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

St Colmcille's Tower and Spire

A freestanding High Victorian Gothic church tower with spire, approximately 150 feet high, built around 1890 and formerly attached to St Colmcille's Church, which was completed in 1874. The tower is now all that remains of the original church, which has been replaced with a contemporary building constructed in 1993. The tower stands on an elevated site at the western approach to Holywood town, on the south side of Belfast Road, positioned within a group of church buildings.

The tower is rectangular on plan and comprises four stages, including a belfry stage, topped by an octagonal ashlar sandstone spire with lucarnes. The walls are constructed of squared uncoursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with red Locharbriggs sandstone dressings. All corners are articulated by offset two-stage angle buttresses, except the south-east corner which features a semi-engaged octagonal stair-tower rising to the third stage. The lower stages are delineated by a flush ashlar platband, with the platband between the second and third stages functioning as a cill course. This course bears the 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 distinguished by a moulded string course and features octagonal corner piers, plainly detailed to midway point with central decorative carved stone detail extending from impost level of the belfry openings. The upper half of these piers displays elongated panels. The 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. The parapet is gabled at the centre and pierced with lancet and plate tracery style openings.

The south elevation contains the entrance, consisting of a pointed-arched diagonally-sheeted timber door with strap hinges, deeply recessed within a surround of moulded sandstone head with hood mould and carved stops, all set on recessed red sandstone colonnettes with foliated capitals and impost moulding. A further raking string course runs above the entrance. The second stage has a lancet on either side of a statuary niche containing a statue of Mary on an octagonal base and pedestal, topped with a gableted canopy featuring trefoil detail. The third stage is narrower and contains a pair of blind lancets, each framed by a slender colonnette.

The west elevation features a pair of lancets to the first stage, separated by a red sandstone colonnette. The second stage has two lancets, while the third stage has a group of four blind lancets, similarly detailed. The east elevation is identical to the west. The north elevation has a recessed lancet statuary niche containing a statue of St Colmcille.

The stair-tower is lit by a series of small staggered pointed arched loop openings, with a series of elongated loops to the top section. The belfry stage is similarly detailed to each side, each having a paired open lancet opening framed by clusters of slender colonnettes with carved hood moulds beneath voussoirs. Above each paired opening is a plate tracery rose in a moulded surround.

Throughout the tower, openings consist of a variety of lancets, all with chamfered sandstone dressings and polychrome sandstone voussoirs. Some are blind; others are decoratively glazed with stained and leaded glazing.

The church is set within painted cast-iron railings on a rock-faced sandstone plinth wall, enclosing the site from Belfast Road and My Lady's Mile. Immediately to the north stands the modern church, built in 1993. To the east are a mid-twentieth-century two-storey presbytery and church office. Access is from Belfast Road at the west via a tarmac drive; main gates are located on My Lady's Road, consisting of a simple rock-faced screen with flat coping, inset with pedestrian gates and matching sliding vehicular gates. The parking area features a large decorative circular panel with a dove and olive branch at its centre. To the east are several granite table memorials commemorating incumbent priests, and a finely carved stone Celtic Cross memorial inscribed to the memory of Right Reverend Monsignor O'Laverty, died 1906.