Drumgooland Parish Church, Ballyward Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT31 9PP

Drumgooland Parish Church is a Grade B1 Church of Ireland building constructed in 1821 in the Gothic Revival style. The church is located at the junction of Castlewellan Road and Station Road, approximately two miles east of Castlewellan, adjacent to the main road from Castlewellan to Banbridge.

The building follows a cruciform plan with a prominent three-stage tower. The main structure dates to 1821, with transepts, side aisle, chancel and vestry added throughout the nineteenth century. The church is constructed of rubble granite masonry with ashlar dress stone. The roof is pitched with natural slate and clay ridge tiles, with cast-iron rainwater goods supported on corbelled masonry eaves brackets.

The principal west gable is symmetrically arranged and blank, with kneelers and shoulders featuring pinnacles to either side (the right pinnacle is missing). The gable is centrally abutted by the three-stage tower, which is intersected by projected string courses. The first stage contains the main entrance door set to the right, with a diminished-in-scale window above it and a recessed blank shield-plaque directly over. The second stage has bi-partite square-headed windows with label moulding to the right and front faces (blank to the front). The third stage comprises timber louvered pointed-arch openings on all faces, surmounted by an Irish crenellation with corner pinnacles.

The entrance is a double-leaf timber sheeted door with wrought-iron ironmongery and strap hinges, set into a pointed-arched surround with solid timber Y-tracery tympanum. The windows throughout are pointed-arched with timber framed Y-tracery and coloured leaded-lattice lights, plain jambs, squared masonry cills, and hood moulding with stops.

The north elevation is largely abutted by the north transept and side aisle. The side aisle is two windows wide, with bipartite pointed-arch lattice lights featuring chamfered long-and-short surrounds and cills with central masonry mullions. The west gable of the aisle is asymmetrical, with a central pointed-arched timber sheeted door and a cusped window set into a lozenge light above. The north transept is gable-ended with a finial, symmetrically arranged with a central window and a diminished-in-scale Y-tracery louvered pointed-arched opening directly above. The left cheek of the transept has a single leaded light adjacent to a single-storey lean-to organ chamber abutment, with a window on its east cheek finishing flush with the east gable.

The east gable is symmetrically arranged with a single central window featuring intersecting-tracery, pinnacles above the gable shoulders, and a small chimney over the apex. This gable is extended to the right by the organ chamber and to the left by the vestry.

The south elevation is asymmetrically arranged. The south transept to the left matches the north transept and includes a window on its left cheek. To the right is a single-storey lean-to vestry with bi-partite lattice lights on the east face, a raised door on the left side of the left face, and a lower door to the right accessing the basement. To the left of the transept, the nave is two windows wide.

The church grounds are largely enclosed by replacement railings and accessed via wrought-iron gates fixed to squared masonry piers surmounted by a modern metal-framed arch supporting a lantern. Burial grounds extend to the east, north and west, with an underground burial chamber adjacent to the chancel. A sexton's cottage stands to the north-east of the site, bearing a plaque inscribed "FORMERLY SEXTON'S COTTAGE AND STABLE RECONSTRUCTED 1980."