St Luran's Church of Ireland Church, 96 Church Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8HX

St Luran's Church of Ireland Church is an impressive 19th-century sandstone church in the Gothic Revival style, built in two distinct phases. The first phase, dating from 1822, was designed by the celebrated English architect John Nash and comprised the main entrance tower and spire together with the first bay of the nave. The second and larger phase, of 1859 to 1861, is attributed to the well-known Dublin architect Joseph Welland, who served as chief architect to the Irish Ecclesiastical Commissioners from 1843 until 1860, and added a cruciform arrangement of nave, chancel, and transepts, together with a north porch. The church holds national architectural significance by virtue of Nash's involvement, and its interior survives almost entirely unspoiled.

The building consists of a two-stage nave, a chancel, and transepts, with a western tower and spire, a small porch on the north side of the nave, a vestry on the north side of the chancel, and a modern lavatory appended to the east end of the chancel. It stands in a built-up area facing the main street of the town, set back within its own spacious grounds, with the principal entrance facing west.

The Tower and West Elevation

The west elevation presents the two gables of the two stages of the nave, one projecting forward from the other, largely obscured by the tower standing in front. The tower is of square plan, rising three storeys, with diagonal buttresses at its corners that climb to large pinnacles with ball finials. The parapets are crenellated, supported on a corbel course, and behind them rises a tall octagonal stone spire. The walling of the tower and spire is of squared sandstone rubble laid in regular courses.

The main west entrance to the tower contains a pair of rectangular ledged timber doors with decorative ironwork hinges, surmounted by a sheeted timber tympanum recessed within a Tudor-arched opening, above which is a diamond-shaped timber lattice-paned window. Higher up in the tower is a pair of coupled lancet openings containing timber louvres, with canted arched drip mouldings. On the side elevations of the tower, the ground floor has a pair of coupled small rectangular windows containing leaded glazing, while the diamond-shaped panel above is left blank.

The Nave, Chancel, and Transepts

Beyond the tower, the remainder of the church is built of snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings. All corners have diagonal buttresses, and there are projecting plinths and small shaped stone corbels to the eaves. The roofs are covered in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with decorative ridge cresting. On the ridge of each transept sits a small square stone chimney topped with a red pot. Rainwater goods are of cast iron.

On the north elevation, the nave windows and the side windows in the transept flanks are two-light cusped Gothic-arched openings, mostly containing small iron lozenge-shaped panes with margins. The north transept gable contains a large three-light cusped Gothic window incorporating a large cinquefoil tracery light, similarly glazed. The north porch has a doorway with a pair of arched timber boarded doors with decorative ironwork hinges and nail heads, set in a chamfered Gothic arch and flanked by lateral buttresses, with a small Gothic-arched window in each side wall. The vestry is of lean-to form and contains a rectangular timber boarded door in a shouldered surround on its exposed north and east faces, along with simple Gothic-headed windows in coupled and triplet arrangements.

The east gable of the chancel contains a very large four-light cusped Gothic window incorporating a large wheel window, filled with stained glass. Attached below it is a small and visually inappropriate modern lavatory of lean-to form with oversailing eaves, built of rusticated artificial stone and containing simple Gothic-arched doorways and windows with projecting surrounds that do not match the original church fabric.

The south elevation is essentially similar to the north, except that the chancel wall is more fully revealed. It contains three windows, two of which differ in pattern from the standard two-light windows found elsewhere on the building. Most windows on the south elevation contain stained glass.

Interior

The interior is almost entirely unspoiled and features a very impressive roof of king-post trusses.

Historical Development

The church as designed by Nash in 1822 originally comprised, in addition to the tower and spire, a three-bay nave with projecting flat-roofed side chapels at the centre of each side — one housing a pew for the Stewarts of Killymoon, the other containing the pulpit. It was built for £3,000, of which Colonel W. Stewart of Killymoon Castle contributed £500. The interior of that earlier church was fitted out in what was described as the Saxon style. Although not built until 1822, Nash's design was apparently drawn up as early as 1814. A plan, elevations, and section evidently in Nash's own hand survived in the parish rectory and were copied in the 1970s by the Monuments and Buildings Branch of the Department of the Environment; copies are held at the MBR, Hill Street.

The 1859 to 1861 work by Welland was undertaken to provide a larger nave to Nash's original building. In the Representative Church Body Library there survive a number of plans from the office of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, including an undated design for the enlargement probably by Welland, and a ground plan and south elevation signed 'J. Welland & Son'. Further improvements were carried out in 1887 by John Henry Fullerton, including a large addition to the chancel and the provision of a new organ, with James Burnet of Cookstown serving as contractor.

The font is dated 1684 and was presumably brought to the present church in 1822 from the previous parish church, Derryloran Old Church, which still survives as a roofless ruin on the outskirts of the town. The first church on this site was consecrated on 8 August 1822; the present church was consecrated on 19 November 1861.

Setting

The grounds are laid out with lawns to the front and south side of the church, with a large tarmac car park to the rear and north. Tarmac forms the immediate surround to the building and has encroached slightly on the plinth of the tower. The front boundary is formed by modern railings on a low stone plinth, with two sets of gateways from which two driveways lead to the main entrance. Between the front boundary and the pavement is a tarmac parking area enclosed by a post and chain fence. The listing covers the church and its front boundary walling.