Raloo Church of Ireland Parish Church, Glenoe, Larne, Co Antrim

Raloo Church of Ireland Parish Church stands on an elevated site at Glenoe near Larne in County Antrim, overlooking the main village with a deep ravine and waterfall amongst mature trees to its rear. This is an early Victorian church in Gothic Revival style, designed by the leading Irish architect Charles Lanyon, who provided his services free of charge. Construction began in 1840, funded partly by subscriptions totalling £125 and partly by a grant of £311 from the Down and Connor Church Accommodation Society made on 5 May 1840. The church was consecrated on 18 August 1842. The site was given by Lord Viscount Dungannon, who also presented the font, communion plate, books, pulpit, reading-desk, and communion table, and enclosed the churchyard. The church stands on or near the site of a cottage formerly occupied by Miss McClaverty on the bank near the waterfall.

The building is a small gabled rectangular church constructed in snecked greystone in courses, with sandstone quoins and dressings and a projecting string course at plinth level. It exhibits the proportions, plan form, spatial organisation, and structural system characteristic of the Gothic Revival style, and retains almost all its original features both inside and out.

The main entrance front faces east and is symmetrical, featuring a projecting gabled porch with sandstone copings and kneelers. Above the entrance is a Tudor arch with dressings of chamfered ashlar sandstone. The double timber doors have three panels on each leaf, below a leaded fanlight with lozenge pattern glazing. A plain bronze doorknob serves as hardware. Each side of the porch contains one smaller Gothic lancet window. In the apex of the porch gable is a sunken quatrefoil panel in lozenge-shaped stone. A concrete doorstep lies before the entrance. The main front wall of the church on either side of the porch has a single lancet window in a projecting chamfered sandstone surround, with cusping to the head in white painted stone. The glazing is leaded in lozenge pattern with clear glass, and the windows rest on splayed sandstone cills.

The roof is laid with Bangor Blue slates in regular courses between gable upstands with sandstone copings and kneelers, topped with black ridge tiles. The guttering and downpipes are modern PVC replacements, with a moulded timber fascia. A modern bronze plaque affixed to the front wall records the consecration on 18 August 1842 and the re-hallowing on 6 January 1980 following restoration in 1979-80.

The ecclesiastical west gable, which actually faces south, contains a three-light window with the central lancet taller than the others, all set in a projecting breakfront with chamfered pinnacles to the shoulders. Above this window sits an ashlar sandstone bell-cote projecting on a corbel course, hung with a bell in a pointed opening. At ground level near the left-hand extremity is a recessed rectangular opening dressed in chamfered sandstone containing a cast iron perforated door inscribed 'Armagh Foundry'.

The west elevation is symmetrical with a central projecting gabled vestry built in rubble masonry. The main wall to the right of the vestry is blank; the wall to the left contains a single lancet window glazed directly without a cusped subframe and set in a smooth cement rendered surround, lined. The walling is greystone rubble in rough courses with a projecting string course at plinth level. The roofs are slated as the main church but with overhanging verges to the vestry without gable coping. The vestry gable contains a rectangular timber ledged door with tongued and grooved Gothic tympanum, set in three recessed Gothic arches in smooth cement render, approached by three concrete steps. The south side of the vestry has one Gothic lancet window with chamfered sandstone surround and plain wooden subframe.

The ecclesiastical east gable, which actually faces north, contains a three-light window of similar lancets to the west gable, surmounted by a narrow blind lancet in the apex of the gable above a blank panel.

The graveyard occupies undulating ground and contains nineteenth and twentieth century grave slabs but none of special architectural interest. The entrance gates are of rectilinear pattern in flat ironwork set between square granite piers with weathered caps, all original. Rubble stone front boundary walling is now overgrown by hedges. At the northern end of the front boundary is a small pedestrian gate with granite piers similar to the main entrance. The rear boundary is formed by a modern wire fence with a steep drop to the river beyond. A concrete driveway and area lie to the front of the church.

The church was renovated in 1979-80 and was relisted on 19 December 2001. It remains a building of considerable local interest and social importance, enjoying a particularly picturesque setting amongst mature woodland and water features.