Christ Church (C of I), Newry Street, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 4DN

Christ Church (Church of Ireland), Kilkeel, County Down

An attractive Church of Ireland hall church with tower, built between 1815 and 1818 to a design by Patrick O'Farrell at a cost of £7,000, partly defrayed by Lord Kilmorey. The building stands in a prominent location near the centre of the town. Transepts and a chancel were added later, and these later additions are in sympathy with the original. The church, its gates, and screen wall are all of special merit. It was described in the 1830s Ordnance Survey Memoir for Kilkeel Parish as "a very good church, but rather large for the congregation."

The building is orientated north to south, with the tower and main entrance at the north end. All directional references that follow use liturgical orientation from this point. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue clay ridges, cast iron ogee gutters, and matching downpipes. All stonework is ashlar granite, now strap pointed.

The Tower

The tower rises in three stages, with two-stage buttresses set diagonally at each corner, each with a battered base. At ground level on the west face of the tower there is an entrance door of modern stained mahogany, eight-panelled, with side panels and a glazed plastic overlight. This is set within a three-order Tudor arch with a label mould. Above the doorway, a square recessed plaque contains a bas-relief of a seated abbot — St Colman — flanked by yew trees. The second stage on this face has a glazed opening within a moulded octagonal architrave. The third stage contains a Gothic arched bell-vent with a chamfered surround, fitted with a timber frame divided into two Gothic panels at the bottom and three at the top, all with trefoil cusped heads and louvred. Above the bell-vents is a frieze course in the form of mock machicolations — wide, shallow arches springing from moulded brackets — which echo the bell-vents below and stop at each end where they meet the corner buttresses. Above the frieze, a moulded cornice also meets the buttresses, between each of which is a crow-stepped embattled parapet. The buttresses terminate in tall masonry pinnacles.

The left (north) cheek of the tower has, at first stage, two painted timber lancets with trefoil cusped heads, separated by a small cusped spandrel light, all set within a Tudor Gothic arched opening with chamfered jambs and a label mould. The second stage on this face has a glazed octagonal panel matching the west face. The third stage and above are detailed as the other faces. The right (south) cheek of the tower has, at first stage, a pair of doors detailed as those on the west face but smaller and without side panels, with chamfered jambs and a label mould. Directly above these are two rectangular slit lights with no dressings. The second stage contains a clock face set within an octagonal moulded architrave. The third stage and above are detailed as the other faces.

The rear elevation of the tower is exposed above the nave roof from the third stage upwards, detailed as the other faces at those levels. The exposed section of the nave gable has a two-stage diagonal buttress with a battered base at each end, terminating in stepped roof verge copings surmounted by masonry pinnacles. The stepped verging is carried up along the base of the east face of the tower. The verging has a projecting cornice mould with a hollow soffit, and below it a raking projecting frieze cornice supported by a concave dog-tooth mould.

The Nave

On the north face of the nave, the north transept and vestry extension abut at the left. On the exposed section of nave wall to the right there are two rectangular windows, each divided into two lights by a chamfered stone mullion. Each window has a label mould with a hollow chamfered soffit, and splayed cills with a second projecting cill set at an angle so that the arris lies forward. Within each are painted timber frames sub-divided by a mullion and transom, with the head of each upper light cusped. The heads of these windows sit up against the soffit of a projecting frieze cornice, which is supported by a bold convex dog-tooth mould. At eaves level there is a projecting cornice mould with a hollow soffit.

The Transepts

The north transept is gabled and coped in granite, with its roof cat-sliding over a vestry extension on its right cheek. Its walls have a chamfered base course. The exposed gable is abutted at ground floor by a single-storey glazed post-war link to a separate choir school. Above this, a single Gothic opening is divided by tracery into three main lights with cusped sub-lights over, with a shallow hood mould and splayed cill. The right cheek of the transept is abutted by a narrow monopitched vestry, which has a rectangular window on its front (north) wall, instepped slightly from the transept gable, a door at basement level accessed by concrete steps with a metal railing, and a similar window and sheeted timber door on its right cheek. This face abuts the left jamb of the left-hand window in the exposed nave wall. The left cheek of the north transept is abutted by the organ room, which has a pitched natural slate roof and parapet verge, a raised and chamfered base course, and single simple rectangular windows — one in the exposed gable, the other on its left cheek. Where the organ room meets the chancel there is a partially obscured buttress.

The south elevation mirrors the north but without the vestry and organ room extensions to the transept. The south transept additionally has a battered three-course base to each of its three exposed faces. Set in the frieze course of the south transept is a modern polished granite plaque inscribed "AEDIFICATUM ANNO DOMINI 1815", with a recessed quatrefoil panel to each side. The limestone original was removed due to erosion and now lies in the yard at the back of the choir school.

The Chancel

The chancel is slightly narrower than the nave. Where they meet, the original east gable of the church is raised and coped. The chancel has a hipped natural slate roof with seven cant faces, each containing a curvilinear Gothic window divided into two principal lights with sub-lights over. Between each cant face is a two-stage buttress, with an identical buttress at each end of the chancel — the one at the right being partly obscured by the organ room.

The Choir School

The choir school is a plain post-war two-storey building, linked to the north transept by a flat felt-roofed link with glazed side walls. It has a pyramidal artificial slate roof surmounted by a decorative metal weathervane, deep overhanging eaves, cement-rendered walls, and modern paired casement windows with transoms. The choir rooms were added in 1969 by Anthony Lucy.

The Gate Screen

Along the street frontage is the gate screen, which appears to be contemporary with the main church. It comprises a pair of wrought iron carriage gates with wrought iron spearheads and matching dog bars, hung from plain ashlar granite piers with raised bases and shallow pyramidal copings. To each side is a gently curving concave screen of matching railings set on a granite plinth.

The Graveyard

In the graveyard to the geographical north are a number of monuments, including several tall Celtic crosses. The most elaborate of these, set in a niche along the south perimeter of the yard, is the monument to General Francis Rawdon Chesney. A second Celtic cross marks the grave of the third Earl of Kilmorey (1842–1915). A further notable memorial is a marble cross-topped anchor bedded in rocks, commemorating John Martin (circa 1898).

Historical Notes

Building commenced in 1815 and was completed in 1818. The 1834 town map shows the nave, tower, and north transept as originally constructed. In 1886, the south transept was completed by Thomas Grills, a local building contractor, at a cost of £720, and a stained glass memorial window was erected to commemorate Reverend J. Forbes Close. The pulpit was a gift of the Kilmoreys in 1903. The Sexton's Lodge sits in the south-east corner of the church grounds.