Christ Church (C of I) Parish Church, Church Road, Kilmore, Downpatrick, Co Down, BT30 9HR

Christ Church is a mildly picturesque, rubble-built single-storey gothic church designed by Sir Thomas Drew and constructed between 1868 and 1870. It replaced an earlier parish church of 1792 that stood a short distance to the west; that earlier building has been reconstructed at the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum. Christ Church was the last Church of Ireland parish church to be built before Disestablishment became law in January 1870. Drew's original design included a much smaller tower, but this was altered during construction, resulting in the present tall and unusual four-storey square tower that now forms a prominent landmark in the flat surrounding countryside.

The walls are built of rock-faced random dark fieldstone rubble with a battered base, finished with beige sandstone dressed openings. Windows are connected by a double string course of Dumfriesshire red sandstone. The building comprises a main nave, side aisle, apsidal sanctuary, projecting porch, and vestry.

On the south façade, a small gabled porch with a centrally placed diagonally sheeted front door sits beneath a gothic arched opening with moulded archivolt supported on three-quarter pilasters with floral capitals. The south face is flanked by unusual battered buttresses. The west face of the porch contains three small gothic arched window openings, while the east face is blank. The nave wall to the right of the porch features paired lancet windows with lattice metal frames, further single windows, and additional paired lancet arrangements, all with sandstone dressings. The elongated four-storey square tower rises to the far right, with a battered base, a gothic arch-headed window on the ground floor south face, small arrow-slot windows to each face at second floor level, and paired lancets surmounted by cusped rose openings set within semicircular-headed recesses at third floor level. A projecting stone string course marks the springing point of the arch, with recessed circular decorative motifs to either side. The squat stone broach spire is finished in sandstone with small decorative stone gablettes to each face and is surmounted by a metal finial.

The east elevation is dominated by the battered apsidal sanctuary. At the junction of the tower and east wall is a small curved porch with a quarter-cone shaped roof. Three evenly spaced arch-headed window openings to the sanctuary itself feature trefoil designs over gothic arch-headed openings with cusps.

The north elevation includes a gabled projection containing the vestry and a rear porch over a basement boiler room. The gable bears a tall lancet window with a stainless steel flue to its right. The projection's east face is blank, while the west face contains a door opening to the right and a window opening to the left, both square-headed with sandstone dressings. Between the junction of the east face of the projection and the north side of the curved sanctuary end stands a tall battered chimney stack, no longer in use. To the right of the projection are three sets of paired lancet windows. The west gabled elevation features a quatrefoil window over a paired lancet arrangement.

The roof is slated with cast iron rainwater goods. A curving gate screen with decorative late-Victorian-style iron gates, matching railings, and simple painted pillars with panels and pyramidal caps fronts the drive to the church. A disabled access ramp and rail have been added since circa 2003.

The church is of special interest for its design, proportion, internal detail, surviving plan form, roof construction, and social function within the community. Its elongated tower is unusual and of particular architectural note.