Layde Parish Church, Gates And Walling, Cushendall, Co.Antrim

Layde Parish Church, Gates and Walling, Cushendall, County Antrim

Layde Parish Church is a free-standing, single-cell, double-height rubblestone Gothic Revival Church of Ireland church, built between 1831 and 1832 on the south side of Mill Street in Cushendall. It is a gable-fronted structure, rectangular on plan, facing north and set within extensive grounds that include an associated graveyard. The church represents the rural Gothic style of the early 19th century and retains much of its historic character and detail both internally and externally.

The building sits within its own grounds, set back from Mill Street, with a cobblelock front drive opening onto the road through a pair of decorative cast-iron gates hung on square-plan, tooled sandstone piers with pyramidal capstones. The front boundary is formed by matching iron railings set on a low rubblestone wall with saddleback coping. The remainder of the site is enclosed by tall rubblestone walls with concrete coping. Stone boundaries and a small, free-standing red sandstone structure with a slate roof to the south of the church are also of interest. The site is bounded to the south by the River Dall.

The roof is finished in natural slate with a rolled lead ridge and steel ventilation lanterns, set behind a slightly raised front gable. Rainwater goods are moulded cast iron on drive-through iron brackets, with box hoppers and square-profile cast-iron downpipes on trefoil brackets. The walling is coursed and snecked rubble red sandstone with a projecting red sandstone ashlar plinth course and lime pointing. Window openings are lancet-shaped with rough-hewn squared relieving arches formed in chamfered red sandstone ashlar surrounds, fitted with latticed cast-iron windows or leaded coloured glazing and steel mesh guards.

The gabled front elevation is the principal architectural set piece. At its base is a lower, gable-fronted, pinnacled entrance porch flanked by clasping corner piers that rise as octagonal piers supporting pinnacles. The front gable rises above the roofline with saddleback red sandstone coping, surmounted by a tooled red sandstone bellcote. The bellcote has a depressed arch opening housing a bronze bell and is itself surmounted by a pinnacle. Three window openings to the front gable are framed by hood mouldings. The entrance porch is framed by diagonal buttresses rising as octagonal piers supporting pinnacles, with a further pinnacle to the apex and a blind cartouche to the base. To the left cheek of the porch is a square-headed door opening with a chamfered, tooled red sandstone surround and a vertically-sheeted double-leaf hardwood door.

The east side elevation is three windows wide, with a lean-to organ chamber projection to the left. The windows have bipartite tracery frames with cinquefoil heads; the central and right windows contain leaded stained glass, while the left window has latticed iron quarry glazing. The gabled rear elevation has a further gabled chancel projection and a small lean-to projection to the east. Both gables have raking stone coping with trefoil kneeler stones to the chancel. A large pointed-headed window opening in the chancel is fitted with a red sandstone ashlar reticulated tracery frame and leaded coloured glazing. The west side elevation has a diminutive gabled vestry block to the right with paired lancets to the south and a pointed-headed door opening to the west, with a chamfered red sandstone surround, a vertically-sheeted hardwood door with iron furniture, and two stone steps. The 1972 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society survey noted that the slated roof is carried on particularly attractive hooped iron roof trusses.

The entrance porch and vestry were added in 1865 to designs by Welland and Gillespie, who had been appointed as joint architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1860. These additions enhanced the building's character and increased its assessed value from £15 10 shillings to £17, at which it remained until the 1930s. Remedial works carried out in 1993 included repointing of stonework and roof repairs.

This is the third church built to serve the parish of Layd. The first, recorded as 'Ecclesia de Leyde' in 1288, stood in the townland of Moneyvart to the north-east of the village. It fell into ruin following the Nine Years War (1594–1603), and in 1683 Richard Dobbs described it as a roofless but once-handsome country church with a square steeple approximately 30 feet high, standing in a hollow near the sea with no house within a quarter of a mile. It was rebuilt in 1696, a date inscribed on its east wall, and continued as the parish church until around 1790, having fallen into ruin again by around 1800. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1830–38 recorded that divine service had been performed there until approximately 45 years before their survey. A second parish church was erected in 1800 in the townland of Cushendall, one mile to the north-west of the village, under the Reverend Richard Stewart Dobbs. According to William Shaw Mason's Statistical Account, the building was too small for the congregation and received no assistance from the Board of First Fruits, who declined to contribute unless the old church had been in ruins for 20 years. This second church had itself fallen into ruin by 1830 and was subsequently demolished by the 1850s.

The present church was built in 1831 to replace it. Under the 1825 revised census, the parish possessed 600 members of the Established Church. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs described the newly built church as "an uncommonly neat, stone building, handsomely finished both internally and externally," noting a small cut-stone spire approximately 12 feet high on the northern gable, cut-stone windows and doorways, a metal roof, and a capacity of approximately 250 persons. It measured 64 feet long by 30 feet wide and cost £900 to construct. The architect of the original 1831 building is not known with certainty. The masonry is built from locally quarried Devonian Sandstone of the Cross Slieve Group. The church was valued at £13 in the Townland Valuations of 1834. The church was listed in 1976.