St. Saviour’s C of I Parish Church, Church Street, Greyabbey, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2NQ

St. Saviour's Church of Ireland Parish Church

St. Saviour's is a relatively simple snecked rubble-built gothic Church of Ireland parish church of the 1860s, set on a rise off Church Street on the northern edge of Greyabbey village. The building incorporates a tower and spire originally belonging to an earlier church of the 1770s, which it replaced.

The roof is covered with Bangor blue slates with decorative Cumberland green slate bands. All rainwater goods are cast iron.

The long north wall features two projecting bays, with the right-hand projection serving as the main entrance porch. The porch has timber-sheeted double doors supported on wrought iron hinge straps, set within an equilateral gothic arch opening with sandstone dressings, drip moulding and label stops. Flanking the porch are small narrow windows with sandstone dressings and small diamond panes. To the right of the porch are two tall lancet windows with small diamond panes and drip stone mouldings that merge into a string course. To the left of the porch are four tall lancet windows of similar design. The string course stops on a small buttress. The second projecting bay houses the vestry, which is surmounted by a tall sandstone chimney stack. The vestry's centre features a window composed of twin lancets surmounted by a quatrefoil, all set within a pointed arch opening with sandstone dressings. The right face of the vestry contains a single-leaf door similar to the main entrance but without dripstone moulding. The left face is blank. To the left of the vestry is a single lancet window, slightly shorter than others with a higher cill and without drip moulding.

The east gable has three tall lancet windows as described previously, but taller in proportion, and one small lancet window close to the apex.

The long south wall is filled with two lean-to projections. The larger contains the side aisle; to its right is a much smaller porch and boiler house. This porch has an equilateral arch opening with simple sandstone dressings and a deeply recessed timber-sheeted door. To the right of the door are paired lancet windows with sandstone surrounds. The side aisle lean-to to the left has a roof that dresses directly into the main roof. Its long south side has four sets of triple lancet windows with cusps, each featuring small diamond panes and sandstone dressings. Rising from the main church wall at the junction of the two lean-tos is a large chimney stack, with the lower portion in rubble tapering to an upper section in dressed sandstone. The upper section is oval in plan with two chimney pots.

At the south-west corner is a short covered passageway leading from the church interior to the base of the eighteenth-century tower. The corridor has a pointed arch opening with sandstone dressings and sheeted door to the east and a triple lancet window with sandstone dressings to the west.

The four-storey tower has a slightly corbelled and castellated parapet surmounted by a tall octagonal spire. The spire features quatrefoil openings to each face at the lower level and circular openings to each face at approximately mid-height. The tower has two small round openings to each face at the third floor. At the second floor of the west face is a tall louvred lancet opening. The first floor of the east face has two tall flat-headed windows with small diamond panes. The ground floor of the east side has a small shouldered arch opening with sheeted timber door. All openings on the tower have sandstone dressings. The lower half of the tower is strengthened with steel angles connected with welded steel bars.

The main west gable has a small pointed arch window opening over a large circular rose window, which in turn is positioned over three evenly spaced pointed arch windows with drip mouldings and string course. All windows have small diamond panes. The main corners of the walls are strengthened with double buttresses which reduce at upper levels, constructed of random rubble with sandstone dressings.

The main body of the church was built in the late 1860s, replacing an earlier church of the 1770s, of which only the tower survives. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, the original church was described as "prettily situated but excessively small, dimensions 45 feet by 21 feet...with a small gallery for the use of the Montgomery family". At this stage there was also a small schoolhouse just to the north of the church, which appears to have been founded by the Kildare Place Society in the eighteenth century.

The listing extends to the church, gates, piers and walling.