St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church Donegall Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2FL

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a free-standing, symmetrical double-height stone building in the Romanesque Revival style, built around 1875 to designs by Timothy Hevey and Mortimer Thompson. It is located on a slightly elevated site on the east side of Donegall Street in Belfast, facing west.

The church is T-shaped in plan with an apsidal sanctuary to the east. It features a pair of lean-to side aisles and apsidal side chapels. A four-stage tower with spire rises from the front west elevation. Ancillary structures include a pair of two-storey blocks built around 1960 abutting the east elevations of both transepts, and a further three-storey brick block abutting the north transept, also built around 1960.

The building is constructed of coursed and squared rock-faced red sandstone ashlar walling, uncoursed to the rear elevation. Flush pale sandstone platbands run across the elevations, with a double convex continuous string course over the ground floor and splayed sandstone trims to the red sandstone plinth course. Weathered angle buttresses with gableted heads support the structure throughout.

Window openings are generally round-headed, formed in voussoired flush sandstone surrounds with bowtel moulded heads, stop-chamfered reveals and splayed sills. A continuous sandstone platband runs at impost level. Windows contain leaded glazing throughout.

The front west elevation is dominated by a rectangular-plan entrance bay housing the narthex, which rises as a square-plan tower surmounted by an octagonal-plan spire. This is flanked by a pair of side entrances housed in lean-to side aisles. The base of the tower is occupied by a triple-height round-headed stepped arch with a crocketted gable above, framing a large stone rose window made up of a series of oculi. The rose window is set above an arcaded stage stepped to accommodate the gabled door surround below.

A pair of square-headed door openings with roll-moulded heads are set within the base of the arch. The doors are diagonally-sheeted stained timber with decorative cast-iron furniture, framed by polished limestone columns with stiff-leaf capitals supporting a stepped round-headed arch. The arch contains a decoratively carved foliate tympanum and a statue of St Patrick supported on a single column between the paired openings. The doorcase is framed by a shallow gable with foliate stop labels and surmounted by a stone Celtic cross. Above this is an arcade of round-headed window openings with leaded glazing, flanked by slender columns with stiff-leaf capitals.

The stone rose window comprises a series of oculi filling the head of the giant arch, with three stepped roll-moulded voussoired heads rising from three slender limestone columns (two descending to ground level) with stiff-leaf capitals and banding.

The angle buttresses to the four corners of the tower meet to support a pair of blind arcaded pinnacles to each side elevation, supported on carved seraphim corbels and flanking slender crocketted gables. The upper part of the tower is encircled by a pierced balustrade with three round-headed openings and slender colonnettes to each elevation, flanked by weathered angle buttresses. Those to the side elevations feature hooded niches and colonnettes. A corbelled course over this stage supports a further balustrade with angle buttresses rising to single plinths supporting octagonal spirelets to the belfry-stage.

An octagonal base to the spire rests among the spirelets, with a slender round-headed opening to the cardinal faces having louvres and framed by engaged colonnettes. The tapered stone spire has decorative lucarnes with colonnettes and poppy-head finials to the cardinal faces, and is surmounted by a further stone finial and a wrought-iron Celtic cross.

The side entrances have square-headed door openings set within round-headed arches springing from limestone columns with stiff-leaf capitals and elaborate foliate carving to the tympanum. The doors are double-leaf, diagonally-sheeted timber.

The north nave elevation includes a gabled section to the aisle entrance flanked by weathered buttresses and surmounted by tapered stone finials, with a simple rose window to the gable. The centre of the elevation features a single-height apsidal chapel. The north transept projects beyond the nave with a double gabled elevation facing west. The north facing gable to the transept is rendered in pink cement and features bipartite round-headed window openings with central roundels at gallery level and a rose window to the gable. A gabled doorcase to the transept has a square-headed door opening with roll-moulded head, stop-chamfered jambs, a double-leaf diagonally-sheeted timber door with cast-iron furniture and a semi-circular fanlight over the lintel cornice with leaded glazing.

The flat-roofed three-storey extension abutting the north transept, built around 1960, is constructed in pink brick.

The east rear elevation has a central double-height apsidal sanctuary flanked by lower gabled side chapels, which are in turn flanked by a pair of two-storey blocks. The apse is abutted by a series of weathered buttresses. The side chapels feature flush rose windows. The northeast vestry block has paired square-headed window openings with flush sandstone surrounds and leaded single-glazed timber sash windows. The southeast block has a hipped slate roof with iron finial, slender round-headed window openings and a deeply set round-headed door opening to the south elevation with stop-chamfered sandstone surround, diagonally-sheeted timber door and fanlight.

The south nave elevation is detailed as per the north nave but retains its coursed rock-faced red sandstone ashlar walling throughout.

The roofs were replaced around 1996 following fire damage sustained around 1995 and subsequent restoration. The replacement roofs comprise pitched natural slate with lead valleys, roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles with a semi-conical roof to the apsidal sanctuary and roof light. Semi-conical slate roofs cover both apsidal side chapels. Decorative trefoil iron finials top the roofs throughout. The roofs are set behind slightly raised gables with moulded sandstone coping, gableted kneeler stones and Celtic cross stone finials. Replacement steel box guttering and steel downpipes have been installed.

The setting comprises a small front area enclosed by original wrought-iron railings on sandstone plinth walls, matching gates and decorative iron lamp standards. The limestone steps to the front entrances fill the entire front area. The side areas are finished in bitmac and are enclosed by the presbytery to the north.