Ardquin (C of I) Parish Church, Abbacy Road, Ardquin, Portaferry, Co. Down, BT22 1PQ

Ardquin Church of Ireland Parish Church stands on a rise just east of Abbacy Road, approximately three miles north of Portaferry, in County Down. This small, simply designed Commissioners' Gothic church was consecrated on 19 January 1827, following the creation of the separate parish of Ardquin by Bishop Mant in 1825. The church is little altered and benefits from a fine rural setting with accompanying graveyard.

The building comprises a single-storey nave with a three-storey crenellated square tower positioned to the south-west. The tower has diagonally buttressed corners that stop below the uppermost level. The south-west elevation of the tower features a timber-sheeted double door set within an equilateral arch with chamfered stone architrave and label moulding. Above this door is a long narrow diamond-paned lancet window in a chamfered opening with label moulding; the uppermost level has a similar but smaller louvered opening. The north-west and south-east elevations of the tower are blank except for the uppermost level, which matches the front elevation. The tower is battlemented; it originally had tall corner pinnacles but these were removed in 1982. A chamfered plinth runs around the tower base.

The remainder of the church is a simple gabled building with pitched roof covered in Bangor blue slates. Three windows to each side are similar to the middle-level lancet on the tower's front elevation. The rear gable end features a small gabled projection housing the altar, which has a large equilateral opening comprising two lancet windows and a quatrefoil, all with diamond panes. Attached to this projection on the south-east elevation is a small rubble-built gabled vestry with a small lancet window to its south-east elevation and the outline of a now-blocked shouldered-head doorway on the south-west elevation. The façade is largely finished in rough-cast render.

The graveyard to the north-west and south-east of the church contains both Catholic and Protestant headstones dating back to at least 1769, along with a cross slab of uncertain date. A low rendered wall with wrought iron gates stands directly in front of the church, flanked by higher rubble walls on each side.

The site has significant older heritage. A church, abbey, and bishop's manor existed in this area during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, documented in Papal taxation records of 1306. The remains of a later manor—still sometimes called "The Abbacy"—built by Bishop Echlin in the early 1600s, are visible just metres to the west of the present church.

In January 1839, the Great Wind caused severe damage, blowing off the church roof. The roof was subsequently repaired using cast iron scissor trusses similar to those employed in the contemporary re-roofing of the neighbouring Ballyphilip Parish Church, which suffered damage in the same storm. The building remains substantially as constructed, with the removal of the tower pinnacles in 1982 the principal documented alteration.