Loreto Convent Chapel, Castlerock Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 3JZ

Loreto Convent Chapel, Coleraine

This is an attached, double-height, single-cell rendered chapel built in 1939 to designs by the Dublin-based architect Thomas Joseph Cullen (1879–1947), situated on the north side of Castlerock Road in Coleraine town centre. It forms an important group with Loreto Convent and its gate lodge, and together the three buildings make a significant contribution to the architectural character of the town. The chapel is a rare example in Northern Ireland of the revival of the more primitive forms and details of Irish Romanesque architecture, and is one of very few known commissions Cullen carried out north of the border. The building was constructed as part of broader alteration works to Loreto Convent undertaken between 1936 and 1940, with the builder being Robert Cullen and Sons. It was listed in 1977 and retains much of its original character and fabric.

Form and Exterior

The chapel is rectangular in plan, with a projecting entrance porch to the front (south), a shallow gabled projection to the east, a linking block to the west connecting it to the convent, and a flat-roofed sacristy to the north. The roof is steeply pitched and covered in natural green slates with leaded ridges and stone cross finials to the gables. The eaves have roll-moulded projecting stonework with plastic guttering, cast-iron downpipes, and cast-iron hoppers. The walls are finished in roughcast render with stone dressings and quoins, set on an uncoursed squared ashlar stone-faced plinth. All windows are original: round-headed, leaded-and-stained glass in chamfered stone reveals with blocked stone surrounds.

Principal (South) Elevation

The main elevation faces south, with the projecting gabled porch positioned to the left. To the right, the nave is lit by four windows, with a diminished quadripartite group set at high level at the far right to light the chancel. The porch carries a cross finial to the apex of its gable and features a neo-Romanesque doorway with a chevron-moulded archivolt and pilasters with square block capitals carved with Celtic triquetral knots. The doorway contains an original double-leaf timber-sheeted door with cast-iron handles, surmounted by an original leaded-and-stained glass transom light. The west gable is abutted by the single-storey linking block, which has a group of paired windows to the south and projects northward; a set of four uPVC windows in an ashlar sandstone surround is located at its northeast corner.

North and East Elevations

The north elevation is lit by five windows; to the left, a group of four smaller windows sits above the flat-roofed sacristy. The sacristy itself is lit by five narrow uPVC windows in sandstone blocked surrounds (arranged as a group of three to the centre) to the east and west. To the north, the sacristy opens through an original three-panelled timber door with three leaded-and-stained glass lights to the top section, set in a chamfered reveal with a blocked stone surround. The door is reached by a set of stone steps running to the east, enclosed by an uncoursed squared stone wall with stone coping. The east gable features a carved statue of Christ set within a round-headed niche, positioned above a shallow gabled projection that contains a three-light staged mullioned window.

Interior

The chapel houses a restrained but accomplished interior.

Setting

The chapel sits on a large site on the north side of Castlerock Road. It adjoins Loreto Convent to the west and is situated to the east side of the school, set on a grassy embankment with a lawn to the front and school playing fields to the north. The entrance from the south is through an original gate screen with a gate lodge. The site contains a variety of mature trees and a modern shrine to the Virgin Mary at the southwest.

Historical Background

The site was originally developed as a merchant's mansion known as Tievtara. It was converted into a convent school in 1906 by the Ursuline Order and acquired by the Loreto Nuns of Omagh in 1930. After more than three decades of use as a religious establishment, construction of the chapel commenced in 1939. Cullen, a prominent Dublin-based architect, had in 1922 been assigned by the Irish Provisional Government to assist with rebuilding Cork city in the aftermath of the War of Independence; he worked predominantly in Dublin and the southern counties, making this chapel one of his few known works in Northern Ireland. The completed chapel was first recorded on the fifth edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1949, depicted as an L-shaped building attached to the east gable of the main convent by a single-storey connecting corridor. It was not recorded in valuation sources until the Second General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), when it was initially valued at £180. Following a major extension to the school in 1968, the rateable values of the convent, the gate lodge, and the chapel were combined into a single figure of £3,060, making it impossible to assess the chapel's individual value from that date onward. The chapel continues to be used as a Catholic place of worship for the nuns of Loreto Convent, who have celebrated mass here for almost 75 years.