St Colmcille's Tower & Spire, 2a My Lady's Mile, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 9EW

St Colmcille's Tower and Spire is all that remains of the former St Colmcille's Roman Catholic Church, which was destroyed by arson in 1989 and subsequently demolished. The tower and spire were completed around 1891 to designs by Mortimer Thompson, working in the High Gothic style, and stand as an impressive freestanding structure approximately 150 feet high, built in local Scrabo sandstone with red Locharbriggs sandstone dressings that give the whole composition a vigorous polychromatic character. The carved stone ornamentation is accomplished and assured, its effect heightened by the soaring proportions of the structure. Following the destruction of the original church, the tower and spire were retained and integrated into a new church building completed in 1993, designed by architects Rooney and McConville in a contemporary Celtic-revival idiom using similar rock-faced sandstone walling.

The tower is rectangular on plan and sits on an elevated site at the western approach to Holywood town, to the south side of Belfast Road. It rises in four stages, including a belfry stage, and is crowned by an octagonal ashlar sandstone spire with lucarnes. The walling throughout is of squared, uncoursed, rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with red Locharbriggs sandstone dressings. All corners have offset two-stage angle buttresses, with the exception of the south-east corner, where a semi-engaged octagonal stair-tower rises to the third stage.

The lower stages are separated by flush ashlar platbands; the platband between the second and third stages doubles as a sill course and carries the following inscription: "THE CHURCH OF ST. COLUMBA DEDICATED JUNE 14TH 1874 / NEW CHURCH BUILT AND TOWER RESTORED 1993 AD / HAVE MERCY O LORD ON THE SOUL OF PATRICK READ / BY WHOSE BEQUEST THIS TOWER WAS COMPLETED AD 1890." The belfry stage is delineated by a moulded string course. At belfry level, octagonal corner piers are plainly detailed to mid-height, with central decorative carved stonework extending from impost level, and elongated panels to the top half. These piers rise to panelled pinnacles flanking the spire, which is further enclosed by a parapet on all sides, slightly overhanging on a series of stone brackets, gabled to the centre, and pierced with lancet and plate tracery-style openings.

Openings throughout the tower consist of a variety of lancets with chamfered sandstone dressings and polychrome sandstone voussoirs. Some are blind, while others are decoratively glazed with stained and leaded glass. The stair-tower is lit by small staggered pointed-arch loop openings, with elongated loops to the upper section. At belfry level, each face is similarly detailed, with paired open lancet openings framed by clusters of slender colonnettes under carved hood moulds and beneath voussoirs, with a plate tracery rose in a moulded surround above.

The entrance elevation faces south and contains a pointed-arched, diagonally-sheeted timber door with strap hinges, deeply recessed within a surround of moulded sandstone with a hood mould and carved stops, all set on recessed red sandstone colonnettes with foliated capitals and impost moulding. A raking string course runs above the entrance. The second stage of this elevation has a lancet to either side of a statuary niche containing a figure of Mary on an octagonal base and pedestal, topped by a gableted canopy with trefoil detail. The third stage, which is narrower, has a pair of blind lancets each framed by a slender colonnette. The west elevation has a pair of lancets to the first stage separated by a red sandstone colonnette, two lancets to the second stage, and a group of four blind lancets to the third stage, detailed as before. The north elevation contains a recessed lancet statuary niche with a figure of St Colmcille. The east elevation is identical to the west.

The church sits within a setting enclosed to Belfast Road and My Lady's Mile by painted cast-iron railings on a rock-faced sandstone plinth wall. Immediately to the north is the modern church of 1993, and to the east are a mid-20th-century two-storey presbytery and church office. The site is accessed from Belfast Road to the west via a tarmac drive; the main gates on My Lady's Road consist of a simple rock-faced screen with flat coping, set with pedestrian gates and matching sliding vehicular gates. The entry area features a paved parking area with a large decorative circular panel incorporating a dove and olive branch at its centre. To the east stand a number of granite table memorials commemorating incumbent priests, and a fine carved stone Celtic Cross memorial inscribed to the memory of the Right Reverend Monsignor O'Laverty, who died in 1906.

Holywood has been an ecclesiastical site since the 7th century, but Catholics had virtually no religious representation in the town between 1642, when a massacre took place in the area, and 1811, when the Catholic Parish of Newtownards and Holywood was constituted. Mass was celebrated in various private buildings until the construction of St Patrick's Church in Church View, consecrated in 1830 and shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. That earlier church was later used as a National School from 1889 and subsequently as a Church Hall before being demolished in 1977.

Following expansion of the Catholic population in the area, the Reverend James O'Laverty — historian and author of the History of the Diocese of Down and Connor — vowed, while conducting a historical tour to Iona, that he would build a parish church dedicated to St Colmcille (also rendered as St Columbkille) in Holywood. The competition to design the church was won in 1869 by Timothy Hevey, who had been an assistant of Pugin and Ashlin. In 1870, the Irish Builder published an illustration of Hevey's design in its originally intended location beside the Second Presbyterian Church in High Street; the church as eventually built departs from this design in certain respects. Father O'Laverty is said to have preferred the present site, and the foundation stone was laid in 1872. The church was consecrated in 1874, with the contractor being John Ross of Belfast at an initial cost of £3,493. O'Laverty's diocesan history contains a full description of the church as built, and he notes that at the time of consecration in 1874 the tower had only been constructed as high as the nave.

Timothy Hevey died in 1878, and the tower and spire were completed by his younger partner, Mortimer Thompson, to a design that did not greatly differ from Hevey's original. A Mortimer Thompson is also known to have been the agent of Lord Dufferin and supervisor of some of his architectural projects in the 1850s; it may be that the architect was his son. The designs were drawn up in 1888 and the tower completed in 1891, bringing the total construction cost to £7,468. A plan of the church and tower is shown on valuation town plans dating from around 1867 and 1898. The church first appears in Annual Revisions in 1872 as a "site of new RC Chapel" and is not given a valuation until 1890, when it is valued at £160. It appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–02, captioned "St Columkille's RC Church."

After the destruction of the church in the arson attack of 1989, a decision was made to rebuild in a contemporary style and Rooney and McConville were appointed as architects, with Killowen Contracts of Warrenpoint as contractors. The new building was placed on the site of the previous church while leaving the spire detached as a separate element. A circular plan was adopted to facilitate participation by the assembly as required by the Second Vatican Council. The altar, ambo, tabernacle, and baptismal font in Portuguese limestone were designed by Richard King of Dublin, who also designed the paschal candlestick, tabernacle lamp, processional cross in bronze and enamel, stations of the cross, tabernacle door, and angel panels. The stained glass windows are by Lua Breen of Donegal, and the mosaic backing to the font is by Helen McLain of Holywood.