Garvaghy Parish Church, Garvaghy Church Road, Fedany, Dromore, Co Down, BT32 3SB

Garvaghy Parish Church is a small, single-celled rural parish church in simple Gothic style, constructed in 1699 on an elevated site overlooking Garvaghy Church Road, south-west of Kinallen settlement in the Dromara hills, County Down. The church is Church of Ireland and is also recorded as a monument. Its principal qualities lie in its simplicity — it is almost entirely devoid of ornament — its Gothic proportions, its largely intact original setting, and its remarkable depth of history, with ecclesiastical use of the site traceable to at least the early medieval period.

Origins and History

The site's Christian origins are ancient. A grave marker uncovered in the churchyard around 1960 was authenticated as dating from approximately 900 AD, indicating use as a Christian settlement from the early Christian period. Garvaghy Parish is mentioned in Papal Taxations of 1422 and 1546. The church site was attacked during the 1641 Rebellion, and during Oliver Cromwell's Inquisition of 1657 the medieval church was found to lie in ruins. The current building was constructed in 1699, incorporating the remaining walls of the medieval church as its foundation. Lewis's Topographical Dictionary records that the church was built in the Grecian style and replaced an earlier building that was already in ruins at that time.

By the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey maps in 1833, the building appeared as an oblong structure, with the north-west entrance porch already in place. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 and 1837 described it as a "small plain building with a belfry... 60 feet long and 30 feet broad... the inside plain but neat, the aisle paved with limestone." It could accommodate a congregation of 120 people and was at that time undergoing general repair work at a cost of £28. The Townland Valuation assessed the church at £4 2s.; by 1861 this had been revised upward to £8. Neither this valuation nor that of the associated schoolhouse changed through to the end of the Annual Revisions in 1928.

Alterations over the Centuries

A number of significant changes were made during the 18th century. In 1743 the current church bell was installed. In 1780 an extensive renovation resulted in the construction of the current vestry room and the removal of the church's original chancel. The church's rectory was constructed in 1820 at a cost of £800 but was sold in 1885 when Garvaghy Parish was joined with Dromara Parish.

In 1895, approaching the church's two-hundredth anniversary, the roof was repaired and rebuilt at a sharper pitch than the original. In 1924 a war memorial tablet was erected in memory of those who served in the First World War, and an organ was installed in 1932. Electricity was connected in 1955. In 1962 more extensive repairs were carried out, including the installation of heating appliances and new pews. In 1986 electrical heating replaced the earlier stoves, and in 1988 a replacement organ was purchased for £3,200.

The church was listed in 1977 and continues to be used as a place of worship, still grouped with Dromara Parish Church, with a congregation of around thirty families.

Exterior Description

The church is rectangular on plan, with a porch to the west and a later vestry to the north. The roof is pitched natural slate with rendered skews, timber eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods. A simple Gothic bellcote sits over the west gable. The walling is ruled-and-lined render over a projecting plinth.

The entrance gable faces west and is blank, abutted by an asymmetrical gabled porch that catslides over a lean-to store. The porch has stone skews that return to suggest a simple open pediment detail. The door is a replacement timber sheeted door with a stone step, and there is a timber notice board fixed to the right. The store is blank and has a single ventilation slit to the west. To the left of the porch, at ground level, is a cast-iron door formed in sandstone leading to a ladder hold.

The windows throughout are cast-iron lattice lights. On the north elevation there is a paired lancet offset to the right, set in a square-headed dressed sandstone reveal. The 19th-century vestry, positioned to the left on the north side, is of exposed squared rubble masonry with roughly dressed quoins, set over a tall cement-rendered plinth. The vestry is lit by a paired window in a long-and-short sandstone surround to the east, and is accessed from the south by a timber sheeted door in a chamfered surround of similar detailing. The east gable has a central pointed-arched window with interlocking sandstone Y-tracery in a long-and-short sandstone surround, and a decorative apex stone. The south elevation is lit by two paired windows detailed as those on the north.

Interior

The interior has been modernised but retains a simple character.

Setting

The church occupies a rural roadside setting on a built-up site above the road, contained by a rendered retaining wall and bounded by mature planting including yew trees. Burial grounds surround it on three sides; the earliest noted grave marker is dated 1729. There are foundations of a watch house to the west.

The site is accessed via a tarmac drive to the north, entered through a recessed opening with a pair of wrought-iron gates on monolithic granite piers. To the right is a separate pedestrian entrance gate leading to a small winding path bounded by high rendered walls on either side.

To the south-east, on the opposite side of the road, stands the former late 19th-century schoolhouse, which is now in use as a church hall. The schoolhouse is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and so predates that date; it closed as a school in 1969 and has been used for church functions including Bible study, group meetings, and Sunday school from at least 1973. Griffith's Valuation recorded the schoolhouse at £2 10s. The building has a pitched slate roof, rendered walling, and a projecting porch with curly bargeboards. Its windows are metal casements and there are toilet block extensions to the east end. The interior is simple, with a boarded floor and the remains of a timber sheeted partition screen. Although of little intrinsic architectural interest in itself, the schoolhouse contributes to the socio-historic interest of the site as a whole.