St Patricks RC Church, Bryansford village, Ballyhafry, Newcastle, Co Down, BT33 0PX

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Bryansford

This is a simple two-storey gabled Roman Catholic church built in 1830, now with recently added gabled porches and a vestry. It stands on the north side of the main road through Bryansford village, at the north-east corner of the settlement, with graveyards to the north and south and a large car park to the east.

The front (south) façade is symmetrical. At its centre is a small gabled porch with timber double doors, constructed in stone (which has the appearance of cladding) with a natural slate roof that has a slight overhang and boxed-in eaves. This porch appears to have replaced an earlier porch of similar size, possibly from the mid-nineteenth century. On either side of the porch are three tall pointed arch windows with granite surrounds and a string course at arch springing level. These windows contain small square leaded lights with coloured glass. Directly above the porch is a slate panel with granite surround and a cross, inscribed "This chapel built A.D. 1830, The Rev John Hagerty being Pastor". The main façade is lined rendered with bevelled quoins.

To the west gable is a recently added gabled porch, low and broad with a shallow pitched gabled roof. It has double doors to its south face, several modern windows to the west (gable), and a stone façade. Above it is a smaller pointed arch window. The east gable contains a similar vestry, otherwise blank. The rear has three central windows like those to the front but with rendered surrounds, and to the far left a small flat arch window with a modern frame. The main roof and porch roofs are covered in natural slate, with small stone crosses at the apex of each main gable. Rainwater goods are cast iron and PVC.

The church was built in 1830 to replace an earlier church erected by Reverend Robert Taylor in 1760. The site was donated by Lord Roden and construction cost £900. Contemporary accounts describe it as a very plain building surrounded by trees, capable of accommodating 550 people. A porch was added to the front sometime between 1834 and 1859 (it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1859), but the present porch is a modern reconstruction. The larger western porch and vestry are later additions, likely dating from around 1990.

A low rendered wall with modern gates surrounds the graveyards.