St Patrick's Church of Ireland, 14 North Street, Stewartstown, Dungannon, BT71 5JF

St Patrick's Church of Ireland, Stewartstown, is a cruciform-plan Gothic Revival church of the 1870s, designed by the Ulster architect John Henry Fullerton and built in 1877 following the near-total destruction of the previous church by fire on 5 February that year. It comprises a nave, two transepts, and a chancel, retaining an earlier tower of 1822 at the west end. The builder was Senior of Dungannon, and the church was opened on 12th October 1877. It was described at the time as "almost a new edifice" in the Gothic style. The building stands on an elevated site set well back from the main street within its own extensive grounds in the built-up area of the town.

The nave, transepts, and tower are finished in roughcast render, while the chancel and vestry are of exposed stonework. The nave walling has a projecting plinth and painted sandstone dressings to the window openings, with shaped corbels to the eaves. The nave roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses, and the rainwater goods are of cast iron comprising moulded guttering and circular downpipes. The main nave windows are two-light with cusped tracery set in Gothic arched block surrounds, glazed with coloured glass in lead cames. The exposed west face of the nave contains one narrow cusped Gothic arched lancet with storm-glazed leaded lights set in a sandstone block surround.

The north elevation presents the nave with the tower set back at the right-hand end and the north transept projecting forward at the left-hand end. The north transept is of similar materials to the nave but lacks a plinth to the walls. Its side walls are blank, while the gable contains a large three-light window of similar detailing to the nave windows and is crowned by a decorative stone finial of fleur-de-lys form. A small rectangular cast iron hatch set in a sandstone surround near ground level in the gable is present, though its precise function is not known.

The tower is of square plan, stone-buttressed and crenellated, and rises in two stages separated by a plain stone platband. The lower stage contains the main entrance: Gothic arched double doors of diagonally boarded ledged timber set in a raised Gothic arched stone surround. Above the entrance is a lozenge-shaped datestone inscribed "SBR 1813 TTC", which presumably commemorates an earlier phase of building on the site. The upper stage contains an undressed Gothic arched opening with a projecting stone cill containing sheeted louvre boards. The other three faces of the tower are similar in treatment.

The east elevation shows the main nave gable flanked on each side by the two transepts, all in roughcast render, with the chancel projecting centrally and the vestry projecting to its left, both in exposed stonework. The nave gable is surmounted at its apex by a short, stubby ashlar sandstone chimney containing one black pot. The chancel is built of snecked rubble sandstone with a projecting plinth; its gable contains a large three-light window similar to that of the north transept but with a drip moulding and plain block label stops, and a decorative sandstone finial at the apex on a circular metal ventilator on the ridge. In the plinth on the north side of the chancel is a segmental arched shallow recess, formerly a doorway to a crypt but now walled up, approached by a flight of stone steps enclosed by iron railings and a gate. The vestry is of similar walling to the chancel and contains a pair of small coupled Gothic arched lancets in the east wall with lozenge-pattern metal glazing bars, a shouldered rectangular timber sheeted door on the south side, and steps to a basement enclosed by a roughcast wall.

The south elevation mirrors the north in materials and details, with similar windows, but the plinth of the nave stops short of the tower stairwell. There is also a modern flush rooflight in the roof of the nave. The tower stairwell projects in front of the tower flush with the nave wall plane on this side.

The west elevation shows the tower with the stairwell extending to one side. The lower stage of this face contains two windows: an original two-light window similar to those of the nave, and below it a later window containing stained glass behind storm glazing set in a raised Gothic surround modelled on that of the main entrance. Immediately below the louvred opening of the upper stage is a rectangular sandstone datestone inscribed "JGR 18.0", an incomplete or damaged date which presumably also commemorates an earlier phase of building on the site. The significance of the initials and dates on both datestones is not recorded. The stair bay to the right is of lean-to form and contains a rectangular ledged timber door set in a stop-chamfered sandstone surround, with a small cusped lunette above containing leaded glazing set in a sandstone surround of curvilinear form.

The interior is well preserved and contains an impressive arrangement of structural roof timbers, as well as a series of wall memorials which add to the historic ambience of the building.

The grounds are laid out with lawns containing graves and some mature trees, approached from a side road by a tarmac driveway that expands along the north side to form a small car park and extends around the west end of the church as a path. Laid flat on the ground in the south-west angle of the nave and transept, set in a cement screed bed, is a collection of 18th century memorial slabs, one of which is embellished with a depiction of a church with a tower. The site boundaries are marked mainly by rubble stone walling of no particular interest, with the exception of the main gateway. This comprises a pair of original ironwork gates inscribed "Riddell, Belfast", set between chamfered stone piers with cusped gablets on each face of the caps, from which a segmental ironwork archway surmounted by a lamp spans the driveway. The gateway is flanked on each side by short runs of ironwork railings on low walls. Extending from the north end of the driveway is a large tarmac car park containing a modern church hall.

The history of the site is considerable. The tower of 1822 was erected alongside side aisles added to a church of 1694, which by the early 19th century contained three galleries. The whole had been reconstructed in 1875 except for the tower. The church of 1694 was itself a replacement for an earlier church of 1622 destroyed during the war of 1641. In 1859, Joseph Welland prepared plans for a proposed enlargement on behalf of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and in 1862 Welland and Gillespie designed a new chancel and robing room for the church, with John Cooke as contractor. In 1877 the church underwent renovation including the installation of a new organ, and it was in February of that same year that fire destroyed the building, leaving only the 1822 tower standing. The present church was built directly in the wake of that fire.