Survey Data

Reg No

40910201


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Social


Original Use

Church/chapel


Date

1830 - 1840


Coordinates

216122, 372382


Date Recorded

08/10/2007


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Detached three-bay single-storey hall-type Church of Ireland chapel of ease, built c. 1836, having gable-fronted entrance porch to the south-west gable end, and with cut stone bellcote over the south-west/entrance gable. Now disused. Pitched replacement artificial slate roof (fibre cement), c. 1970, with eaves course and cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with rendered block-and-start quoins to corners; smooth rendered ruled-and-lined walls to rear elevation (north-west). Pointed-arched window openings to south-east elevation with timber sash windows having intersecting glazing bars to head, smooth rendered surrounds and tooled stone sills; pointed-arched window openings to the north-east gable end and to the south-west side of porch having timber sliding sash windows having margin glazing bars with coloured glass. Blank elevation to the north-west side of nave. Square-headed door opening to the south-west face of porch with plain render surround and timber battened door. Interior with timber raised dais, boarded timber ceiling and remains of timber pews and pulpit. Set slightly back from road in own grounds to the north-east of Pettigoe, a very short from the border with County Fermanagh and Northern Ireland. Site bounded on four sides by rubble stone boundary wall. Gateway to the south-east comprising a pair of squared coursed rubble stone gate piers (on square-plan) having stone capstones and wrought-iron gate.

Appraisal

Although now sadly disused, this simple small-scale mid nineteenth-century Church of Ireland church survives in relatively good condition and retains its original form and character. Its visual expression and integrity is enhanced by the survival of the fine timber sliding sash windows with intersecting glazing bars to head. The pointed-arched window openings lend it a muted Gothic Revival character that is typical of its type and date in Ireland. This church was probably originally built as a chapel of use associated with the Templecarn parish, the main Church of Ireland parish church being sited at Pettigoe to the south-west, which was rebuilt around the same time this church was originally constructed. Indeed, Lewis (1837) records that 'subscription has been raised to build a chapel of ease about four miles from the town', and this church at Cashelenny is probably this church. Its original construction was probably funded or partially funded by some of the owners of the larger houses in the area including Grouse Lodge and Tievemore House to the south-west, both now ruinous. According to local information, this church was built in 1836, closed in 1972, and was finally deconsecrated in 1978. Sensitively restored, this building would make a strongly positive contribution to the desolate landscape to the north-east of Pettigoe, and it remains an integral element of the built heritage and social history of the local area. The simple rubble limestone boundary walls and the gateway complete the setting of this appealing composition.