St Patrick's (C of I) Church, Rathkeel Road, Broughshane, Ballymena, Co Antrim

St Patrick's Church of Ireland, Broughshane, is a small, rubble-built, single-storey church with a two-storey tower, originally built around 1765. It stands on a slight rise to the east of Rathkeel Road, on the south-east side of Broughshane, and is surrounded by a small graveyard. The church assumed its current cruciform shape around 1869, when it was greatly enlarged by the addition of transepts, a chancel, a vestry, and a porch. A steeple, which appears to have been original to the building, was removed around 1972 on safety grounds.

Exterior

The building is cruciform in plan, with the tower set against the west gable of the nave. The tower is relatively low, rising to just two storeys. To the ground floor of its south face is the entrance porch, likely added after 1869. This porch is open and has a distinctly picturesque, almost Arts and Crafts character, with a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in tiles and decorative barge boards. The barge boards form the upper portion of a pointed arch open doorway and feature decorative piercings — including a shamrock motif at the apex — and a serrated verge moulding. They are carried on projecting brackets, which in turn rest on plain, stocky three-quarter sandstone colonnettes with tall bases. The short east and west faces of the porch are in squared basalt rubble with sandstone to the outer edges at the colonnettes. Within the porch — which actually leads into the tower — is a pointed arch doorway with in-and-out bevelled sandstone dressings and a timber-sheeted double door.

To the first floor of the south face of the tower, above the porch, is a pointed arch window with louvring and sandstone dressings matching the doorway below; all openings are dressed in sandstone in much the same fashion. There is a similar window at first floor level on the north face, but no opening at ground floor on that side. To the ground floor of the west face is a larger pointed arch window with geometrical tracery consisting of double pointed arch lights with cusps and a trefoil; it has a bevelled sill and is filled with pictorial stained glass (see interior description below). At first floor on the west face is a clock with a black dial and white Roman numerals. The east face of the tower is only exposed at first floor level and is blank. The tower has raised in-and-out sandstone quoins and is topped with a projecting eaves course and a parapet with arcade-like panelling. At the corners of the parapet are octagonal pointed pinnacles. The tower was originally crowned with a spire, which became unsafe and was removed around 1972.

The south elevation of the church, apart from the tower, comprises the nave to the left, the south transept, and the chancel. The nave has two relatively large pointed arch windows, placed close together but not identical. Almost certainly one is a later insertion, probably introduced when the church was greatly extended around 1869, though the positioning of both looks awkward enough to suggest that neither sits comfortably within an original opening. The left-hand window has geometrical tracery with paired pointed arch lights with cusps and a trefoil; the one to the right, which is marginally smaller, has intersecting tracery with paired pointed arch lights and a V or Y pattern above. Both are dressed in sandstone, but the character of both the stone and the construction of the dressings differs between the two, and the right-hand window also has rough basalt voussoirs.

To the right, the south transept projects outward. On its west face is a small gabled porch with a slated roof, stone parapet, and in-and-out sandstone quoins. To the short south face of this porch is a narrow doorway with a flat arch head with bevelled corners, sandstone dressings, and a bevelled reveal; the door is timber-sheeted with decorative strap hinges. On the west (gabled) face of the porch is a narrow pointed arch window with lattice panes. The gable of the transept itself contains a large central pointed arch window with curvilinear tracery consisting of paired pointed arch lights with cusps and a quatrefoil; it has a sandstone label moulding and basalt voussoirs. On the east face of the transept are two narrow pointed arch windows, with voussoirs matching the transept gable window.

To the right (east) of the south transept is a small gabled vestry with a steeply pitched slated roof and stone parapets. On its south face are paired pointed arch windows with lattice panes. On the east (gabled) face is a small doorway generally similar to that of the porch on the west side of the transept, but with a shouldered opening.

The north elevation is largely a mirrored version of the south, except that the west face of the north transept has a narrow pointed arch window with lattice panes in place of a porch, and there is a single window on the east face rather than two.

To the centre of the rear (east) elevation is the gabled chancel, with a steeply pitched slated roof and stone parapet. To the south, the chancel is abutted by the vestry. On the east-facing gable of the chancel is a large pointed arch window with geometric tracery consisting of triple pointed arch lights and three roundels, with a sandstone label moulding and basalt voussoirs. In the intersection between the chancel, the nave gable, and the east face of the north transept, there is a small and recent-looking lean-to boiler house with rendered walls, a timber-sheeted door on the east face, an aluminium flue to the west, and a corrugated iron roof.

Materials and construction

The original portions of the building — the western section of the nave and the tower — are finished in fieldstone rubble. Much of this, particularly on the nave, is basalt, as would be expected in County Antrim, but the tower appears to be in a mixture of rubble types or has been patched with different materials including sandstone. The stonework on both nave and tower is, however, largely obscured by a heavy application of mortar pointing. Both tower and nave have raised in-and-out sandstone quoins. The porch on the south side of the tower is mainly in roughly squared basalt. The eastern half of the church — the portions added around 1869, comprising the transepts, chancel, vestry, and associated porches — is all in roughly squared basalt with uneven in-and-out sandstone quoins.

