Gartree C. of I. Church, Gartree, Largy Road, Crumlin, Co Antrim

Gartree Church of Ireland is an early 19th-century Gothic Revival church built in 1831 as a chapel of ease to the parish church of Killead, on the estate of Sir Hercules Pakenham. The architect was James Sands, an Englishman who worked elsewhere in Ulster at the time (a contemporary source mistakenly names him as Edward Sands, a name otherwise unrecorded). The church was consecrated on 6 December 1831 by the Bishop of Down and Connor, with services beginning on 27 May 1832. The total cost was £1,200, made up of a £900 grant from the Board of First Fruits and a personal gift of £300 from Pakenham, who also endowed the church with £100 per year. The building occupies the site of an ancient graveyard (ancient monument ANT58:4), noted on the 1832–3 Ordnance Survey map as "New Church in Old Grave Yard".

The church retains its original features both inside and out, including the rare survival of the former landlord's family aisle intact, and is of special historical interest as a relic of the former Pakenham estate as well as being of continuing social importance to the local community.

EXTERIOR

The church is constructed of basalt rubble with sandstone dressings throughout, and consists of a nave and chancel, with a pinnacled tower at the west gable and a gabled transeptal projection on the south side. The main entrance faces south, through the base of the western tower.

The south elevation presents a three-bay nave with a lower chancel to the right and a three-storey tower to the left. The nave roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses, contained by sandstone copings to the gables at each end, with cast iron gutters and downpipes at each extremity. The walling is basalt rubble with original lime mortar pointing, a projecting chamfered sandstone plinth, a projecting sandstone eaves course, and two-stage angle buttresses at the extremities.

The nave elevation is symmetrical, with one window to each side of a central projecting gabled transept which contains the private aisle of the original benefactor. The south elevation of this transept is three bays wide, comprising a gabled central portion flanked by a flat parapeted bay on each side, each terminating in pinnacled angle buttresses. The gable and parapets have moulded sandstone copings, and the walling matches the main nave except for five courses of brick filling to the corners below the ends of the parapets. The central gabled portion is marked by two-stage buttresses with sandstone weatherings and contains a central Gothic lancet window with projecting chamfered sandstone surrounds, partly spalling, surmounted by a projecting moulded label. The window has metal tracery painted white, is two-light with a cusped roundel to the head, and has lozenge-pattern glazing bars containing two bottom-hung vents. The nave windows on each side of the transept are similar but have only one vent each.

The west wall of the transeptal projection has walling as described above, with a moulded sandstone coping to the parapet that abuts a label stop of the adjacent nave window. It also contains a Gothic-arched doorway with sandstone dressings similar to the windows, featuring stop-chamfered jambs. The door itself is a rectangular four-panelled timber door with glazed upper panels and raised-and-fielded lower panels, beneath a Gothic-arched fanlight containing two glazed panels of Gothic quadrant shape. A cast iron downpipe sits in the corner with the nave. The east wall of the transeptal projection is similar to the west, except that the door is six-panelled and has a panelled timber rail between the door and fanlight. The roof of the transeptal projection is slated to match the nave.

The side of the chancel, to the right, is a blank wall with projecting plinth and eaves course matching the nave; the slated roof is contained to the right by gable copings, with a metal gutter and downpipe.

The tower is of square plan and three storeys in height, with walling matching the nave and moulded projecting stringcourses at each level. The ground and first floors have clasping buttresses of basalt rubble; the second floor has octagonal sandstone pinnacles to each corner, projecting upward as octagonal finials, with what appear to be smooth rendered crenellated parapets and sandstone copings to the crenellations. The ground floor of the south face has a Gothic-arched doorway of similar design to the other doorways but larger, containing a rectangular four-panel timber door with a two-panel Gothic-arched tympanum, a wrought iron handle, and a sandstone doorstep. Above the doorway is a projecting sandstone shield without inscription. The first floor has a roundel with a moulded sandstone surround, filled with a timber panel containing a small circular opening. The second floor has a Gothic lancet opening dressed as the other windows, containing wooden louvres.

The western face of the tower is similar to the south but has a narrow Gothic lancet window to the ground floor, with lozenge-pattern metal glazing bars in a white-painted metal frame. The north face of the tower is similar to the other two faces but has no openings at ground or first floor level, with a cast iron downpipe to the left-hand side at each level. The east face of the tower has similar treatment at the top storey as the other faces.

The west elevation of the nave, to each side of the tower, has plain walling with a pedimental feature at the top where the projecting eaves course returns upward at an angle to form the gable coping. In the west gable to the south of the tower, at ground level, is a small rectangular opening containing an iron door with ventilation holes; the inscription is illegible.

The north elevation of the nave has three windows. Roof, rainwater goods, and walling are as described for the south elevation. The windows are Gothic lancets as on the south elevation, except for the central window which has stained glass and an attached protective steel mesh grille. The north side of the chancel is similar to the south side.

The east gable of the nave has walling as the entrance elevation, with projecting sandstone copings; the projecting eaves courses of the north and south walls return for a short length on each side. Below the gable copings, on a raking line, are four rectangular cast iron ventilator grilles, two to each side. The east gable of the chancel has similar projecting sandstone copings with short projecting eaves courses returning from each side. At the centre is a Tudor-arched window dressed as the other windows, containing three-light perpendicular Gothic tracery in sandstone, with stained glass and steel wire mesh grilles. Below this window, at ground level, is a segmental relieving arch with roughly shaped basalt voussoirs.

ENTRANCE ARCHWAY

The entrance archway was built in 1832 by the parishioners at a cost of £80, in memory of Captain John Armstrong of the 7th Royal Fusiliers and agent of the Pakenham estate, who died in 1830.

It is a large Gothic Revival archway built of painted sandstone ashlar, comprising square piers in two stages connected by a Tudor arch. The front elevation faces south. The front face of each pier has a weathered buttress to the lower stage with a moulded cornice above; the upper stage of each pier has a rectangular sunk panel containing white marble inscription plaques, a moulded cornice, a plain blocking course, and a tall pyramidal pinnacle on top with a foliated stone finial. The spandrels of the arch have moulded quatrefoil motifs and moulded cusping; the parapet above has moulded quatrefoil piercings. The gates are wrought iron double gates, painted silver. To each side are short curving screen walls, smooth rendered, lined and blocked, with flat sandstone copings, all painted, terminating in short square piers with weathered caps. Abutting the pier to the east is the rubble stone boundary wall of the churchyard. Abutting the pier to the west is a rendered wall, wet-dashed using small stones, with a projecting smooth-rendered coping, which connects with the single-storey church hall. The rear elevation of the gateway is similar to the front but without inscription plaques to the piers, and with plain unmoulded rear faces to the arch and parapet.

SETTING

The church stands in its own churchyard in a remote and very rural location. The churchyard is grassed with a gravel-covered area to the entrance front, numerous yew trees, and no memorials of any special architectural or historic interest. The churchyard is entered via the entrance archway with curved screen walls, approached by a tarmac driveway bordered on each side by low concrete kerbstones. The north and south boundaries of the churchyard are formed by rubble basalt walls of no distinction. The east and west boundaries are each formed by a belt of trees, with a plain iron gate to the east. Surrounding the churchyard is flat agricultural land, formerly a wartime airfield, with distant views to Lough Neagh. To the south are large industrial warehouses of no architectural distinction. Adjacent to the west end of the front boundary wall is a church hall of no special merit: a single-storey rendered building with wet dash finish, a slated roof, modern rectangular timber fixed-light windows with top-hung vents, and rectangular ledged timber doors.