St Paul's Church, Fish Loughan, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry

St Paul's Parish Church, Fish Loughan, is a simple Gothic Revival country church built in 1855 to designs by Joseph Welland, architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and is a fine and well-preserved example of his work. It stands on the south side of Loughan Road, on the north shore of the River Bann, southwest of Coleraine. The listing covers the church itself together with its gate pillars and gates.

The building is of rectangular plan with a south transept, a projecting chancel to the east, and a gabled porch to the north. Walls are of random-coursed black basalt with tooled ashlar sandstone dressings throughout, set on a chamfered sandstone plinth course, with diagonal buttresses having sandstone offsets and quoins. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles, raised sandstone verges, and kneeler stones to the gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on cavetto-moulded stone brackets.

The most prominent external feature is the large gableted Gothic sandstone bell-cote, which crowns the west gable and contains a single bell. The west gable also has a bipartite window with an oculus above, and a small outshot with a sandstone lean-to roof. The bell-cote gabling is echoed in the steeply pitched roof and again in the angled wall buttresses — a carefully considered compositional device noted by the architectural historian Girvan.

The principal elevation faces north, where the nave is lit by three pairs of lancet windows. To the right is a buttressed gabled entrance porch with a sandstone drip mould, lit on each cheek by a slender cusped lancet with margined diamond lattice stained glass; the entrance opening is fitted with a pointed-headed timber-sheeted door with cast-iron strap hinges and handle. The east gable is abutted by the lower chancel, which is lit to the north by two cusped metal diamond lattice windows and to the east by staged triple lancets of leaded and stained glass. Abutting the chancel to the south is the robing room, set under a lean-to roof, lit to the east by a bipartite cusped metal lattice window. The south elevation of the robing room has a thick projecting chimneybreast rising to a gableted stone chimneystack, alongside which is set a sandstone datestone inscribed "1855". To the left of the chimneybreast is a timber-sheeted door with cast-iron strap hinges in a chamfered sandstone reveal with a shouldered head, approached by three sandstone steps. The south elevation of the nave has three pairs of lancets. To the right, the south transept is lit by two pairs of bipartite cusped metal lattice windows. All windows are set in sandstone blocked surrounds with chamfered reveals and sills, with a blackstone relieving arch over each; the early 20th-century leaded and stained glass lancets are cusped bipartite lights, with staged triple lancets to the east end.

Internally, the curved braces are considered by Girvan to be typical of Welland's designs. A lean-to bell-ringers' chamber is accessed from within, and a rope passes from it up to the bell in the bell-cote on the west gable — an arrangement that the architectural historian Rowan described as making the church "a perfect small Tractarian church, chunky, honest and making a little go a long way." The original diamond pane glazing survives in parts.

Historically, the parish of Kildollagh — a name thought to mean "the church of two lakes" — is believed to have sustained a religious community from earliest times. By the 1830s only the remains of an earlier church and a burial ground survived. Kildollagh had formerly been a grange joined to Rasharkin, but a separate parish was established in 1851, and the Rector, Reverend John Lyle of nearby Knocktarna, was largely responsible for bringing the present building into being. The new church was dedicated in December 1855, built to the southeast of the earlier burial ground. The original design by Welland included the north transept, chancel, robing room, south porch, and bell-cote. The stone is black basalt with local carboniferous sandstone trim. The church appears captioned on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1849–50, and is listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 at £20, with the graveyard valued at £1. Annual Revision records show no significant changes. At the time of the First General Revaluation in the 1930s the church was in good repair, heated by a hot water system, and lit by oil lamps; grave plots were sold for £1 to £2, with receipts spent on graveyard upkeep. An associated plan from this period shows the church with its porch, chancel, attached vestry, and an attached wood and coal store. The church was listed in 1977, and repointing was carried out in 2002.

The setting is a mature rectangular plot bounded by hedges and mature trees, with a graveyard on three sides containing a variety of headstones including cast-iron grave markers dating from the early 19th century. To the east of the site is a modern portacabin. The entrance from Loughan Road is marked by large square ashlar sandstone piers with chamfered corners and polygonal pointed caps, supporting cast-iron gates with fleur-de-lis heads. Rowan characterised the church as "charmingly situated" on the banks of the River Bann, and the building continues to serve a thriving congregation, making it of significant social interest and local importance.