St Mary's Church, 10 Chapel Road, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, BT28 2JF

St Mary's Church is a small, simple Roman Catholic church built in 1845, situated on the north side of Chapel Road, Ballinderry Upper, approximately 1.4 miles east of Aghalee, in a rural setting within the townland of Tullyballydonnell. It was assessed for listing but does not meet the legislative test, primarily because a 1960s refurbishment removed the key element of special interest — a large continuous Stations of the Cross mural by Belfast-born artist Joseph McWilliams — leaving the building without sufficient architectural or historic significance to warrant protection.

EXTERIOR

The church is a freestanding rendered building with a pitched natural slate roof, angled ridge tiles, and masonry coping to the gable verges, rising to cast-iron Celtic cross finials. Rainwater goods are a mixture of uPVC and aluminium. The walls are roughcast rendered over rubblestone, with a smooth rendered, slightly projecting plinth and a deep step corbelled wall head to the north and south elevations. All window openings to the main church body are pointed-arch headed with projecting stone sills and leaded stained-glass timber-framed windows, several of which are protected by steel mesh grilles.

The principal south elevation has four pointed-arch window openings with projecting stone sills and leaded stained-glass timber-framed windows with steel mesh grilles. Two columnar yew trees stand against this elevation. The entrance is located on the south face of a single-storey western porch, which has a pitched man-made slate roof, deep uPVC eaves and bargeboards, and walls of modern random-pattern stone walling with a roughcast rendered apex to the gable. The porch entrance contains glazed timber double-leaf doors behind a metal gate with floral motifs and a cross above; the porch floor is finished with small square modern tiles incorporating a simple contrasting cross motif. A square-headed window opening to the porch contains an amber glazed timber window with a steel mesh grille.

The west elevation shows the gable ends of both the church and the porch. The north elevation comprises the church wall and a modern single-storey lean-to extension to the rear, which houses the sacristy, confessional, entrance, and toilets. This extension has square-headed window openings: at the western end, a full-height opening contains a staggered multi-pane timber-framed window with coloured glazing and a steel mesh grille; centrally, a three-part timber casement window sits above a projecting shallow concrete sill (damaged) with a steel mesh grille; and at the eastern end, a further three-part timber casement window with a projecting shallow concrete sill and steel mesh grille sits to the left of a square-headed door opening containing a replacement timber door and a wall-mounted steel gate with motifs matching the screen to the porch. A steel mesh enclosure containing a gas or oil tank is positioned against the building towards the west end of the rear extension. The east elevation has a roughcast rendered finish, with a square-headed window opening to the extension containing a timber casement window and a grille screen. The lean-to extension and the entrance porch are both roofed in man-made slate.

GROUNDS AND BOUNDARY

The church sits within a landscaped plot containing a number of mature trees, including yew. The southern boundary is formed by a rendered rubblestone boundary wall (rendered on the internal face only) with pyramidal-shaped limestone capping, with a round-headed section to part of the western boundary. The entrance is marked by a pair of square rubblestone piers with limestone capping, and a replacement plain steel gate.

INTERIOR

The interior has lost its original historic detailing as a result of the 1960s refurbishment. The most significant loss was the removal of the Stations of the Cross mural by Joseph McWilliams (1938–2015). Unlike the traditional format — 14 separate paintings, images, or small sculptures placed at intervals around the church — McWilliams's work was an oversized, continuous, dynamic depiction of all 14 stages of the Passion running along the north wall, making it a rare form of this element of Roman Catholic worship. McWilliams was a prolific Belfast-born artist, lecturer, and broadcaster who served as President of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts from 2000 to 2004. Without this frieze, the interior retains little of special interest.

HISTORY

According to the Reverend James O'Laverty's Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, published in 1879, the present church was built in 1845 by Father Samuel Young and was the third place of worship to occupy the site. Both O'Laverty and the 1838 Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that the site had been used for ages as a mass station, subsequently occupied by a thatched chapel dating to 1779. This was burned down during the 1798 Rebellion, and mass was celebrated among the ruins until the chapel was rebuilt in 1814–15. This earlier building is shown on the 1832 Ordnance Survey map and described in the Memoirs as an oblong, single-storey, slated structure measuring 38 feet 8 inches by 18 feet 8 inches internally, with stone and lime walls 1 foot 10 inches thick and a floor of sand, lime, and clay. It was lit by four arch windows and entered through a single door in one of the gables, with a small single-storey vestry projection of 9 by 6½ feet. Inside stood a timber and stone altar to the gable opposite the entrance, but there were no seats or gallery.

The architect or builder of the 1845 church is not known. The building was not consecrated until 9 October 1853, a delay possibly attributable to the Great Famine having reduced incomes in the parish and so holding up completion. The then Parish Priest, Reverend Cornelius Magee, placed a notice in the newspapers thanking all those of all religious denominations who attended the consecration and contributed towards the liquidation of the debt incurred during construction; approximately £160 is reported to have been collected on the day.

The 1857 revised Ordnance Survey map shows the church with two projections — one to the rear north, said to have been stables, and one to the east gable, probably the vestry. A separate building shown to the south of the church, between it and the road, had been built prior to 1832, though its function is uncertain. It was demolished around 1867–68 and a schoolhouse — Tullyballydonnell National School — was built on part of its site. The school closed at some point after 1921, but the building survived until at least 1971.

The church appears to have retained much of its original form until around 1962, when the old stables and vestry were removed and the northern lean-to extension was added. At the same time the main body of the building was renovated and reordered, broadly in line with the recent reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Two side altars were removed, the baptismal font was relocated, and the arrangement of a central aisle with two sets of pews — those to the north apparently reserved for women and those to the south for men — was replaced by side aisles and central seating. The interior detailing was completely modernised, with the most striking addition being McWilliams's continuous Stations of the Cross mural to the north wall. The refurbished church reopened on 8 December 1963. St Mary's appears to have continued in regular use until the late 2010s, but was closed at the time of assessment in May 2021.