St John's Roman Catholic Church, Castle Hill, Gilford, Co Down, BT63 6HH

St John's Roman Catholic Church

St John's is a detached double-height Roman Catholic church built around 1850 to designs by Thomas Duff. It is located on the west side of Castle Hill in Gilford, County Down. A two-storey extension was added to the west around 2000.

The church is rectangular on plan with a central four-stage square tower. The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, masonry raised verges, and painted cast-iron gutters on projecting eaves course. The walling is rubble built to courses and snecked with a painted projecting plinth and double-height painted diagonal buttresses with offsets projecting with flat tops above the raised verges.

Windows throughout are generally timber-framed decorative lancet windows with cast-iron latticed glazing and inset pivoting oculi, contained within smooth rendered and ruled surrounds with stopped hood moulds and projecting painted masonry sill courses. The symmetrical east gable is abutted at its centre by the tower; exposed sections on the right and left contain one window each, flanked to the tower side by additional painted masonry buttresses.

The tower walls are uncoursed dressed rubble with ashlar angle buttresses and offsets to the first two stages, thereafter ashlar quoins rising to corner piers with pointed pinnacles and filigree finials. Openings are contained within yellow brick surrounds with rubble voussoirs over. The first-stage east elevation contains three small stained-glass lancets with secondary glazing in a co-joined stepped yellow brick reveal with chamfered ashlar sills. East and west cheeks each contain a centrally positioned pointed-arched double-leaf timber panelled door, accessed by two stone steps on the south and a ramp on the north. The second stage east elevation has a double lancet window with oculus above; east and west cheeks contain single lancets. The third stage, delineated by string courses and diminished in height, contains an oculus window on all sides. The fourth (belfry) stage has paired pointed-arched louvered lancets on all sides surmounted by a corbelled overhanging parapet with Irish crenellations.

The south elevation is five windows wide, each separated by a buttress; the leftmost window contains leaded stained glass protected by secondary glazing. The north elevation mirrors the south; the window at right contains leaded stained glass protected by secondary glazing. The west gable has a cross finial and is abutted by the later two-storey extension, which is lower than the nave and sympathetic in design, with natural slate roof and rubble stone clad walling with corner buttresses.

The double-height extension at the west has a natural slate roof and cast-iron ogee profile rainwater goods supported on a projecting eaves course. The walling is random rubble with a projecting painted plinth and double-height diagonal buttresses with offsets above raised verges. Windows are square-headed timber casements with leaded latticed glazing contained within smooth rendered lined bands and painted projecting keyblocks and masonry sills. The west gable comprises a louvred timber door at left flanked by three windows at right, the leftmost diminished in width, with two windows at right at first-floor level. The left cheek contains a timber panelled door with overlight at right, a fixed window at landing level at left, and a diminished window at right at first-floor level. The right cheek contains a window at centre at each floor.

The church stands on a large narrow site accessed at the east via roughly coursed random rubble boundary walls and modern metal gates on decorative posts, with an original pedestrian gate at left; both have granite thresholds. A former single-storey National School dated 1879 is located at the south-east corner of the site.