St Paul's Church, Church of Errigal, Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5AE

St Paul's Church (Church of Errigal) is a free-standing, double-height parish church of 17th century origins, rectangular on plan, located on the western side of Main Street at the southern end of Garvagh, within a small graveyard. The listing covers the church itself together with its boundary wall, gates and railings.

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

Garvagh was established as a private Plantation settlement during the mid-17th century, when George Canning, an Agent of the Ironmongers' Company of London, obtained a grant for the town and settled there. His son Paul Canning erected a chapel of ease on this site in 1659 for the use of his family. In the following decades the building came into wider use by local inhabitants and became the Parish Church of Errigal. A stone above the entrance is dated 1670, though this is thought to represent the first of a number of rebuilds. The church subsequently became the parish church of both Errigal and Desertoghill, which remains its function today.

The building appears, without a name, on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33, sited on the eastern edge of the Demesne of Lord Garvagh — a descendant of the Canning family — a short distance from his seat at Garvagh House. A small path is shown leading from the western entrance of the church through the northern boundary wall and through the wooded demesne directly to Garvagh House. The church and graveyard are recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1856 at a value of £5 10s, at that time under the ownership of Lady Garvagh. By the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903–04 the building is captioned St Paul's Church for the first time, and a vestry had by then been erected at the north-east corner. That same map shows that the west wall of the graveyard was previously located further east than its current position. Following the departure of Lord Garvagh from Ireland in 1920 and the subsequent dissolution of his estate, the First General Revaluation of 1935 records that the church and graveyard were purchased by the Trustees of Garvagh Church.

Work was carried out to the building in 1806. The roof was repaired and re-slated in 1836 at a cost of £70. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1830–39 described the church at that time as being in good repair, noting a gallery to the west and a seating capacity of 200 persons. The seating was replaced in 1898. In 1908 the roof and gallery were replaced by W. Blair and Reid at a cost of £480; the oak communion table dates from this period, as does the east window of cathedral glass, donated by Isabella Clinton as a memorial to her grandfather Dr John Cochrane. Field evidence records that the entrance door was replaced in 1907 at a cost of £7. During the mid to late 20th century the small vestry was expanded to the east and the chancel was constructed. In recent years a new entrance porch was added to the west gable, and a wet-dash and painted finish applied to the exterior. The Reverend G. V. Sampson, author of A Map and Memoir of Londonderry and the Statistical Survey of Londonderry, served as rector of the parish during the early 19th century.

EXTERIOR

The church is smooth rendered and painted throughout, with a recessed plinth. The roof is re-slated with a pitched profile, angled pierced terracotta ridge tiles, coping stones and kneelers to the gables, and a cross finial to the west gable. Square cast-iron rainwater goods are carried on moulded projecting eaves; some square uPVC downpipes are also present.

The east gable contains a small stone and smooth rendered bell-cote pierced with a Gothic opening and housing a single bronze bell. An advancing chancel abuts the east gable, with a lower-level pitched roof finished with plain terracotta ridge tiles. The chancel contains an interlocking Y-traceried stained glass window. A single-storey pitched-roof vestry abuts the right cheek of the chancel and the main east gable. The vestry's left cheek is blank but features a low-level projecting abutment to the left side with a low timber-sheeted door; the right cheek contains a timber-sheeted, square-headed door with plain ashlar stone surrounds. The right cheek also has a central square-headed lattice window.

The south elevation has three evenly spaced lattice windows of plain glass with Y-tracery. The north elevation mirrors the south except for the abutting single-storey pitched vestry to the left side. The north gable also contains an advancing chimney with clay pots to the centre, and a low-level mono-pitched structure is offset to the north-west.

The west gable is lit by a central window and is topped with a rendered stone bell-cote opening featuring a blind rope-moulded roundel and trefoil motif to the apex. Stained glass windows are present at the chancel and western gable. All windows are replacement timber-framed leaded-lattice lights with painted stone Y-tracery, hood mouldings and painted stone sills. An advancing shallow-pitched entrance porch, added around 2007 in the style of the main church, abuts the west gable; it has three windows and a timber-sheeted double-leaf door to the left cheek.

SETTING

The church stands within a small graveyard directly to the western side of Main Street. The graveyard is enclosed by a coursed stone rubble wall to the north and south, with saddleback coping stones and an ashlar stone archway in the north wall providing access to the adjacent church hall. The west side is bounded by a roughcast wall and metal fence. The east side has a stone dwarf-wall containing decorative cast-iron railings, with squared ashlar-stone piers having pyramidal caps supporting cast-iron entrance gates. To the north-east is Garvagh High School; across Main Street to the east is the Agivey River; and to the south-west is Garvagh Forest.