St John's Roman Catholic Church, 59 Laurell Hill, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 3AY

St John's Roman Catholic Church is a symmetrical, double-height church built in the late Georgian Gothick style, dated 1834, and set on a north-south axis on an elevated site to the west of Laurel Hill Road and to the south of Dromard Drive, Coleraine. It is surrounded by an extensive burial ground and overlooks the River Bann to the east. The building is attributed on its foundation tablet to the architect J. Kirkpatrick, but it is now considered likely that the actual designer was Thomas Duff, a prominent architect of Catholic churches in Ireland, with Kirkpatrick possibly acting as supervising architect. The Catholic Directory of 1837 described it as built "to the design of a most celebrated architect" — a description that would not readily apply to the little-known Kirkpatrick. The church bears a marked resemblance to Newry Cathedral and St Patrick's, Dundalk, both designed by Duff, and to St Malachy's, Belfast, designed by Duff's partner Thomas Jackson.

The church was built at the initiative of the parish priest, the Reverend Daniel O'Doherty, who secured subscriptions from a number of supporters including the liberal MP for Coleraine (contributing at least £26) and financial assistance from the Irish Society. The foundation stone was laid on 22nd April 1834, and the Belfast Newsletter of 6th May 1834 announced that "The architecture of the edifice will be the choicest Gothic and tastefully ornamented." The building was dedicated on 13th November 1836. The shell of the church cost approximately £1,100, with the altar costing a further £100. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835 describe it as "a very handsome and richly adorned piece of architecture," and note that it occupies the site of a former chapel built approximately 28 years earlier, which had been taken down when the congregation outgrew it and its walls had become unstable. A pencil sketch accompanying the Memoirs shows the building has changed little externally since it was first built. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 lists the church and yard at valuations of £48 and £2 respectively.

Originally, the altar was positioned against the long western wall of the building, with a door at each gable and an original floor of packed earth. Around 1911, improvements designed by Edward J. Toye — who carried out a number of commissions for the Catholic Church — relocated the sanctuary to the north end of the nave. The building was listed in 1976. In 1990, the building was reroofed, the present sanctuary fittings were installed, and the stone pinnacles were replaced. A single-storey lean-to extension was added along the full length of the western elevation in the 1980s. Some of the windows are by Meyer of Munich. The north end of the interior has been substantially remodelled, including the alteration or removal of the original central window.

The church is built of uncoursed, squared, rock-faced basalt walling with a sandstone ashlar plinth course. The pitched slate roof sits behind a crenellated parapet wall with three shallow raised gables to the north, south, and east, and cast-iron downpipes to the east and west elevations. The pointed-arched window openings have voussoired basalt arches, chamfered sandstone ashlar surrounds, chamfered sills, and hood mouldings, fitted with replacement multi-pane timber tracery windows inserted around 1990.

The south entrance front is three windows wide with a central shallow gable, its blind arcaded sandstone raking parapet wall surmounted by a sandstone cross and flanked by a pair of tapered sandstone pinnacles rising from stepped buttresses. The flanking windows have crenellated parapets also flanked by pinnacles rising from angled buttresses. The roof line is defined by a sandstone architrave course at the base of the parapet. The entrance has a square-headed door opening with a chamfered, tooled sandstone architrave surround and hood moulding, fitted with a pair of replacement sheeted hardwood doors. Above the entrance is a carved sandstone tablet inscribed: "Saint Johns / Erected / A.D. / 1834 / Revd. D. O. Doherty Pastor / J. Kirkpatrick Arch."

The west nave elevation is entirely abutted by the single-storey lean-to extension added around 1980, which spans its full width. The walling to this elevation only is finished in painted rough-cast cement render, and there is a single chimneystack at the south end. Two pairs of pointed-arched window openings survive at either end of this elevation, truncated by the later lean-to extension.

The north elevation is detailed in the same manner as the south entrance front, but without a door opening. At basement level, there is a voussoired round-headed former door opening formed in sandstone ashlar, now cement-rendered over and not accessible.

The symmetrical east nave elevation is five windows wide with a central shallow gable, flanked by a pair of quarter-engaged octagonal sandstone piers that soar above eaves level, each face decorated with blind Gothick arcading and surmounted by raked crenellations. The central gable and the remaining elevation have a crenellated parapet wall rising from a sandstone architrave course, with a sandstone cross at the apex of the gable and angled buttresses with tapered pinnacles at either end.

The church is encircled by a bitmac footpath. The current entrance to the site is from Dromard Drive to the northwest, with replacement steel railings and gates. The sloping elevated site is filled with stone, cast-iron, and marble grave markers dating from the early 19th century to the present, and the entire site is enclosed by rubblestone walls finished in cement render to the road.

Architectural commentators have been uniformly admiring: Girvan calls the church "unusually elegant," Rowan describes it as "ambitious for its date and denomination," and Walker praises it as "remarkably fine."