Christ Church, Main St., Castlerock, Coleraine, Co.Londonderry

Christ Church is a free-standing double-height blackstone parish church with an attached square-plan bell-tower, built around 1870 in the Victorian Gothic style. Designed by F.W. Porter, it stands on the south side of Main Street in the centre of Castlerock, County Londonderry.

The building has a rectangular plan with an apsidal end to the east. North and south transepts each feature square-plan abutments to the east, while a square-plan bell-tower with a broach spire rises from the northwest corner. The pitched natural slate roof has angled ridge tiles and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on bracketed sandstone eaves.

The walls are constructed of uncoursed rock-faced blackstone on a battered plinth, with sandstone quoins, sandstone kneelers and finials to the gables. A sandstone string course runs at sill and lintel level. Buttresses with sandstone offsets rise up the elevations.

The windows are a variety of leaded-and-stained glass lancets in sandstone surrounds with chamfered sills and blackstone voussoirs. The chancel features bipartite cusped plate tracery windows, while cusped lattice lancets light the tower. The apsidal east end has plate tracery windows to each face.

The bell-tower is two stages, with ashlar broach spire. The spire rises from bracketed overhanging eaves with dog-tooth detail to a narrow stone fascia and has carved gargoyles to each corner. It is topped by a metal finial and has an openwork clock face (dating from 1909) on each side. The lower stage is double-height with cusped lattice lancets over a rectangular window to the west face. To the north and east faces are sandstone doorcases. The belfry stage has a double inset lancet with chamfered sandstone surrounds, semi-engaged colonettes and louvered openings. Gabletted angle buttresses stand at ground floor; clasping buttresses rise from the string course between stages.

The main north entrance comprises replacement double-leaf timber doors in a chamfered reveal, flanked by semi-engaged colonettes and surmounted by a fixed sandstone tympanum inscribed "AD 1870". The tympanum is detailed with dog-tooth ornamentation incised with groups of three circles and is supported on two sandstone corbels. The east entrance has similar timber-sheeted double-leaf doors in a chamfered surround with hood mould and carved stops, accessed by a single stone step and with a fixed sandstone tympanum similarly detailed.

The north nave elevation has two lancets divided by a buttress. The left transept features three staged lancets and a trefoil oculus to the apex of the gable. The left cheek is abutted by a square-plan abutment housing the vestry, which has a hipped roof and timber-sheeted door in a shouldered sandstone surround with a heavy cast-iron handle, accessed via four stone steps. The vestry has two square-headed lattice windows to its east elevation.

The south nave elevation has three lancets divided by buttresses. The right transept has three staged lancets and a trefoil oculus to the apex of the gable. It is abutted by a square-plan abutment with rectangular windows to the south and east elevations. The west gable has three staged lancets with a trefoil oculus to the apex of the gable.

The building sits within a square plot to the south side of Main Street, with lawned grounds on all four sides. It is enclosed by a blackstone rubble boundary wall with two sets of ashlar sandstone piers to the north, which have chamfered pointed caps and support replacement timber gates. To the east stands a modern church hall, and to the south a twentieth-century housing development.