St Olcan's RC Church, 160 Glenshesk Road, Armoy, Ballymoney, County Antrim

St Olcan's RC Church

This small, single-storey Roman Catholic church was built before 1830, with later porch and vestry extensions added, and early 20th-century decorative embellishments. It stands on the south side of Glenshesk Road, roughly one and a half miles east of Armoy, surrounded by a graveyard.

The church is a long rectangular gabled building with a small central gabled porch on the north side, a somewhat larger gabled vestry extension to the southwest, and a lean-to extension with an outside staircase (which incorporates a porch) on the east gable. The exterior is finished in recent-looking lined unpainted cement render, with a painted bevelled base course, raised in-out quoins, and decorative rendered verges. The roof of the main section is slate, as are those of the porch and vestry. All roof sections have rendered parapets with gabled ends, and decorative iron crests run along the ridges.

The windows are largely uniform with pointed-arch heads, all with moulded drip stones over the openings. Most windows have recent decorative metal security grills fitted over them. The main entrance is on the east face of the north porch, consisting of a broad flat-arch doorway with panelled timber double doors. The north gable of the porch has a window; the north façade of the main section has three relatively tall, evenly-spaced windows on either side of the porch.

The east gable of the main section contains a lean-to boiler house extension with a small flat-arch window on the east face and a flat-arch doorway with timber door on the south face. To the north of the boiler house, an outside stair with metal rails rises against the main gable. This stair incorporates a porch with a semicircular-headed door opening and partly glazed timber door. The stair leads to an upper level doorway set into a pointed-arch opening (which may originally have been a window), with a similar timber door.

The south elevation includes the gabled vestry projection on the left side. Its gabled south face has a small flat-roofed porch extension with a flat-arch doorway to its east face and a timber-sheeted door. The vestry's west face has a small window, and the porch extension has a castellated parapet. The vestry projection's west face has two windows, with a slightly smaller flat-arch window on the east face. The main section's south façade has three windows to the right of the vestry, similar to those on the north façade. The east gable features a triple pointed-arch (triple lancet) window set at a high level.

The main section's roof includes a series of Velux windows to each side and several ventilators at the ridge, with stone Celtic cross finials to each gable. A rendered chimneystack rises from the vestry gable, and a metal cross finial tops the front porch gable. The rainwater goods comprise moulded cast-iron gutters and square downspouts.

A relatively large graveyard surrounds the church, enclosed by rendered walls. The north wall facing the roadside has a carriage entrance with square pillars with stepped caps and metal finials, and decorative wrought-iron gates.