St. Nicholas' Church of Ireland Church, Lancasterian Street, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, BT38 7FH

St Nicholas' Church of Ireland, Carrickfergus

St Nicholas' Church of Ireland is a large, triple-height Norman parish church built around 1180 by John de Courcy, making it one of a small number of surviving pre-Reformation parish churches in Northern Ireland. It has been enlarged, remodelled and restored over many centuries, and its well-documented history connects it with most of the key events in Carrickfergus and many across Ulster more broadly. The church is cruciform in plan, facing west, and together with its boundary wall, historic graveyard, and the 20th-century gate tower, it forms an evolved grouping of artistic, archaeological, architectural and historic interest that is central to the development of Carrickfergus as a settlement.

Architectural Overview

The church comprises a nave and elongated chancel, full-height transepts to the north and south, a three-stage tower with spire to the west, a baptistry to the south of the nave, a late 19th-century double-height gabled organ loft, and a modern single-storey vestry to the north of the chancel. Roofs are pitched natural slate with blue/black clay angled ridge tiles, dressed stone verges, and crosses to the transept and chancel apexes. Parapet gutters drain via round cast-iron downpipes. The walling throughout is random rubble basalt with a moulded stone cornice. Buttresses are random rubble stone with dressed quoins and offsetting. Windows are generally pointed-arch-headed stained glass with sandstone Geometric tracery and splayed flush sills, and hoodmoulds with label ends, unless otherwise noted.

West Elevation and Tower

The principal west gable is centrally abutted by the tower. Both exposed sections of the gable have V-jointed granite quoins, a single stained glass oculus over a square-headed casement with a sill, all with splayed sandstone surrounds; the left oculus is blocked.

The tower's first stage has V-jointed granite quoins with a moulded cornice and balustraded parapet with urns to the corners. The third stage has random rubble walling with a central round-headed timber louvered aperture set in a dressed granite architrave with keyblock. The tower's principal west elevation has ashlar walling with a central square-headed replacement timber raised-and-fielded three-panel double-leaf door with a modern overlight, set in a moulded sandstone architrave with keyblock. The doorcase has a triangular pediment with a simplified Doric entablature over engaged Doric columns flanking the door. The second stage has squared rubble stone walling built to courses, with a central dressed stone semi-circular relieving arch over a pediment surmounted by a Serliana window framed by Doric pilasters with a simplified Doric entablature, keyblock and blocked sidelights. The tower cheeks are blank, with the first and second stages having squared rubble stone walling built to courses. The spire is octagonal on plan, in dressed stone, with modern clockfaces to the principal compass points, surmounted by an orb and cross.

North Elevation

The north elevation is abutted to its left end by the transept. The exposed section is abutted almost entirely by a rubble stone buttress, with a single diminished window inset at the left end; this window is set in a dressed sandstone elliptical-arch-headed recess and has Decorated tracery. The north transept gable is centrally abutted by a crypt porch. The exposed section is blank, with a ghostmark of a slightly lower former gable, and has angled buttresses. Both cheeks of the transept have two wall-head gables over pointed-arch-headed windows with splayed sandstone reveals and a single buttress between them.

The crypt porch has a pitched natural slate roof with blue/black roll-top ridge tiles, roughcast walling, and angled buttresses with terracotta offsetting. The gable has a central pointed-arch-headed entrance opening with cement-rendered reveals, a wrought-iron gate, and a diminished louvered door within, giving access to the Donegall and Chichester crypt. The porch cheeks are blank. Its rear gable is entirely abutted by the chancel.

The chancel has random rubble stone walling. Its gable has angled buttresses — the left retaining remains of decorative carving — and a single central full-height window with moulded sandstone reveals and a hoodmould. The left cheek is four windows wide, each with Decorated tracery and decorative hoodmoulds, with single buttresses between the first and second windows at the right; there is an additional diminished cusped lattice-glazed lancet at the extreme left end and a blocked pointed-arch-headed entrance with a dressed sandstone surround. The right cheek is abutted by the modern vestry (of no special interest) to the left and the organ loft to the right. Exposed sections have an excavated plinth to the right end with a single Decorated tracery window with a hoodmould, the label dated 1932, and a similar window at the extreme left end. The organ loft gable has a bipartite lattice-glazed lancet with a label-ended hoodmould and splayed flush sill over a pointed-arch-headed timber door with a moulded sandstone architrave, which is blocked by an exposed boiler of no special interest. The organ loft cheeks are blank.

South Elevation

The south elevation is abutted to the right end by the transept and to the centre by the baptistry. The exposed section has a single pointed-arch-headed leaded painted glass window in moulded sandstone surrounds with a block-label-ended hoodmould and a brick elliptical relieving arch above; a single diminished window over the baptistry is surmounted by a brick half-round relieving arch.

