Chapel at Glenvale Convent, Glenvale Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 2RF

A small private chapel dating from 1954, aligned north to south, with a lower west transept linking to a later octagonal sacristy. The chapel was erected for the Carmelites, who moved to Glenvale in the 1920s. Its interior was remodelled around 1980.

The building displays plainly detailed design with a shallow pitched natural slate roof and concrete cross finials to the gables. The walls are painted dashed render with a smooth basecourse and stepped V-channelled quoins. Overhanging eaves feature plain bargeboards. A chimneybreast rises up the north-east corner.

The south gable contains a single-storey porch, detailed as the main block with matching roof and walls. The porch has a pair of tongue-and-groove sheeted doors on its left (west) cheek and a semicircular-headed fixed window on its south (front) gable, with the right (east) cheek left blank. Above the porch, the south gable displays a large circular stained glass window.

Windows to the side elevations are tall and rectangular, all of stained glass with sloping cills. The east elevation has three spaced windows on its south side and three grouped windows on its north side. The west elevation is similarly arranged, with three windows spaced on its south side, while its north side is abutted by the transept.

The west transept is detailed as the church proper, with a roof of lower ridge and eaves than the main chapel. Its south elevation contains three stained glass windows. At the south-west corner stands a slender red brick tower with pitched copper roof and concrete dressed vented belfry. A later red brick link block with glazing and flat roof connects the transept's west gable to the octagonal sacristy.

The sacristy, added later, is constructed in red brick with a shallow octagonal roof topped with a ball finial and overhanging eaves. Horizontal bands of windows are set just below the eaves on the north-west, north-east, south-east and south-west corners only.

Historically, the site occupies land previously belonging to Glenvale, a house recorded on the 1834 Ordnance Survey six-inch map and described in the 1836 Valuation book as the property of Isaac Glenny, owner of Glenville Mills. The original house, with dimensions of 44 feet 6 inches by 29 feet by 22 feet, featured two wings and two returns. Associated corn and flax mills stood a short distance to the east. The property remained in the Glenny family; the 1862 Valuation book records William Glenny as occupant. The original house was demolished in the 1960s when the present convent was constructed following the chapel's erection in 1954.