Our Lady of Lourdes (RC) Church, Lurganconary Road, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34

Our Lady of Lourdes is a Roman Catholic church built in the Hiberno-Romanesque style, located on the south side of Lurganconary Road at Kilkeel, County Down. The church is aligned north-south with a round tower attached to the right side of the north-facing façade.

The main roof is pitched natural slate with decorative black clay ridges. Cast iron ogee gutters with box section downpipes drain the structure. The walls throughout are constructed of random rock-faced granite blocks with a chamfered basecourse and corbel-table to the eaves, combined with some areas of smooth dressed detailing.

The façade is dominated by a gable topped with a Celtic cross finial and finished with moulded granite coping. The façade wall is recessed within a main panel, framed to left and right by advanced piers that continue up each side of the gable as stepped corbel-tables. A canted flush ashlar cill course crosses the façade at the spring of the arch level of the main entrance.

The main entrance at ground floor centre consists of a pair of framed and sheeted stained timber leaves with decorative strap hinges, set within a single concrete step. The entrance is recessed within a semicircular-headed Romanesque-style doorway in ashlar granite. Inset into each jamb is a polished pink granite colonette with moulded granite base and simple Romanesque capital. These support the moulded voussoired head of the doorway, decorated with a granite hood and plain cuboid label-stops. A decorative granite-coped gable sits slightly proud of the façade above the doorway, topped with a shamrock finial, containing a plain roundel and knee-stones, with a modern light fitting attached to its apex.

To left and right of the main entrance, level with the arch crown, are single small semicircular-headed stained glass Romanesque-style windows with fielded arris, double voussoired heads and canted flush cills. All other windows throughout the building follow similar detailing unless otherwise stated. Centred over the entrance gable are three large tall windows, the central one being taller and slightly wider. In the gable above is a small circular louvred vent.

The round tower abuts the right corner pier of the façade. It rises in four diminishing stages, each slightly reduced in height and diameter. The walls match the façade with a similar basecourse, and between each stage is a canted ashlar plat-band. The first stage has a small window to the façade and one slightly higher on its right side. The second stage, which rises above the eaves of the main block, has four small windows at compass points, each with one-piece lintels with heads etched into the block rather than detailed with double voussoirs. The third stage steps in slightly and is similarly detailed. The fourth stage is the belfry, with a single Romanesque-style opening on each compass point, each featuring a demi-colonette to its reveals with a cushion-moulded capital. The remaining wall between these openings has a recessed wall panel with a semicircular head springing from the same height as the colonette capitals. A cavetto-moulded eaves course sits above, and rising further is a conical ashlar granite roof of eight courses, each slightly raised and topped with a small ball-finial supporting a cross.

The side elevations of the main block match the façade with moulded basecourse and corbel-table to the eaves. Each elevation is composed of six bays, with typical bays featuring a central recessed panel between piers, each containing a pair of tall windows. The left elevation is abutted to its left by the sacristy, with the remaining bays as described. On the right elevation, the fourth bay from the left is abutted by a porch, though the corbelled eaves are retained.

The porch has a pitched natural slate roof detailed as the main roof with raised and coped parapet and Celtic cross finial. Its walls match the main block. Two tall windows are positioned between an ashlar granite plaque incised with the inscription "THIS STONE WAS LAID BY / MOST REV JOSEPH McRORY D.D. / BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR / ON 2ND NOV. 1924. / VERY REV. BERNARD LAVERTY V.F. / BEING THEN P.P. OF UPPER MOURNE". The south wall of the porch is blank. Its north wall features a modern brick ramp with modern metal handrail leading to a pair of doors. The doors are framed and sheeted stained timber with strap hinges and share a shouldered head. The ashlar granite reveal is stop-end chamfered, as is the head.

The rear gable of the church is abutted by the sanctuary, which shares the main roof but is narrower. The exposed gable of the main block has a raised parapet and blank walls. The sanctuary walls match others but with higher eaves and plain eaves brackets. Its gable end is raised and coped with a Celtic cross finial. High on the gable is a pair of tall stained glass Romanesque-style windows with an infilled circular vent above. To left and right cheeks, close to the eaves, is a single small Romanesque window. On the right cheek, to the right of the window, is an ashlar granite chimney rising from the eaves.

Below the sanctuary window, a sacristy is abutted on both the sanctuary and the left bay of the left elevation of the main block. The sacristy has a lean-to natural slate roof with walls matching the façade. Its rear gable contains two 1/1 sliding sash windows with canted flush cills and flat heads. Its east-facing elevation has three similar windows and a flight of basement steps enclosed by a coped granite wall, with a modern door and blocked-up window at the bottom. Its north-facing front gable contains a doorway with a door dressed as that to the porch.

To the rear right of the site is a modern granite grotto with statues of Saint Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes. The site is bounded to rear and sides by hedges. The northern boundary is enclosed by a dashed wall with plain modern railings and a concave central gate screen. Terminating either end of the gates and framing them are ashlar piers with segmental copings, each face incised with a Maltese cross.