal
Drumkeen Presbyterian Church was built in the mid-nineteenth century and is typical of Presbyterian design in its simple plan, yet it possesses an attractive carved pulpit, gallery and pews to the interior, as well as having plain but attractive Y-tracery windows with painted margins. The date plaque over the door of the church informs the visitor that the church was built in 1803 but renovated in 1828 and 1889. Situated to the north of the Ballybay to Newbliss road, Drumkeen church is surrounded by a graveyard to east, and the Dundalk to Enniskillen branch of Great Northern Railway runs from east to west to the north of the church.