Church of the Sacred Heart (RC), Adj. to 134 Dublin Road, Newry

Church of the Sacred Heart (RC), Newry

This is a basilica plan church in the Hiberno-Romanesque style, constructed from coursed rock faced granite with finely dressed detailing. The building sits on a hillside, approached by a sweeping driveway and flight of granite steps flanked by decorative cast iron lamp standards.

The church is aligned east-west and consists of a rectangular nave, side aisles and sanctuary, with a projecting sacristy to the rear right and a square based tower abutting the right side of the west façade. The roof comprises stone-coped gables over the nave and mono-pitched roofs to the side aisles, all finished in natural green slate in diminishing courses with alternating crested ridge tiles. Moulded granite brackets support cast iron cyma recta gutters and rainwater goods with decorated hopper heads. The walls are rock-faced granite ashlar with stepped base course and smooth faced granite dressings, and all windows are leaded.

The main west-facing façade comprises a fenestrated gable with a lean-to gable for the left aisle abutting to the left and the tower abutting to the right. Both the central gable and left aisle gable have buttresses rising to mock machicolations along the wall heads. The central doorway sits three steps up, set within a deeply recessed Romanesque arch flanked by a pair of colonettes in stepped jambs. A pair of timber doors, each comprising two rows of mullet panels with large metal handles, lead into the vestibule. Directly above the doorway is a label-moulded rose window consisting of a multi-foil window ringed by eight smaller cinquefoil windows. Below the window, within its finely dressed surround, is a small decorative arcade of nine blind semicircular-headed arches.

The left gable contains a tripartite window with semicircular heads, the central opening being taller, set within a larger semicircular arched surround with hood mould extending at either side as a string course.

The square planned tower rises to the right of the main gable in three stages delineated by stringcourses. The first stage (ground floor) contains a tripartite window matching that on the left gable. Above this is a statue of the Sacred Heart (Christ) beneath a crocketted and pinnacled granite canopy. Stepped buttresses rise up the edges of the tower to the eaves level of the nave. The second stage recesses above the eaves level and contains a blind arcade of three elongated semicircular-headed arched openings, topped by a mock-machicolated stringcourse. The third stage features an arcade of three semicircular headed arches supported by Romanesque colonnettes and capitals, with a balustrade of seven semicircular headed blind panels below the cill and a mock-machicolated eaves course above. The roof comprises a squared onion cupola with fish-scale copper tiles, crocketted ridges and base, a pinnacle and cross finial, and small projecting copper ogee headed blind lucarnes at three-quarter height.

Two granite steps on the tower's right elevation lead to a mullet-panelled double-leafed timber door set within a semicircular headed, hood-moulded surround with bead-moulded jamb. A semicircular stair tower with slit windows abuts to the right, finishing just above the side aisle eaves in a conical stone roof wrapped around the corner of the tower.

Along the left elevation, the side aisle contains five pairs of semicircular headed windows with Celtic motifs in stained glass. A slightly projecting gable between the second and third pair of aisle windows contains a confessional with a cinquefoil window and stone cross finial. The clerestory to the nave comprises six sets of three semicircular headed stained glass windows and three cinquefoil rose windows to the sanctuary. A side chapel projects as a gable with stone cross finial below the rose windows at ground floor level. Its gable end contains two central semicircular headed stained glass windows with a stained glass oeil de boeuf above. The rear gable of the sanctuary has three semicircular headed stained glass windows at clerestory level, the central window being taller. The side aisle terminates on the left with a second chapel, beyond which is the sacristy. The end gable of the side aisle contains two semicircular headed stained glass windows. The sacristy features a coped and gabled natural slate roof with a chimney near its end, two semicircular-headed windows to each side elevation, and an end gable with two semicircular-headed stained glass windows and a slit louvred window above.

The right elevation mirrors the left, with four pairs of semicircular headed stained glass windows along the aisle wall between the tower and sacristy at ground floor level. A confessional gable projects between the second and third pair of aisle windows. The clerestory contains five groups of three semicircular headed windows, with three cinquefoil rose windows to the sanctuary to their right.

The site also includes a parochial house and front gates and walling, listed separately.