Survey Data
Reg No
31302105
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Church/chapel
Date
1925 - 1930
Coordinates
114161, 329604
Date Recorded
11/02/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached seven-bay double-height single-cell Catholic church, built 1928-9, on a rectangular plan. Renovated, 1985, with sanctuary reordered. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, concrete coping to gables on rendered thumbnail beaded kneelers with mild steel Celtic Cross finials to apexes, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on eaves boards on rendered eaves. Gritdashed roughcast walls bellcast over rendered plinth with rendered strips to corners supporting rendered band to eaves. Lancet window openings with concrete or rendered sills, and rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fittings having leaded stained glass panels. Lancet "Trinity Window" (east) with concrete or rendered sills, and rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fittings having leaded stained glass panels. Lancet window opening to entrance (west) front with concrete or rendered sill, and rendered "bas-relief" surround framing storm glazing over fixed-pane fitting having leaded stained glass panel. Pointed segmental-headed opposing door openings (west) with rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled double doors. Full-height interior open into roof with arcaded choir gallery (west) below stained glass "West Window" (----), carpeted central aisle between trefoil-detailed timber pews, paired Gothic-style timber stations between stained glass windows (1985), exposed collared timber roof construction on thumbnail beaded corbels with wind braced timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled ceiling in carved timber frame, and pointed-arch chancel arch framing carpeted stepped dais to sanctuary (east) reordered, 1985, with Romanesque-style timber altar below stained glass "Trinity Window" (----). Set in landscaped grounds with rendered panelled chamfered piers to perimeter having cruciform-detailed roll moulded gabled capping.
Appraisal
A church erected to a design attributed to Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1946) of Suffolk Street, Dublin (Irish Builder 1928, 95), representing an integral component of the early twentieth-century ecclesiastical heritage of County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the rectilinear "barn" plan form, aligned along a liturgically-correct axis; and the slender profile of the openings underpinning a stolid "medieval" Gothic theme with the chancel defined by an elegant "Trinity Window". Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior reordered (1985) in accordance with the liturgical reforms sanctioned by the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (1962-5) where an exposed timber roof construction pinpoints the engineering or technical dexterity of a church making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene.