Survey Data

Reg No

15401234


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic, Social


Original Use

Church/chapel


In Use As

Church/chapel


Date

1840 - 1850


Coordinates

246206, 260028


Date Recorded

20/11/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Freestanding three-bay double-height Roman Catholic church with adjoining single-bay three-storey parochial house to southwest end, built c.1844. Two-storey extension to southwest corner (rear) at right angle to parochial house with hipped slate roof and tall rendered chimneystack, c.1880. Two-bay single-storey entrance porch giving access to church on east facade and single-bay single-storey entrance porch to centre of south, giving access to parochial house. Modern single-bay single-storey porch to north end of east façade (church). Pitched artificial slate roof with overhanging eaves and a single rendered chimneystack to south end (over parochial house) and a wrought-iron cross finial to north end. Roughcast rendered walls with rendered eaves course and raised rendered quoins to corners. Pointed-arched openings with stained glass to church, square-headed openings with timber casement windows and cut stone sills to parochial house. One-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows to two-storey extension of parochial house (southwest). Pointed-arched openings to entrance porches to church and square-headed openings to porch serving parochial house. Cut stone plaque to east face of church reads 'Dedicated 1844, A McAlroy, Pastore'. Decorative cast-iron belfry to north of church and range of single-storey rubble limestone outbuildings to west. Rubble stone boundary wall with metal railings over to road frontage (east). Cut stone gate piers on square-plan to south end of road frontage.

Appraisal

A substantial and striking mid nineteenth-century structure, which retains its early character despite the loss of some of the important early fabric in recent years. It is of a very unusual design, unique in Westmeath, having the original parochial house and the church as part of the same structure under the same roofline. The elaborate and attractive cast-iron belfry to the north, a common feature of Roman Catholic churches in the first part of the nineteenth century, the good outbuildings to the west and the gate piers to the southwest complete this interesting composition and add to the setting. This church was originally built as a chapel of ease associated with the Roman Catholic church at Multyfarnham and the parish of Tyfarnham.