The baptistry has an elliptical-arched stone roof with moulded verges and a cornice with keystone, and sandstone quoins. Its gable has a central single round-headed tripartite stained glass casement arrangement — with the central light taller than its neighbours — set in recessed sandstone plate tracery with a sill. The baptistry cheeks are blank and carry various later 18th- and 19th-century wall-mounted memorial plaques.

The south transept gable has angled buttresses and a central full-height window with hoodmoulds. Its cheeks are two windows wide with a central single buttress. The right cheek has a single window to the left with Intersecting tracery and hoodmoulds, and a single square-headed tripartite cusped casement with a stop-ended labelmould. The left cheek has one complete double-height pointed-arched ghostmark to the right and one partial ghostmark to the left; the left end has a square-headed tripartite window detailed as on the right cheek, while the right end has a single off-centre blocked square-headed window with splayed sandstone surrounds.

Interior

The 1907 renovation revealed various ancient architectural remains that had been embedded in the walls; these were restored and left exposed. They include eight Late Norman columns with semi-circular arches springing from them — not pointed arches as had previously been assumed — visible in the nave, chancel entrance and the south transept (referred to as Wills Aisle). This discovery confirmed the building's Late Norman origins, consistent with earlier scholarly analysis by W. H. Lynn in 1890, who had carefully measured the arches, and by Lawlor, who noted the close similarity between Carrickfergus and the church at Staindrop, County Durham, which is closely dated to around 1185. Lawlor observed that the original plans of both churches — with circular arches, cylindrical columns, and four chapels on the east side of the transepts — are practically identical, suggesting they were planned by one architect and are certainly of the same period.

The interior also contains several ghostmarks of earlier works and a rare Flemish 16th-century window of painted glass. Among the memorials, the most significant is the Chichester Memorial, one of the finest Jacobean funereal monuments in Ireland.

A plaque found in the vestry rebuilt in the 1960s and removed from the original vestry reads: "Vestry room erected at expense of Richard Dobbs, Dean of Carrick 1787."

Historical Development

The original structure, built around 1180 by John de Courcy, comprised a nave, south transept and north aisle, with ground levels approximately eight feet lower than at present. A chancel was added by Robert le Mercer in 1306. The church was burned by rebels in 1606 and subsequently remodelled around 1614 to 1615 by Thomas Cooper and master mason Thomas Paps, working for Sir Arthur Chichester. They re-roofed the structure but shortened the nave, demolished the aisles and blocked the aisle arcades. These repairs lasted until 12 January 1712, when the chancel roof collapsed; during this period Mayor Samuel Davys Alderman opened the east window. Cooper and Paps also demolished the church office and the south transept, and rebuilt the north transept over a crypt.

In 1812 the roof of the west part of the church collapsed and was entirely re-roofed, excluding the north aisle section. Thorough repairs were carried out again in 1818, when the aisles were newly flagged and a number of windows refitted and repaired. An organ was erected by subscription in 1830. An 18th-century vestry was added and subsequently rebuilt in the mid-20th century. A complete renovation in 1907 exposed the Late Norman arcade in the nave described above.

The church is recorded on James O'Kane's survey map of Carrickfergus of 1821, and appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 captioned "Church," with a layout identical to the current form. James Boyle's Ordnance Survey memoirs of 1840 describe two entrances — one by the belfry and one by a doorway at the western side — and note that the stained east window, representing John baptising Christ, was brought from the private chapel of Dangan House, County Meath in 1800 and presented to the parish by the late George Burleigh of Burleigh Hill. Boyle also records a belief that the church was founded on the site of a pagan temple, and a tradition — later dismissed by Hill as a Victorian-era rumour first appearing in McComb's Guide to Belfast of 1861 — that it occupied the site of an oratory of a Franciscan monastery, supposedly connected by a subterranean passage to the present gaol.

Scholarly debate about the church's Norman origins dates back at least to an 1872 report by Sir Thomas Drew to Bishop Knox, which argued for recognising the Norman rather than the 17th-century remodelling character of the building. Hill notes that the church is sometimes connected with a monastic site, but that it is now understood to predate the Franciscan friary established around 1232 to 1233 on the present site of the town hall. A letter of complaint dated 1220 from Bishop Reginald to Henry III, regarding the gifting of the church to the Abbey of Woodburn by John de Courcy, provides early documentary evidence of the building's existence.

Setting

The church stands in an ancient churchyard enclosed by boundary walls. The graveyard contains numerous 19th-century mausolea, wrought-iron and cast-iron railing-enclosed family plots, cast-iron grave markers, and 17th- and 18th-century gravestones and wall-mounted plaques. The spire dominates the skyline of Carrickfergus. The church lies within a conservation area and the listing extends to the church itself, the boundary wall, and the gates and gate pillars.