St. Mary's Youth Centre, (former St. Mary's RC Church), 56 Main Street, Newcastle, Co Down, BT33 OAE

St Mary's Youth Centre, formerly St Mary's Roman Catholic Church

This single-storey Roman Catholic church was originally built around 1847–1848, probably through the efforts of the then Parish Priest, Reverend A. Hannah. The building likely began as a simple Gothic structure, with the elaborate decoration to the front gable—including the stair towers and turret—added in the late Victorian or Edwardian period. It stands on the east side of Main Street in Newcastle, surrounded by graveyard on the north, south and east sides.

The building is roughly rectangular in plan. The long nave has a gabled roof; the three-sided canted chancel features a hipped roof with a gabled vestry section attached to the south-east corner. The entire façade, except for the turret, is finished in lined render, and all roof sections are covered in natural slate.

The west-facing front façade is an eclectic mix of Gothic elements compressed into a relatively small, low gable topped with an octagonal spirelet. At ground level is a relatively small-scale double gabled bay containing twinned pointed arch doorways, each with deeply recessed timber-sheeted double doors. Label moulding runs above each opening, with recently placed boarding between these and the edges of the gables. The pier between the openings has short three-quarter colonnettes resting on a thick base with decorative capitals; the outer piers also have thick bases, and the entire doorway ensemble is buttressed. A small carved roundel sits to each side of the entrance.

Rising above the meeting point of the twinned gables is a cluster of colonnettes forming the pedestal for a tall, narrow gabled sentry-box-like canopied niche, presumably once housing a statue. The gable over the niche is supported on carved brackets with a decorative course running from the edges of the pedestal. The niche is flanked by matching pointed arch windows with label moulding and in-and-out dressings; each window contains twinned pointed arch lights with a quatrefoil in the tympanum. To the outer side of each window and the entrance stands a buttress breaking through the line of the gable; both buttresses are capped with gables and feature narrow pointed arch niches near their tops. Between the inner and outer buttresses, a small pointed arch window is set just above entrance level.

The main gable is topped with an octagonal turret and spire, all in ashlar granite. The turret rises from a corbel at the apex of the niche gable and features two sets of pointed arch openings at two levels to all sides, with taller upper openings separated from lower ones by a projecting course. The spire is topped with a small ball pinnacle bearing a metal crucifix. The outer edges of the main front façade gable are buttressed.

Set just behind the main front gable to both north and south are projecting three-sided canted stair turrets with hipped roofs. At lower level, each side of each tower has a small pointed arch window with dressings, following the rise of the stair. The upper level features a roundel to each side with largely plain dressings and quatrefoil tracery, all at the same level and linked by a plain course. A castellated course sits above these windows, behind which the short uppermost section of the tower rises to the hipped roof. Metal crucifix pinnacles top the tower roofs.

The north and south façades of the nave each contain six tall pointed arch windows with label moulding (linked to a course) and dressings. The westernmost window on each façade is narrower than the rest; buttresses separate each window on both façades, except for the two easternmost windows. These buttresses formerly broke through the eaves. On the east side of both the north and south façades, the end window has had a doorway inserted beneath it with a panelled door, the doorway head cutting into the lower portion of the window. On the south façade, a wheelchair ramp runs up to this doorway and along the main façade.

At the east edge of the south façade sits a two-level gabled vestry with twinned pointed arch windows set at high level to the gable, featuring label moulding, dressings and sash frames. The short west façade of the vestry contains a small flat arch window with dressings and a sash frame (now boarded). The vestry extends with another large gabled section to the east, showing evidence of two pointed arch window openings at upper level (now blocked) and a small plain sheeted doorway at ground level. To the north side of this section, a stair rises to an upper level plain sheeted doorway, flanked on the left by two small sash windows with dressings. The short south side of this section contains a small window with matching dressings but modern frame. This latter gable portion cuts across the south of the three-sided chancel to the main east gable.

The chancel has a broad pointed arch window at high level to each side, a buttress to its east side, and a hipped roof. Most window frames and tracery are timber. All windows contain plain or latticed glazing except those of the chancel, which retain late Victorian stained glass. Cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout. A rendered wall links the front with the main front gable, featuring late Victorian railings and pedestrian gates.

Ecclesiastical use ceased around 1967 when a new modern church was completed on Downs Road. The building now serves as a youth club and has undergone some alterations in recent years, notably the removal of the nave buttresses and the insertion of doorways to the north and south.