St Patrick's RC Church, Glenelly Road, Cranagh, Plumbridge, Co Tyrone, BT78 8LR

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a large detached Gothic Revival building erected around 1905 on the south side of Glenelly Road in the village of Cranagh. It was constructed to replace an older Catholic chapel that had stood on the opposite side of the road since 1815, which is recorded in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as having been established with a capacity of 1000 people across its body and galleries.

The church is rectangular in plan, comprising a nave with a gabled chancel to the east, a gabled sacristy abutting the chancel to the north, and a single-storey gabled porch projecting to the west. The pitched roof is finished in natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, sitting on corbelled eaves. The roof is finished with raised concrete verges decorated with trefoil moulded gablets at the base and mid-point, supported on moulded kneelers, and topped with cross finials to the gables. A gabled bellcote projects from the west gable, housing a bronze bell within a chamfered pointed-arched opening. A smooth rendered chimney rises from the sacristy.

The walls are constructed in smooth render over a projecting plinth, and are articulated by buttresses with offsets and gablets. Windows throughout are pointed-arched-headed with Y-tracery containing leaded stained glass, topped by hood moulds with label stops and set above chamfered painted masonry sills. The principal west gable faces the road and is flanked at ground floor by the gabled porch. The exposed section of this gable contains single windows to left and right, with a cusped tracery window at the centre surmounted by a louvred oculus with hood moulding above. The porch contains a single window, while its north elevation features pointed-arched-headed double-leaf vertically-sheeted timber entrance doors surmounted by hood moulding. The south elevation of the porch contains a pointed-arched-headed niche topped by hood moulding. The north elevation extends for seven windows, separated by buttresses. The east gable has a louvred oculus to its apex and is abutted by the gabled chancel, which contains a large geometrical tracery window with a louvred oculus to its apex. The chancel south elevation contains two windows, while the north elevation is abutted by the sacristy. The sacristy features a pointed-arched-headed vertically-sheeted timber entrance door surmounted by hood mould to its right; its east elevation contains four square-headed timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash windows, and three windows to the west elevation. The south elevation extends for seven windows, again separated by buttresses.

The building retains much of its original character both externally and internally. The simple rectangular form is enriched by ornate moulded gablets, the bellcote, and the window tracery. All additions to the church, including the chancel, sacristy and porch, are constructed in the same style with similar ornamentation, indicating they are from the same building period.

The church is set within a churchyard containing nineteenth- and twentieth-century memorials, the earliest dating from 1859, with a carpark to the west. The boundary to the north is formed by smooth rendered walling with concrete coping and access gates supported by square piers; all other boundaries are enclosed by wire fencing. The church serves as a prominent feature within the rural village, benefiting from a good setting within the village and the wider surrounding valley.

The building was first recorded on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1953, captioned as St Patrick's RC Church, though it does not appear on the third edition map of 1905-6. The older RC Chapel, later known as St Joseph's RC Church, is shown opposite on earlier maps from 1832 and 1853, and is recorded as having been marked as 'disused' in the Valuation Revisions of 1916. The dating to around 1905 is supported stylistically by the simple stylised Gothic Revival features and window tracery characteristic of early twentieth-century work, though the building likely dates no later than the early 1920s.

The roof is finished in replacement cast-iron ogee profile gutters and square downpipes.