St MacNissi’s College Chapel, 25 Tower Road, Carnlough, Ballymena, Co Antrim

St MacNissi's College Chapel is a church built in 1956 to the designs of Padraic Gregory, a leading Belfast ecclesiastical architect, as the private chapel for St MacNissi's College. It is a good example of mid-20th century church design in a distinctly proportioned Lombardic Romanesque style, retaining almost all of its original features including contemporary stained glass windows of high quality by Daniel Braniff and Watson, both of Belfast.

The building is constructed of reconstituted stone and comprises a long nave and chancel with short twin towers flanking the entrance gable, a taller tower to one side, and flat-roofed ancillary rooms to the rear. The main entrance faces east.

The entrance front features walls of reconstituted stone, rock faced and snecked, with smooth dressings. A shallow projecting plinth to the main body of the building is smooth-finished, in regular courses with angled weathering. Raised smooth strips to the outer corners of the towers are surmounted by a moulded cornice and mock machicolations. The nave gable is surmounted by a plain cross on the apex. The main entrance comprises a rectangular surround with recessed angled stages, containing a pair of rectangular timber double doors, each leaf 10-panelled, raised and fielded. Above the entrance is a circular rose window with cruciform tracery incorporating a modelled figure of Christ on the cross in a white material. The entrance doors are approached by a flight of seven cement screed steps bounded by low plinth walls of artificial ashlar stonework in regular courses with angled copings.

The roof is of natural slates in regular courses, appearing to be green Westmoreland slates. Set back from the nave gable are short square towers to each side with pyramidal roofs, slated as the main roof. Rectangular section metal gutters and downpipes serve the building.

The south elevation extends beyond the short end towers with a long nave and chancel with continuous roof. A projecting lower flat-roofed aisle to the right includes a central tall side porch tower with a projecting flat-roofed transept to its left and a slightly lower flat-roofed sacristy further left. All windows feature semi-circular arches containing tinted leaded lights of neo-Georgian pattern, except for four stained glass windows in the transept. The central tower has a pair of coupled tall timber louvred lancets in the upper stage of each face and a pyramidal slated roof surmounted by a circled-cross finial. The tower contains a side doorway at its base comprising a projecting entrance bay of ashlar stonework in regular courses surmounted by a pedimental top, with a pair of panelled double doors approached by one step. An ancillary block contains a smaller doorway at its left-hand extremity: a single leaf timber panelled door recessed in a projecting smooth dressed surround with flat lintel and lead dressing over, approached by three steps bounded by raking plinth walls.

The rear elevation facing west consists of a blank gable to the chancel surmounted by a plain cross, with a lower single storey flat-roofed ancillary block projecting at the base and returning back along the sides. The rear of the ancillary block contains ten windows arranged as a set of five coupled windows.

The north elevation is similar to the south but without a tall central tower. Two flush rectangular roof ventilator panels, slightly raised, are visible. The elevation contains a central side doorway to the church in a projecting flat-roofed porch with timber panelled double doors as at the main entrance, set in a plain smooth dressed surround and approached by one step.

The chapel is surrounded by a concrete flagged pavement extending to a larger paved area at the main entrance front. This front paved area is approached axially by a symmetrical arrangement of steps, dwarf walls, and a pair of piers, all in reconstituted stone, with a wrought iron lamp standard mounted on each pier.

The chapel stands on a slightly elevated position within the grounds of a school, from which it is viewed against a steep wooded escarpment. Lawns and grassed areas surround the chapel to each side and to the rear, containing some mature trees and shrubs. The front boundary walling to the left of the exterior flight of approach steps is new, of smooth render, lined and blocked with concrete copings, replacing the previous timber fence. The school grounds are located in a very rural and scenic area on a headland above the Antrim Coast Road.

The chapel forms an interesting and attractive group together with the adjacent 19th-century castle-style school building.