St Finloch’s R C Church, Nedd Road, Oghill, Ballykelly, Co Londonderry, BT49 9HZ

St Finloch's Roman Catholic Church is a good example of neo-Gothic style church erected in 1849 on the slopes of Oghill townland, commanding fine views over Lough Foyle and the Inishowen hills beyond. It replaced an earlier church of 1828 with T-plan layout sited downhill in a location known as the Hollow, where the graveyard remains. The church is still colloquially referred to as "The Hollow Chapel".

The building has a simple rectangular plan with gallery and projecting sacristy with lower roof. It occupies a commanding elevated position on Nedd Road, which rises steeply to the church. The entrance gable faces the roadway, with the graveyard lying below. Access is via two flights of narrow steps from the roadway across a small forecourt to the stark smooth plastered simulated ashlar entrance front.

The entrance front is bounded on either side by long panelled clasping pedestal buttresses that are gabled and pinnacled. A sharp pointed chamfered doorway with label moulding is terminated with a bishop's head on one side and a veiled woman's head on the other. At the apex of the facade is a gabled bellcote and a louvred oculus with hood moulding and quasi trefoil tracery. The doorway itself has narrow moulded panelled doors with similar Gothic-style tympanum work.

The long walls comprise five bays punctuated on each side with tall pointed windows featuring hood mouldings and moulded Y-tracery with central mullion and transom. Glazing is subdivided into 54 small Georgian panes forming delightful switch lines at the top. Each window has a pivoted opening. The hood moulding on each window has a moulded stop of either a figurehead or floral subject. A double weathered sandstone string course runs the full length of each wall at cill level, below which the wall thickness increases. On the south side only four windows appear as the small sacristy block interrupts the rhythm. Windows are trimmed with sandstone throughout.

The long walls and gables are finished in smooth rendering carefully lined to imitate ashlar. Below the string course is ashlar sandstone with a patina of lichen. The building displays good proportions, regularly spaced windows and good continuity of architectural detail in stone and wood with simple rectangular plan, good ornamentation in the form of panelled clasping buttresses at each quoin capped with gable pinnacles and moulded label mouldings with fine sculpted steps.

The small vestry has two pairs of pointed diamond-paned windows on the east side and one pair with a door on the other. Against the gable is a tiny store or boiler room. Walls are smooth rendered with ashlar quoins similar to the windows and door treatment. The east gable has a three-light flamboyant traceried window with diamond panes, sandstone trim with moulded label and sculpted stops. Above is a louvred oculus without tracery. Low wing walls on either side of the entrance are capped in sandstone coping.

All roofs are slated with gables and sandstone barges and plain ridge tiles. Gutters and downpipes are of cast iron, ogee and round respectively.

The church was financed by the London Company of Fishmongers and designed by architect George Given, who was also associated with the design of the Roman Catholic Parish Church. The Fishmongers Company would have preferred the church to be erected in Ballykelly village. In 1848, the newly appointed parish priest Patrick McEldowney of Limavady approached the Company for assistance in replacing the Hollow chapel, and in February 1849 plans and estimates amounting to £1,200 were approved. The Fishmongers deputation saw the building in 1850 when the interior was unfinished and attended mass in it. A sister of Arthur Sampson, agent to the company, donated the stained glass window in the east end, and the company contributed £49 3s 10d towards altar and benches. Steps from Nedd Road were added around 1870. The altar and reredos were removed in 1981 by architects White & Hegarty and replaced with reorganised sanctuary fittings. The gallery was extended in 1951 when Anthony O'Doherty was parish priest.

This church is of great interest in the local scene and represents a good example of its type, being a variant of the Church of Ireland's "Planter's Gothic" architectural tradition, though designed by a non-Catholic architect for a Roman Catholic congregation.