Drumballyroney Old Church, Bronte Interpretive Centre, Church Hill, Aughnavallog, Banbridge, County Down, BT32 5LX

Drumballyroney Parish Church is a plain Board of First Fruits hall-and-tower church, built around 1780, situated on an elevated site on Church Hill Road to the north-east of Rathfriland. It is now in use as the Brontë Interpretative Centre. The building retains much of its original fabric and is a good representative example of rural church building of the period, constructed in restrained local granite with traditional detailing funded by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Together with the adjacent former schoolhouse, it carries significant additional historic interest through its associations with the Brontë family and their literary heritage.

The church has a simple rectangular plan, aligned east to west, with a tower at the west end and a gabled porch to the north. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate, with stone skews and cast iron rainwater goods on plain corbelled eaves. The walls are roughcast with a slightly projecting plinth. A stone stringcourse marks each stage of the tower and continues across the west gable at eaves level.

The windows throughout are triple lancets with iron lattice glazing and projecting granite cills, except where noted below. The west gable is otherwise blank, occupied entirely by the tower. The tower's ground stage contains the entrance on the north side: a timber sheeted door set in an elliptical headed opening with a simple moulded granite surround and timber tympanum, reached by three modern steps and a ramp. A double lancet window is positioned to the south of the ground stage. The tower's second stage has a blank pointed arched recess to the south. The belfry stage has a pointed arched louvred lancet with a chamfered sandstone reveal to each facet. The tower is finished with granite coping stones and pinnacles.

The north elevation is otherwise blank and is abutted to the left by the gabled porch. The porch has a replacement herringbone timber sheeted door set in a cement rendered reveal, surmounted by a blind roundel, and a square-headed lattice window to the west. The east gable is lit by a triple lancet. The south elevation is lit by three triple lancets, each inset with a central inward-opening bottom-hung casement.

The church is set on elevated ground with wide views over the surrounding countryside and towards the Mournes to the south and east. To the south is a small burial ground bounded by hedgerow and mature trees, containing dated burial markers from the early 18th century, with several stones appearing to be of earlier date. Immediately to the south-east, sharing the site, is the former Drumballyroney School, also now restored as part of the Brontë Interpretative Centre. To the east is a picnic area featuring a mosaic plaque depicting a scene from Wuthering Heights, and a tarmac car park bounds the site to the east. The northern boundary with the road is formed by a roughcast boundary wall, which incorporates a wrought iron pedestrian gate to the picnic area and a pair of wrought iron vehicular gates aligned on axis with the tower, each gate supported on square piers with pyramidal caps. An interpretative plaque is displayed within the boundary on a lych frame.

The historical record for the church's date of construction contains some ambiguity. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1836 state that Drumballyroney Church was constructed in 1780 at a cost of £900, provided as a grant from the Board of First Fruits. However, the contemporary Lewis' Topographical Dictionary records that the church was erected in 1800 with a gift of £500 from the Board. The Memoirs described the building as a plain rectangular structure with a square tower, measuring 57 by 28 feet. There has been little discernible change to the layout since the early 19th century, and the first edition Ordnance Survey map confirms that Drumballyroney School had also been constructed by that time, prior to 1830, situated to the east side of the church. The Memoirs further note that the church's two-storey Glebe House, located to the south-west of the church in the same townland, was constructed in 1822 by the Reverend John Dubourdieu.

In the 1830s, the Townland Valuations valued the church at £6 11s, though the adjoining schoolhouse was not included in those valuations. By 1862, Griffith's Valuation recorded the church's value as £8, and this figure remained unchanged through to the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

The site has an early ecclesiastical history: a church was recorded in the area in both the 1422 and 1546 papal valuations. The hill on which the current church stands formed part of land belonging to the Gaelic O'Rooney Clan, and the graveyard has been used for burial since at least the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century. When originally completed, the church was known as St John's Church. Drumballyroney was united with Drumgooland Parish until 1839, when it became independent, before being united with Drumgath in 1902. The church continued in use as a place of worship until its closure on 20th December 1970, and was formally deconsecrated on 20th February 1976, after which the church and schoolhouse were purchased to house the Brontë Homeland Interpretative Centre.

The church's most celebrated historical association is with the Reverend Patrick Brontë (1777–1861), father of the novelists Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë. The Reverend Tighe, vicar of the neighbouring Drumgooland Parish Church and known as the "father of Irish Evangelism", established Patrick Brontë as a schoolmaster in Drumballyroney schoolhouse and assisted him in gaining acceptance to Cambridge University, where he studied for ordination. It is traditionally believed that after his ordination Patrick Brontë returned to Drumballyroney Church to preach his first sermon. A plaque within the church records: "Within these walls the Rev. Patrick Bronte preached his first sermon in the autumn of 1806 and never had anything in his hand the whole time."

The church and former schoolhouse together form part of a wider group of historically significant buildings in the area associated with the Brontë family, which are maintained as local tourist attractions and include properties on Brontë Road and the Brontë Memorial House.