Church of the Sacred Heart, Killowen Road, Ballincurry, Kilkeel, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3AE

Church of the Sacred Heart, Killowen Road, Ballincurry, Kilkeel

This is a gabled cruciform chapel in the English Gothic Revival style, erected in 1871. It is an attractive and assured architectural composition set in a mature landscape, distinguished by sophisticated design, good stonework detailing, and associated gates and boundary walls.

The building is constructed in polygonal grey granite rubble with ashlar dressings. The front façade displays particularly large and carefully selected rubble stone. A canted ashlar plinth course with rubblework below runs around the entire building. The orientation is north to south with the entrance in the south wall.

The roof is natural Welsh slate with blue clay roll top ridge. Gutters are heavy gauge aluminium ogee set on stone corbel brackets, with large diameter spun aluminium downpipes.

The west front gable is crowned by a bellcote supporting a stone finial cross. The coping stones of the bellcote project, are stepped and interlock. All stonework to this element is flush pointed; all arises are chamfered and to the outer corners these are stopped. The bellcote rests on a projecting sloping stringcourse below which is a cartouche inscribed "1871". This forms part of an advanced panel of rubble with ashlar quoins. Below the cartouche is a quatrefoil vent formed by four stones and set just below the ridge to the main roof.

Below this point the complete wall is divided into three vertical panels. The two narrow side panels are in plain rubble walling. The centre panel is advanced and demarcated from the side panels by three stage stepped ashlar buttresses with gabled caps featuring trefoil insets, each surmounted by a stone cross on a plinth block with pitched steps to the second and first stages.

In the centre panel below the quatrefoil is a triple lancet light. All lancets are simple Gothic with the centre one higher than the other two; all dressings are splayed. A common label mould stops at each end against the buttress and on the mullions is stopped by an acorn. Cills are flush. The surrounding rubble masonry is strap pointed, as is all the rest of the rubblework.

Below the triple lancet light is the main entrance approached by two granite steps with splayed modern metal handrails and a raised threshold. The Gothic encasement returns in two moulded recesses; the first is pulvinated and the second is hollow; both are stopped in the outer course. Double doors are sheeted, varnished pine with decorative iron hinge facings, and a modern globe light is positioned over the door.

The outer corners of the west wall each have a pair of two-stage buttresses set at right angles, detailed as described above.

The nave has four bays running up to the transepts with a single Gothic lancet to each bay. Windows have stopped label moulds, flush cills and quarry leaded glazing. Between the windows of bays two and three from the left is a two-stage buttress. The transept advances by one bay with one window as in the nave in the west wall, and corner buttresses matching those on the west facade to both east and west corners. The coped gable has a stone finial cross and a triple light window as on the west facade. The east wall of the transept has no openings.

The sanctuary advances by one bay with a single window as the nave. The east gable has a plain stone finial with chamfered coping, two-stage corner buttresses, and a triple lancet light as on the transept gable.

A later single-storey sacristy extends out from a lean-to roof pitched against the east wall of the north transept. This features an intersecting double pitched roof at right angles terminating in a cross pitch hipped at the south end and gabled at the north, all in natural Welsh slate. There is a rubble stone chimney with flush splayed cap. The boiler room door is slatted and stained. The sacristy entrance door is sheeted; windows are paired lancets with detailing that is a scaled-down version of the main building. Wrapped around the sacristy is a modern disabled access ramp in concrete with metal hand railing. The north and west sides of the sacristy extension have pairs of timber Gothic headed windows set in squared ashlar surrounds. The north transept is detailed exactly as the south, but with the lean-to roof of the sacristy abutting the east wall. The north side has a pair of Gothic headed lights set into a paired ashlar surround.

The interior is altered but remains attractive. The extent of listing includes the church, front wall and gates.