St. Colman's Church of Ireland, Church Avenue, Dunmurry, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2DT

St. Colman's Church of Ireland is a Gothic-style cruciform-plan Church of Ireland church with tower, built in 1908 to designs by Percy Morgan Jury of the well-established and highly regarded practice Blackwood & Jury, an Arts and Crafts architect. The church is located on Church Avenue, off Dunmurry Lane, midway along a suburban thoroughfare in the village of Dunmurry. It is proportionally robust and modest in scale, and achieves its architectural quality through subtlety of detail and the quality of its materials. Both externally and internally, the building has retained much of its original character and historic fabric.

EXTERIOR

The roof is pitched and covered in Westmoreland Green slate with red clay ridge tiles, intermittent roof vents along the ridge line, and a chamfered sandstone corbel course. Rainwater goods consist of cast-iron ogee-moulded gutters and circular downpipes, painted black. Walls are constructed in sandstone rock-faced rubble with cementitious ribbon pointing, with ashlar surrounds, mouldings, string courses, and moulded details throughout. Windows are leaded, with equilateral-pointed-arched Y-tracery and stained glass set into irregular sandstone long-and-short surrounds. Doors are diagonal timber-sheeted, with equilateral arched openings, long-and-short sandstone surrounds, and cast-iron ironmongery.

PRINCIPAL (WEST) ELEVATION

The principal elevation faces west and comprises a gable with a tower to the right. The tower is square in plan with clasping buttresses. The central entrance is accessed by a single stone step and is set within an ashlar sandstone surround with a chamfer stop, with a hood moulding above featuring large foliated label-stop mouldings. Above the entrance, at belfry level, is a timber louvred arched opening. The tower rises to cornice level, which is lower than the principal ridge, and is terminated by a shallow pitched pyramidal slate roof. The stonework at high level is notably different in character. The gable has a central window above a projecting baptistery with an offset lean-to sandstone roof, flanked by gableted piers inset with cusped panelling. The baptistery has three square windows divided by stone mullions, with a single square window to either side. A reticulated tracery window is embraced by an equilateral arch with an inclined apex and hood moulding with large foliated stop-mouldings. The gable terminates with an inclined apex stone, coping falling to a pier with a cavetto cornice and cusped motifs over the left buttress.

LEFT (NORTH) ELEVATION

The left elevation is asymmetrically arranged. The nave to the right is three windows wide, each bay divided by two staged offset buttresses that break the eaves. The shallow projecting north transept is gable-ended and contains a large leaded light set into sandstone tracery, with a diagonal buttress with a mid-offset to the right and a kneeler stone at the gable shoulder. To the left, the gable-ended organ chamber abuts the transept with matching details but no buttresses and no openings.

REAR (EAST) ELEVATION

The rear elevation is composed of a series of diminishing gables projecting eastward. The outer two gables have matching details and diagonal buttressing to the transepts. Centrally, above a modern single-storey lean-to vestry room of no architectural interest built around 1950, is the stained-glass east window set into sandstone tracery.

RIGHT (SOUTH) ELEVATION

The right elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a small single-storey gable-ended robing room projecting from the right-hand side, containing central single rectangular windows on its south and east faces. A heating chamber, accessed by stone steps, is located beneath the robing room. A tall stone chimney stack projects from eaves level of the chancel. The secondary entrance is located on the west cheek of the robing room and consists of a single leaf with no hood moulding. The south transept and nave elevation match the arrangement of the left elevation. The tower is to the left on this side, with paired rectangular stained glass windows on the south elevation and louvred openings at high level.

SETTING

The church sits in an elevated position on a raised site, midway along the suburban thoroughfare connecting Dunmurry Lane to Kingsway. The surrounding buildings are large detached two-storey 20th-century dwellings. The site is accessed by a narrow gated vehicular entrance to the left of the principal elevation, with a smaller stepped pedestrian gated access to the right. The perimeter is lined by hedges, with a row of trees along the left elevation that partially obscures the view of the church. The rectory is located immediately to the right. To the rear of the church there is a memorial garden and lawn.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

St. Colman's first appears on Ordnance Survey maps of 1925, although it was built earlier. The Annual Revisions first record the building in 1909, with ownership attributed to the Representative Church Body and a valuation of £85. The valuer's notebook records the construction cost as £3,200 and the purchase price of the site as £140.

The church was built in 1908 as a chapel-of-ease of Drumbeg, with its entire parochial district taken from Drumbeg. It came about as a result of residents of the rapidly growing village of Dunmurry wishing to have their own place of worship rather than travelling to Drumbeg. Minutes of the Drumbeg Select Vestry meeting of 28th December 1903 record a formal petition: "We the undersigned members of the Church of Ireland resident in the neighbourhood of Dunmurry, respectfully request the Select Vestry of Drumbeg to take into their earnest consideration the question of providing church accommodation in this village." The matter was eventually passed by the Select Vestry in 1906, at which point two possible sites were identified: land offered free of charge by Mr Victor Coates of Rathmore, and the potential alteration of Dunmurry Hall. The hall, known as the Assembly Rooms, had been built in 1874 for religious and community purposes using funds raised by the villagers under the leadership of Miss Charley and her sister Mrs Stevenson. Neither site was ultimately selected, owing to disagreement over location and a desire for a building exclusively for worship. A site close to the centre of the village was eventually acquired from the Northern Bank.

Following consent from the Bishop of the Diocese, Percy Morgan Jury was appointed as architect and his plans were approved in 1907. The foundation stone was laid by Reverend A. J. Cash, and the church was consecrated on St Mark's Day, 25th April 1908, by the Right Reverend John Baptist Crozier, Lord Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore. It was Dr Gaussen, a leading figure in the original petition, who proposed the name St Colman's Church of Dunmurry.

The organ was installed following a donation from Mrs Andrew Carnegie, who in 1909 offered to pay half of its cost, with the remainder raised by the congregation. Further funds were obtained from the Marshall Beresford Fund in 1910 for the installation of a spire and bell, although it appears the spire was never erected. The church remained a chapel-of-ease until 6th January 1932, when the parish of Dunmurry was created and the Reverend R. C. Ellis was appointed as its first rector. A vestry room was added to the rear of the church around 1950, and restorative work to the roof and stonework was carried out in 2010.