St. Brigid’s RC Church, Main Avenue, Newry, Co Down, BT35 6HE

St. Brigid's RC Church

St. Brigid's is a large modernist post-war church built between 1960 and 1979, designed by architects Smith and Fay of Newry and constructed by Henry Cole, Newry. The foundation stone was laid on 13 June 1965. The building sits on an exposed hillside in a housing estate.

The church exemplifies new formalism, wedding modern construction techniques with a well-understood traditional form, though it is not considered to be of special historic or architectural merit.

The design adopts a traditional T-plan with a symmetrical layout comprising a large gabled nave with side aisles, narthex, and transepts, all contained in abutting blocks. An additional free-standing campanile abuts the south side of the façade.

The nave roof is constructed as a folded slab clad with copper; the north face has been overclad with mineral felt. Glazing runs continuously along the ridge on both north and south sides. The roof is trimmed in insitu concrete that masters the stonework below. The west end wall is gabled over the nave and canted forward to the central axis. The east end rests on a full-width podium of five limestone steps, with rusticated limestone ashlar work to either end and precast concrete paving flags.

The gable is faced overall in ashlar limestone, possibly from Kilkenny. The face is smooth dressed into regular vertical ridges and furrows with rusticated stops above a series of low-level rectangular lancet lights in aluminium, set in four groups of four (two to each cant); below each window is an isolated rectangular rusticated block. To the left and right of the nave gable, the north and south aisle entrances are glazed full height to the eaves of the main gable with polycarbonate in aluminium frames. Each entrance consists of a pair of glazed aluminium-framed doors, approached by six limestone steps from the podium. Each entrance has an overhanging concrete roof with three canted panels to the soffit, the central one inset with a light. Beyond the entrances are shallow gablets with facing walls of full-height smooth ashlar limestone.

The north gable is inset with a commemorative raised and chamfered stone plaque reading: "This stone was blessed and laid by the Most Reverend Eugene O'Doherty D.D Bishop of Dromore, 13 June 1968, Rev John A. Lynch A.D.M. Newry Smith and Fay Architects, Newry. Henry Cole Newry Ltd Builders." The south gablet has a similar plain plaque, and its concrete gable advances to link with the campanile.

The campanile is of four stages, all constructed in insitu concrete, and rests on the podium, which advances to meet it. Stage one comprises four square posts, and stage two is similar, divided by a similar transom. Stage three is decorated on north and south faces with a cross-potent; on east and west faces with a grill of nine concrete posts. Stage four is similar but with the decorations transposed. A single bell hangs within. The campanile is topped by a large cross-potent in galvanised metal, resting on the open framework roof and incorporating a spike finial and lightning conductor.

The south elevation forms a series of ten shallow gables, each advancing a different stage from its neighbours. Some original aluminium window frames have been replaced by plastic to similar designs. The first bay on the left is the advanced narthex, faced in smooth ashlar limestone with a large aluminium window from approximately 2 metres cill height to the gable head. It is glazed with blue and white glass, the blue brought out in a cross. On its east cheek wall is a pair of sheeted timber doors, stained and set below a gabled hood.

The next six shallow gables alternate. Bays 2, 4, and 6 are quarry-faced ashlar limestone with wall space for approximately 1.5 metres below roof line glazed with seven-paned painted timber fixed windows following the line of the gable. At ground floor, each has five rectangular lancets in squinch reveals with smooth dressed stone mullions. Bays 3, 5, and 7 are advanced but not to the same distance as the narthex; the fifth is further advanced than bays 3 and 7. The stonework in bay 5 is decorated with a raised masonry cross-potent. The west cheeks of all three are glazed with 3×4 paned fixed painted timber from a cill height of approximately 2 metres to eaves level.

Gables 8, 9, and 10 advance further than all previous bays and form the south transept. Gable 8 forms the west wall to the transept and 10 the east wall. The west elevation of bay 8 is quarry-faced ashlar with low-level lancets in two groups of five. The gable of 9 advances beyond those of 8 and 10, is faced in ashlar, and is blank. It has an entrance porch with the doorway in its west cheek, and the east cheek is blank. The east wall of the transept (bay 10) is quarry-faced ashlar punched by one group of five lancet windows at high level and two groups at low level; the mullions are smooth-faced limestone.

The east wall of the nave (the sanctuary) is in quarry-faced ashlar limestone and is abutted at ground floor by a two-storey sacristy. The sacristy is symmetrical about the main building axis with four shallow gables forming the roof. The stonework is all quarry-faced ashlar. The ground floor is symmetrical, having seven rectangular aluminium-framed casement windows, the central one larger than the others, flanked by paired sheet doors of stained timber with an overpanel containing a metal grid with a cross; at both ends are two more rectangular windows. At first floor, from roof line to two-thirds of the storey height, glazing occurs in four bays below the gables. There is a further single-storey section of the sacristy and associated offices with two gables on the north face of the sacristy, flush with the east elevation. This section has a copper roof and quarry-faced stonework on the east wall and smooth stonework on the north. The north wall is glazed from a cill at approximately 1.5 metres up to the roof, filling the gable.

The north elevation is the same as the south (but read right to left) with the following exceptions: the copper roof has been overlain with mineral felt; some aluminium-framed windows have been replaced with plastic to a similar glazing pattern; and the narthex does not have a doorway on its east cheek.

The grounds are extensive and landscaped. To the rear is a free-standing boiler house, placed axially and detached, single storey with a concrete tiled hipped roof crowned by a decorative chimney with crosses fretted out of the four faces; walls are rendered. A railing runs along the west and south perimeter, including two carriage gates and related pedestrian gates, one linking to the primary school. The design is sympathetic to the building, with gates peaked in echo of the gables. The dwarf wall below the railings is concrete with bush-hammered vertical ribs. The same detail repeats for retaining walls around the site and for landscaping around a free-standing crucifix set axially in front of the west face of the building. The crucifix shows the crucified Christ flanked by His Mother and St John; the quality and scale of this feature are considered disappointing.