Church of Ireland Church, Church Hill, Jonesborough, Newry, Co Armagh, BT35 8HP

Church of Ireland Church, Jonesborough

A mid-19th-century granite church consisting of a nave, chancel and entrance porch, situated in a churchyard on the east side of Church Hill and aligned west-east. The building is constructed from squared granite blocks laid irregularly throughout.

The roof is steeply pitched with natural slate and features a crested terracotta ridge, raised stone skews, and two small square-section metal vents. An advanced chamfered eaves course runs around the building. Cast-iron half-round gutters are fitted (except to the porch, which has ogee gutters); those to the nave are now missing.

The western gable apex displays a finely dressed granite bellcote with pitched coping and moulded cornice, supported on moulded kneelers. The bell niche is cusped with a trefoil opening above, surmounted by a diamond-shaped cloverleaf stone cross. The eastern gable is topped with a granite trefoil finial.

All windows are plainly glazed lancets set in stepped chamfered surrounds, now covered with metal security grilles. All buttresses are two-stage, with the top of the first stage forming a sloping cill course and the top of the second stage having five offsets.

The principal western gable has a buttress at either side. To the centre are two windows and a pointed oval louvred opening above; its head rests in the apex of a flush voussoired relieving arch above the two windows. The apex contains a trefoil niche. Each side elevation is four openings wide and has five buttresses of the same detail.

The south elevation includes a projecting entrance porch set between the second and third buttresses from the left. The porch is detailed as the main church and its roof rises almost to eaves level. The south-facing gable is supported by a single tapering buttress on either side and contains the entrance door (now infilled with concrete blocks), set within a moulded stone reveal with stepped surround and hood mould. Above this is a granite datestone reading '1866'. The porch apex has a small trefoil lattice-framed window, with blank cheeks on either side.

The north elevation is abutted on its extreme left end by a lean-to sacristy. The buttress here rises above eaves level to form a chimney. The eastern gable has a buttress at either end and is abutted by a five-sided chancel, detailed as the main church but with a hipped roof. Each face of the chancel has a lancet window with cusped head, except for the south face which is blank and the north face which is abutted by the sacristy.

The sacristy is detailed as the main church with a monopitched natural slate roof sloping to the north. Its north face is blank. The left cheek has a cusped lancet. The right cheek has two tongue-and-groove sheeted doors set in shouldered chamfered openings, with the right door positioned higher and accessed by a number of granite steps (now eroded).

The church is enclosed from the road by a squared granite boundary wall with saddle coping. It is accessed by a pair of wrought-iron gates supported on square-section granite gate piers with oversailing pyramidal coping. The churchyard contains a number of 19th-century memorials, notably a large memorial with shrouded urn at the south-west, dedicated to the employees of Lord Clermont (died 1887) and inscribed "FATHER IN THY GRACIOUS KEEPING LEAVE WE NOW THY SERVANTS SLEEPING".