Drummaul Parish Church, (St Brigid's C. of I.), Church Road, Randalstown, Co Antrim

Drummaul Parish Church (St Brigid's Church of Ireland) is a 19th century Gothic Revival church built in 1831 at a cost of £1,800, of which £1,500 was lent to the parish by the Board of First Fruits and £300 contributed by Lord O'Neill. It replaced an earlier church on the same site dating from 1709. The side aisle was added in 1868, attributed to the architects Welland and Gillespie. The chancel was built in 1872, paid for by the Reverend William, First Baron O'Neill, in memory of his son Arthur. In 1883 the chancel was restored and enriched with tiling at Lady O'Neill's expense in memory of her husband; the baptistry was tiled with a mosaic pavement at the expense of the Honourable Anne O'Neill; and the church was wainscoted at the expense of the Honourable Robert O'Neill, both of the latter also as memorials to Reverend William O'Neill. Three stained glass windows were added at the west end in 1884 at the expense of Lord and Lady O'Neill as further memorials to him. With the notable exception of its roof covering, the church retains most of its original features both inside and out, and is of considerable local and social interest.

The building comprises a nave, chancel, and triple-gabled south aisle, with a square tower at the west end surmounted by an octagonal spire. The main entrance faces north through a gabled porch at the west end of the nave.

The walls are of blackstone rubble, with squared and coursed blackstone to the angle buttresses at the west end and to the south aisle, and similar quality blackstone quoins to the tower base and east end of the nave. Grey sandstone quoins appear at the east end of the chancel and to the gabled projections on the north and south sides of the chancel. A projecting sandstone plinth runs all around the building except across the front face of the main porch. The roofs are tiled, modern replacements for the original slates.

The north elevation presents the nave with the lower-roofed chancel to the left and the square tower with spire to the right. Four windows are set into the main wall of the nave: three to the left of the main entrance porch and one to the right. The three to the left are Gothic arched lancets with grey sandstone dressings, raised surrounds with chamfered edges, projecting moulded hoods, and projecting chamfered cills. The central of these contains stained glass but is currently boarded up following vandal damage; the flanking windows are two-light metal-framed openings with diagonal glazing bars, clear glass, and cusped tracery roundels. The window to the right of the porch is a Gothic lancet with a cusped head; its dressings are flush with the main walling and it contains tinted glazing of leaded quarries. The end bay containing this window projects slightly from the main nave wall and has a crenellated sandstone parapet between angled two-stage buttresses, with sandstone gabled weatherings to the lower stage and sandstone pinnacles surmounting the upper stage. A cast iron gutter runs to the nave, in poor condition, with a painted asbestos downpipe to the right and a cast iron downpipe to the left discharging onto the roof of the vestry porch.

The projecting main entrance porch has a gabled front containing a Gothic doorway with plain sandstone colonnettes bearing moulded bell capitals, floriated stops to the moulded label above, and a sandstone doorstep. The door is ledged and braced with a Gothic head and diagonal pattern boarding, fitted with large scrolling iron hinges and an original ironwork handle. Above the doorway is a small Gothic-headed window in the apex of the gable containing tinted glazing of leaded quarries, with a flagpole mounted in front of it. The gable has chamfered sandstone coping with notched sandstone kneelers surmounting two-stage buttresses to each side. Angled cast iron gutters run to each side wall of the porch, carried on projecting rafters with notched ends and oversailing a projecting sandstone eaves course. A cast iron downpipe of rectangular section to the east side is fixed with a trefoil bracket; a painted asbestos downpipe of circular section serves the west side. Each side wall of the porch has a small Gothic cusped-headed window containing leaded quarries, with the one in the west wall currently boarded up following vandalism.

The chancel has one window to the left of the projecting vestry: a two-light Gothic window with diagonal metal glazing bars, cusped heads, and a quatrefoil tracery light, with a projecting drip mould and cill. A moulded cast iron gutter with a rectangular-section cast iron downpipe serves the chancel. A projecting gabled vestry occupies the right-hand end of the chancel and the left-hand extremity of the nave. Small rectangular windows appear in the north gable and east side of the vestry, their dressings flush with the main walling, glazed with small quarries in diagonal metal glazing bars. A lean-to porch to the right-hand side of the vestry contains a doorway and window in its west face. The doorway has a shouldered arch enclosing a ledged timber door with a Gothic arched fanlight above containing translucent glazing, a modern metal handle, and a scrolling iron lamp bracket above. A short concrete ramp leads up to the door, bordered by a plain black-painted steel handrail. A moulded cast iron gutter serves both the vestry and side porch.

