Survey Data
Reg No
31310907
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Church/chapel
Date
1850 - 1855
Coordinates
109887, 267907
Date Recorded
18/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay double-height Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Church of Ireland church, designed 1851; built 1852-3; consecrated 1854, on a rectangular plan comprising four-bay double-height nave opening into single-bay double-height chancel (north) with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch (south-west) abutting single-bay three-stage tower on a square plan supporting octagonal spire. Closed, 1959. Deconsecrated, 1961. In ruins, 1976. Pitched roofs now missing, lichen-covered dragged cut-limestone coping to gables on drag edged dragged cut-limestone corbel kneelers, and no rainwater goods surviving on ivy-covered eaves retaining some cast-iron octagonal or ogee hoppers. Part ivy-covered tuck pointed snecked sandstone walls on battered base with drag edged tooled hammered limestone buttresses including drag edged tooled hammered limestone diagonal buttresses to corners having lichen-covered drag edged tooled cut-limestone "slated" coping. Lancet window openings in bipartite arrangement with single lancet window openings (north), drag edged tooled hammered limestone block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals with no fittings surviving. Lancet window openings to chancel (north) centred on lancet "Trinity Window", drag edged tooled hammered limestone block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals with no fittings surviving. Lancet window opening in tripartite arrangement to entrance (south) front with quatrefoil "Rose Window" to gable, drag edged tooled hammered limestone block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals with no fittings surviving. Interior including vestibule (south-west); pointed-arch door opening into nave with no fittings surviving; interior in ruins with ivy-covered plastered slate hung surface finish, roof construction now missing retaining drag edged dragged cut-limestone polygonal corbels, and pointed-arch chancel arch framing overgrown stepped dais to chancel (north) below "Trinity Window". Set in unkempt landscaped grounds on a slightly elevated site with tuck pointed drag edged tooled limestone ashlar chamfered piers to perimeter having shallow pyramidal capping supporting spear head-detailed cast-iron double gates.
Appraisal
The shell of a church erected to a design signed (1857) by Joseph Welland (1798-1860), Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (appointed 1843), representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century ecclesiastical heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [south County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the rectilinear plan form, aligned along a liturgically-incorrect axis; the construction in a ruby-coloured sandstone offset by "sparrow pecked" sheer limestone dressings not only demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also producing a pleasing two-tone palette (cf. 31310908); the slender profile of the openings underpinning a "medieval" Gothic theme with the chancel defined by an elegant "Trinity Window"; and the polygonal spire-topped tower embellishing the roofline as a picturesque eye-catcher in the landscape. Although reduced to ruins in the twentieth century, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with interesting remnants of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior showing a plastered slate hung surface finish (cf. 31302204; 31311025). An adjacent graveyard contributing positively to the group and setting values of the church on a wooded hillside features an array of markers of artistic interest including, foremost, a Celtic High Cross standing over the resting place of Reverend Thomas Span Plunket (1792-1866), second Baron Plunket and 'Lord Bishop of Tuam Killala and Achonry [fl. 1839-66]'; and a comparatively understated headstone marking the resting place of the Honourable Catherine Plunket (1803-66) of neighbouring Drimbawn House (see 31310908).