All sections of the roof are gabled and slated with stone parapets. The nave has a stone eaves course. The transepts, chancel, vestry, and porch roofs all have slight overhangs with exposed rafter ends, giving something of an Arts and Crafts character. Cast iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

Graveyard and gates

The church is surrounded by a small graveyard, itself enclosed by a rubble wall to the north, south, and east. To the west and south-west there is a lower rubble wall with simple cast iron railings. To the east, facing the road, is a timber lych gate in a similar Arts and Crafts style to the main entrance porch. This gate carries a carved inscription along its verge recording that it was erected as a memorial to the Reverend William Crawford in 1882; it has pierced panels to its north and south sides and a gabled tiled roof. To the rear (east) is a smaller lych gate, which appears more decorative than practical — it is quite narrow and stands over steps, not an ideal position for resting a coffin. This gate is in a generally similar style to the front one, though its tiled roof is set with gables to the sides. Directly over the gate, on an arched portion of the structure, is an inscription recording that it was erected as a memorial to The Honourable Edward and Lady Louisa O'Neill in 1883. To the south is a vehicle gateway with decorative wrought iron gates and pillars in dressed sandstone with decorative gabled caps. A short distance to the east of this is a simple wrought iron pedestrian gate with pillars in rubble and brick.

Historical background

Broughshane is a small village largely developed in the late 17th and 18th centuries by the O'Neill family, and it is believed that they were responsible for building the present church around 1765. The building is almost certainly that shown on Taylor and Skinner's map of the roads of Ireland published in 1777. It replaced an earlier church that stood on an unidentified site nearby. That earlier structure may in part have been of medieval construction: a church of Rathconna — the church of the parish of Racavan — valued at one mark (13 shillings and 4 pence) is mentioned in papal taxation records of 1306. However, nothing is known of this earlier building, and the Visitation records of 1622 describe the 'ecclesiatica de Racavan' as 'decayed', suggesting it may have been largely demolished by that point. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1832 record that some of the older inhabitants of Broughshane remembered the pre-1765 church — whether medieval or not — as having been thatched.

The present building originally consisted of the tower (with its steeple) and nave. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1832 describe it as 'very small but neat' with a 'steeple 117 feet high'. A further Memoir of 1835 records that the nave measured 50 feet long by 27 feet wide and was capable of accommodating 300 persons, and describes the 'neat tower 14 feet square on which is erected a cut stone spire'. The clock in the tower and the bell are also mentioned, the clock having been presented by the Honourable Major-General O'Neill MP but noted as 'nearly useless' owing to neglect. Curiously, these descriptions do not mention a vestry and a 'return' (an L-shaped projection), both of which are recorded in the valuation returns of around 1834, measuring 8¾ by 11 by 8¼ feet and 11¾ by 8¾ by 20 feet respectively. These sections probably account for the squat T-plan shape of the church shown on both the valuation map of that period and the Ordnance Survey map of 1832. Whether these sections were original to the 1765 building is uncertain; the valuation grades both as 'B+', implying in the valuers' estimation that they had been present for twenty to twenty-five years at that point. However, an article entitled 'Broughshane Church' published in the Church of England Magazine of 2nd October 1869 — not yet seen directly by the recorders but quoted on a plaque inside the church — mentions additions made to the building at the expense of the parishioners in 1829. The second valuation of 1859 lists the same dimensions as the earlier survey, with the vestry and return still present. Puzzlingly, however, the 1859 valuation map shows a radically different plan from its predecessor, with projections to the north-eastern corner and what appears to be a rounded chancel to the east.

Between 1859 and 1903, when the first 1:1056 Ordnance Survey plan of Broughshane was produced, the church was transformed into its current cruciform plan, with large transepts, a chancel, a vestry, and porches all added; in the process, the additions dating from 1829 appear to have been removed. This building work appears to have been carried out in 1869 or slightly earlier, as the same Church of England Magazine article of October 1869 states that the building 'has been recently improved by the erection of a small chancel rendered more convenient for public worship'. The vestry and the front porch may also have been added at this time, as their style matches that of the transepts; however, the slightly awkward position of the vestry in relation to one of the windows on the east face of the south transept could suggest that it is a slightly later extension. The present window arrangement to the nave is also thought to date from around 1869. The church remained largely in this late 19th-century form until 1972, when the steeple was removed on safety grounds.

The rectory of Skerry, which this church has long served alongside Racavan, is traditionally believed to have been founded by St Patrick. There is no firm evidence to support this claim: the historical association of Patrick with particular places and churches derives from later hagiographies, most notably those by Muirchú and Tírechán, written some two centuries after the accepted dates of his mission and produced as propaganda in support of politico-religious controversies of their own time. Patrick himself, in his Confessio — one of only two surviving pieces of his own writing — mentions only one place in Ireland by name, 'the wood of Foclut' (silva Vocluti), which he places near 'the western sea' (mare occidentale, literally the sea of the setting of the sun, meaning the Atlantic). Historians generally accept that Patrick's work appears to have taken place in the northern half of Ireland, but the saint's specific connections with particular localities cannot be proven.