St. John’s Church of Ireland, St. John’s Road, Upper Kilwarlin, Hillsborough, Co.Down, BT26 6ED

St. John's Church of Ireland is a free-standing Gothic Revival stone church built in 1840 to the designs of the renowned architect Charles Lanyon. It sits on an elevated, mature landscaped site on the east side of St. John's Road in Upper Kilwarlin, set back from the road and encircled by a bitmac driveway, with a large graveyard to the north. The listing covers the church itself together with its gates and gate pillars.

The church is cruciform in plan and retains its original external appearance, exhibiting good proportions and carefully considered detailing throughout. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and lead valleys, set behind slightly raised gables. Replacement metal rainwater goods discharge onto an ogee-moulded sandstone eaves course. The walls are built in random coursed squared sandstone with a tooled sandstone plinth course and quoins. Window openings are lancet-shaped, with projecting chamfered sandstone ashlar surrounds and splayed sills, and retain their original cusped iron lattice glazing; the windows to all gables are tripartite.

To the west, the gable facing the road is surmounted by a sandstone ashlar bellcote containing an equilateral arch housing the iron bell on a moulded base course. At eaves level, lucarne-like panelled kneeler stones project from the weathered coping of the raised gable.

The south entrance elevation is abutted by the south gabled transept and, to the left, a gabled entrance porch set into the re-entrant angle between the two. The transept gable is slightly raised, with weathered sandstone coping, a roll-moulded apex stone resting on moulded kneeler stones, and a small lancet opening below the apex. The entrance porch has a pitched natural slate roof set behind a shaped gable with sandstone coping and a moulded kneeler stone. Its sandstone ashlar front contains a Tudor-arched door opening with compound moulded reveals and stop-chamfered plinth blocks, fitted with a replacement sheeted double-leaf timber door with iron furniture. Above the door is a marble date plaque which reads: "Erected, from the, Free Contributions, of The Marquis of Downshire, and the, Inhabitants of Kilwarlin, aided by the, Down & Connor, Church Accommodation, Society, by the Ven., Walter B. Mant M.A., Archdeacon of Down, 1840."

The north elevation is abutted by the north transept, treated in the same manner as the south. To the right of this is a vestry extension built in 1975 in artificial stone with a natural slate catslide roof falling from the main roof. A Tudor-arched sandstone door surround with a sheeted timber door and iron furniture serves this elevation; this doorway was moved from its original location. The east chancel gable is treated consistently with the transept gables.

The interior was extensively renovated in 2002, during which some joinery was replaced. The stained glass windows in the chancel were installed by Francis Coates, probably at the time the church was originally constructed.

The church was built to serve rural parishioners in Upper Kilwarlin who were either too distant from Hillsborough or felt increasingly excluded as the town expanded. Before the church was built, rural churchgoers had been attending fortnightly services in a schoolroom in the neighbouring townland of Taughblane. The total cost of construction exceeded £600: the Marquis of Downshire contributed £205, the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society provided £234, and the deficit was raised among churches in Hillsborough. Charles Lanyon waived his fee, as he had also done for the sister church of St. James's in Lower Kilwarlin. The first service was held on 28th October 1840, though the church was not formally consecrated until 9th December 1842. The burial plot at St. Malachi's in Hillsborough remained the official parish graveyard, so the graveyard at St. John's contains only a small number of burials, the earliest dating from 1849; the earliest church burial register was lost in 1922 when the Public Record Office in Dublin was destroyed during the Civil War.

The church's history includes periods of financial difficulty; by the early 20th century it had been demoted in rank to a curacy-in-charge. An attempt was made between 1945 and 1969 under the Reverend R. E. Conn to revive the parish, but the congregation was too small to function independently, and in 1969 St. John's was linked with St. James's to form the group parishes of Upper and Lower Kilwarlin. A major restoration was completed in 2001.

The setting is enhanced by a pair of tall rendered gate piers with stepped stone coping supporting wrought-iron gates at the entrance from the road. The graveyard to the north contains many marble, stone and iron grave markers dating from the 1840s to the present, enclosed by a rubblestone wall with concrete coping to the road and hedging to the remainder. The church has group value with the nearby former St. John's Primary School, which was constructed shortly afterwards. St. John's is a local landmark of both architectural and social importance to the local community.