Church of SS Peter and Paul, Chapel Road, Bessbrook, Co. Armagh

The Church of SS Peter and Paul is a freestanding Roman Catholic church of cruciform plan, built between 1868 and 1875 on Chapel Road, Bessbrook, County Armagh. The foundation stone was laid on 28 June 1868 by Primate Kieran, with construction initiated by Parish Priest Reverend Michael McKevitt nine months before the lease was formally granted in 1869 by landowner John Grubb Richardson. The lease was granted at an annual rent of twenty pounds for the celebration of divine worship according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Father McKevitt died in March 1874, having completed much of the construction work. His successor, Father Charles Quin, completed the interior, and the church was dedicated in 1875.

The church is designed in a restrained Gothic style typical of late nineteenth-century rural Roman Catholic churches, and retains its original external form and proportion. It is unconventionally oriented with the chancel to the west. The building comprises a cruciform plan with pitched slate roof and stone verges bearing cross finials to the transepts. The east gable projects to centre and rises with granite offsets to an ashlar granite bellcote with cross finial and chamfered pointed arched aperture containing a bell. The walling is painted render with plinth and rendered quoins. Windows are replacement leaded lattice with central stained glass panels dating from circa 1950, with external secondary glazing, rendered reveals and painted masonry cills. Tripartite Y-tracery pointed arched windows light the cardinal points, with lancets elsewhere. The east gable of the nave features a quoined breakfront to centre, topped with the bellcote and bearing a single window with stone quatrefoil above. The south elevation comprises the nave, lit by three lancets, and the south transept, lit to the south and by two lancets to the east and one to the west. The east porch has a pointed arched door opening with replacement double-leaf varnished timber doors and access ramp. The north elevation is centrally abutted by the chancel, lit by a west window and a small pointed arched window to each cheek, and further abutted to the south by a single-storey flat-roofed vestry dating from circa 1950, with multi-paned metal-framed windows and parapet. The transepts are each lit by two windows to the west. Profiled aluminium gutters sit on projecting eaves. Flat-roofed confessional outshots project from the west elevation of each transept and the south elevation of the nave. A side-chapel outshot extends to the north side of the nave. Gabled porches project from the north elevation of the nave and the east elevation of each transept.

In 1883, a new gallery was constructed to the designs of architect Richard Hynes of Newry, who had designed the original church. The church underwent extensive refurbishment circa 1950 after falling into disrepair, followed by light reordering in the early 1970s.

Internally, the church is an amalgam of original late Victorian fabric echoing the Gothic style exterior and the 1950s refurbishment. It retains its original raked gallery and tripartite Gothic style confessionals. The sanctuary is comprehensively embellished with high-quality mosaic work of particular note and reused Victorian marble, all dating from the twentieth century. The timber altar, pulpit and altar rails were replaced with marble during the 1953 refurbishment undertaken under Father Vincent Mallon, who appointed architect Edward Joseph Kilpatrick to oversee the works. In the early 1970s, the altar was modified and moved forward during reordering.

The church is prominently located at the junction of Chapel Road and Church Road, set back from Chapel Road and slightly elevated to the east, on a paved platform accessed by five steps to the northeast and southeast. The setting includes shrubs and small ornamental trees to either side. A tarmac parking area lies to the east, bounded to the road by a reconstructed stone-faced boundary wall with original rendered gate piers bearing cusped Gothic panels, gableted and finialled caps, and supporting original cast-iron vehicular and pedestrian gates. A two-storey residence (the original parochial house) stands within the gates to the southeast, with a replacement parochial house dating from circa 1980 to the south. A burial ground lies to the west. The associated Sisters of Mercy Convent and Primary School are situated a short distance to the northwest.

The Church of SS Peter and Paul is one of five places of worship in or close to the model mill village of Bessbrook, constructed around 1845 by the Richardson family to accommodate workers at their linen mill. The village was conceived as a "model" village with no public house, and consequently no police barracks or pawn shop. Of social interest, the Church of SS Peter and Paul has served the Roman Catholic population of the village for almost 150 years and is one of a group of institutions in the village, including a school and a convent, representative of the social mission of the church in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The church first appears, captioned, on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of circa 1900. Father McKevitt's successor, Canon Charles Quin, who died on 4 May 1925, was followed by Canon Patrick Loughran, credited with replacing oil-fired lighting with electric lighting in 1932, installed by Gordon's of Armagh, and the fitting of central heating by Musgrave's of Belfast. Canon Loughran died in 1944. Father Vincent Mallon, who succeeded in 1947, appointed architect Edward Joseph Kilpatrick to draw up condition reports for the church and other parish properties. Father Mallon was succeeded by Father Cullen, who continued improvement works, and later by Father Carraher, under whom the altar reordering took place in the early 1970s.