The east gable of the nave is of low pitch and carries a square sandstone chimney at the apex of the gable coping, with a small modern-looking pot and wire cowl. The east gable of the chancel is steeper in pitch and contains a three-light stone traceried window with cusped circular tracery lights, all filled with stained glass and protected by wire mesh grilles; the sandstone dressings are flush with the main walling and set within a basalt Gothic arch. A high Victorian stylised foliated sandstone finial rises from the apex of the gable coping. The south side of the chancel is blank, with a moulded cast iron gutter and cast iron downpipe discharging into a similar gutter on the lower organ chamber, which projects toward the south.

The south elevation comprises the triple-gabled south aisle, with one bay of the nave set back to the left and the tower behind it, and the gable of the organ chamber to the right with the chancel behind. The organ chamber gable has one window, Gothic arched and metal lattice glazed as on the entrance elevation. Its gable has sandstone coping, and downpipes to the left of the window and on the east side wall appear to be of painted asbestos. The south aisle gables have sandstone copings, with a short square chimney to the apex of the easternmost gable fitted with a modern pot and wire mesh cowl. Projecting sandstone hoppers at the two valleys between the gables carry asbestos downpipes painted. Each of the three aisle gables contains a large three-light traceried stone window of cusped and intersecting pattern, with projecting moulded drip moulds and projecting sandstone cills. The west window has metal lattice glazing; the other two contain stained glass, with a steel mesh protective grille over the easternmost. Below the east window is a low, flat-roofed, smooth cement-rendered store with a painted felt roof, reached by concrete steps down to a doorway. The east and west walls of the aisle have low parapets with sandstone copings. The east wall is blank with a painted asbestos downpipe from a concealed gutter; the west wall has one Gothic lancet with projecting drip mould and cill containing stained glass, and a painted asbestos downpipe with a rectangular moulded hopper of uncertain material.

The bay of the nave facing south, set back to the left of the aisle, is similar to its counterpart on the entrance elevation except that only one pinnacle is present, over the corner buttress.

The west elevation is symmetrical and comprises the tall square tower with a slightly set-back raking bay to each side. The tower has a single Gothic lancet in its base stage, with a cusped head and dressings flush with the main walling, containing stained glass. A moulded cast iron gutter with short returns terminates on the left side with a rectangular-section cast iron downpipe fixed with trefoil brackets. Each of the raking bays has one Gothic lancet window with projecting drip moulds and cills containing stained glass. Raking sandstone crenellations form the parapets with spikey pinnacles on the angle buttresses at the extremities. The upper stage of the tower has main walling of basalt rubble set back, with moulded octagonal buttresses of sandstone ashlar to the corners and spikey sandstone pinnacles to the buttresses. One window opening in the west face has a projecting drip mould and contains timber louvres. The other three faces of the upper stage are similar to the west, except that the north face has a large openwork metal clock face with gilded hands and numerals mounted above the louvred opening, and the south face has a rectangular ledged timber door set into the louvred opening, reached by a small ladder. The spire is entirely of ashlar sandstone, octagonal on plan on a stepped base, with two stages of gabled stone lucarnes and an ironwork weathercock at the top.

The church stands facing the main road, set back within its own extensive churchyard. The area around the church to the front, rear, and west is gravelled; the graveyard to the east is grassed. The front boundary is formed by a low basalt rubble wall with rough basalt rock copings. The main gateway at the western end is recessed beyond curving screen walls, with square greystone piers mounted with double gates of modern scrolling ironwork incorporating roundels of St Brigid's Cross pattern. A small pedestrian gateway in the front boundary to the east of the church has similar piers and ironwork. The inner face of the front boundary wall is rendered with a dry dash of blackstone chippings. The western boundary is formed by a modern steel fence bordered by grass with concrete kerbs. The boundaries to the graveyard to the east and south are of basalt rubble wall with basalt rock copings.

To the rear of the church stands a modern hall of gabled form with dry dash render to the walls and synthetic slates to the roof. Close to the east of the church stands the O'Neill Vault, a sandstone tomb in a railed enclosure. Adjacent to it at its north-east corner is a rectangular stone-roofed and smooth cement-sided vault to the Kennedy family of Hollybrook, dating from around 1835, surmounted by two ornamented sandstone urns and entered through an iron-plated door in the east side. Some distance to the south-east is another O'Neill plot, laid out as a terraced lawn surrounded by low iron railings and containing two memorial slabs of somewhat unusual form: each comprises a shamrock-ornamented roundel set in a rustic rock-like slab. The southern slab commemorates the Reverend William, First Baron O'Neill, who died in 1883; the northern commemorates his wife Elizabeth Grace, who died in 1905; both bear religious inscriptions on front and rear. None of the other memorials in the churchyard are of special note. A small section of basalt rubble walling stands among the memorials at the east end of the churchyard, a relic of the predecessor of the present church; it is of very plain character and insignificant appearance.