All Saint's Parish Church, 36 Tullylish Road, Tullylish, Craigavon, Co. Down, BT63 6DP

All Saints Parish Church, Tullylish

This is a double-height rural parish church in Gothic style, built in 1861–62 to designs by Welland and Gillespie of Dublin, who served as architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It stands on the west side of Tullylish Road on an elevated site immediately south of the River Bann, in the rural area of Tullylish, County Down. The church is the most recent of a group of associated historic structures on and around the site, which has origins as early as the 6th or 7th century. The building retains most of its original interior and exterior fabric and is notable for its association with the Reverend William Butler Yeats, who was rector at the time of construction and was grandfather to the poet W.B. Yeats and the painter Jack Yeats.

History and Context

The site is thought to have origins in an early Christian monastery, enclosed within a rath-like structure to the east of the present church, though the parish does not appear in documentary sources until valuations of 1422 and 1546. The early parish church was reportedly destroyed in the 1641 rebellion, was recorded as ruinous in 1657, and was rebuilt in 1698 on the same site. In 1827 the church was enlarged and a square pinnacled tower was added with the help of an £800 loan from the Board of First Fruits. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 describe it as "a very old building, lately enlarged at the expense of the parish," capable of accommodating 600 people and "generally very full."

A new church was considered necessary to serve the growing town of Gilford and the linen bleaching and manufacturing communities of Lawrencetown. The old church was described as "so small as not to hold the one-half of those anxious to attend religious service therein." The local landowner A.J.R. Stewart approached the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who agreed to fund a new church at a cost of £4,000 provided that £925 was subscribed locally. Stewart was the most significant subscriber and also donated the land. The contractor was James Henry of Belfast, and the benches and woodwork in memel timber were designed by William Fullerton, diocesan architect. The foundation stone was laid in March 1861 by A.J.R. Stewart, and the church was consecrated and dedicated in October 1862. Contemporary accounts described the setting as "very picturesque, being distant from the busy hum and bustle" of Gilford, "in rather a secluded spot over the banks of a pretty large river."

The church was first listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 at a valuation of £50, with no further significant changes recorded thereafter. It was renovated in 1889–90, at which point the heating system, previously reliant on stoves, was replaced. A window was dedicated in memory of Dean Myles in 1954, and the baptistery was extended and renovated in 1981.

Exterior

The church is rectangular on plan and executed in a simple Gothic style, enlivened by a tower in an understated French Gothic idiom. The walling throughout is random coursed basalt over a plinth, with tooled sandstone quoins and dressings. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with ridge crestings, stone verges with kneeler stones, and ogee cast-iron rainwater goods on stone-bracketed eaves.

A three-stage bell tower rises from the south-east corner, and a gabled porch is set into the re-entrant angle between the tower and the nave. To the north is a lower gabled chancel, with a vestry and choir room abutting at the north-west. The tower has single-stage angle buttresses with battered bases and string courses between stages. Its uppermost stage is topped with a pavilion roof with fishscale banding, surmounted by a decorative cast-iron filigree rail. A three-quarter-engaged octagonal stair tower, flush with the south gable, abuts the tower to the south-west; its exposed facets have staggered openings, all square-headed except for a lattice lancet at the top.

Windows are generally cast-iron margined lattice lancets set in chamfered sandstone reveals, with two 20th-century stained glass replacements. Doors are timber sheeted with studding and wrought-iron strap hinges, set in ordered sandstone surrounds.

The principal elevation faces east onto Tullylish Road. The tower stands at the left end with the gabled porch to the re-entrant angle; the exposed nave elevation is four windows wide. The porch has a varnished Gothic-arched timber-sheeted door with studs and wrought-iron strap hinges, set within a moulded stone reveal with voussoirs. To the apex of the porch is a stone shield datestone reading: FOUNDATION STONE OF THIS CHURCH / WAS LAID BY / …STEWART ESQ, JP / ON THE 15TH DAY OF MARCH / AD / 1861. The north cheek of the porch has three close-set lattice windows with stained glass central panels in a contiguous chamfered sandstone reveal.

The tower has a lancet to the south and east at first-stage level. The diminished second stage has a group of three small lancets to each face. The belfry stage has a Y-traceried stone opening with louvres to each facet. The south gable has three close-set lancets to the centre, with a rose window above, all with leaded lattice glazing, and a small rectangular grille in a stone surround at ground level to the left.

The west elevation is abutted to the left of centre by the west transept, with the nave again four windows wide. The gabled vestry occupies the re-entrant angle. The transept has a window to the south above a lean-to brick boiler house, and a pair of lancets to the gable surmounted by a lozenge-shaped traceried rose window. The vestry has a shoulder-headed varnished timber door with a stone reveal and relieving arch over, a shield datestone above, a margin-paned lancet at high level, a large rose window to the gable apex, and two pairs of lancets to the north. The north gable is abutted by the chancel, which has three stained glass lancets with flush stone reveals.

Interior and Fittings

A chancel window was donated by Alexander and Lady Isabella Stewart and manufactured by Messrs Evans Brothers of Shrewsbury at a cost of more than £50. The font was supplied by Mr Robinson of York Street, Belfast. The organ is by Evans and Barr. The church retains most of its original interior fabric.

Setting and Group

The church is set in picturesque rural surroundings on an elevated site immediately south of the River Bann. The site is bounded by a basalt boundary wall with saddleback coping. The tarmacadamed forecourt is accessed through a pair of cast-iron gates supported on painted ashlar masonry piers with exaggerated chamfers and offset pyramidal caps fitted with lamps. Across Tullylish Road lies the churchyard, bounded to the road by the former verger's lodge and containing the tower and gable of the earlier church. A modern two-storey church hall is also situated across the road. The church forms a notable group with the former verger's lodge and the remains of the earlier church, and the third edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1900 records the broader setting as dotted with bleach greens, mills, and the substantial houses of linen merchants along the River Bann.