Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB11/16/042

Address :
Cappagh Church of Ireland Cappagh Road Omagh BT79 7JG

Townland:
Mountjoy Forest East Division

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Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
18/03/2010 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Church

Former Use
Church

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
120-12

IG Ref:
H4483 7601

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Owner Category

Church - C of I

Exterior Description And Setting

Free-standing double-height stone Church of Ireland church, built c.1780 with three-stage front entrance tower and spire, and three-sided canted apse to rear built c.1870. Pitched natural slate roof, black clay ridge tiles and cast-iron guttering on wrought-iron drive-in brackets to moulded stone eaves course and cast-iron downpipes. Cut stone fractable to front gable with yellow brick chimneystack to northwest. Hipped roof to rear east apse. Random rubble stone walling with cut stone to rubble stone plinth course and a single buttress to the east end of each nave elevation with tooled roll-moulded capstones and tooled offsets. Blind rectangular recessed panels to the upper level between window openings to nave. Gothic window openings with hood mouldings, tooled chamfered stone surrounds and stone curvilinear tracery with leaded stained glass windows and weather glazing (unless otherwise stated). Gable-fronted three-bay west front elevation broken by a three-stage square-plan tower and spire with full-height stone ashlar corner piers. Stone ashlar spire on octagonal plan with stone ball finial and blind gothic arched course to the base. Four octagonal spirelets rest on a moulded stone cornice to the square-plan tower and correspond to the corner piers of the tower. Gothic openings to all four sides of the upper stage of the tower with hood mouldings, tooled chamfered surrounds and timber louvres. The splayed sill continues as a platband encircling entire tower. Gothic window opening to the second stage with deep chamfered tooled stone surround resting on a stone sill and cavetto moulding continuing as the base moulding of a broken-topped pediment to front gable. Replacement 9/6 timber sash window to second stage with incorporated y-tracery fanlight. Gothic door opening with deep moulded sandstone surround and pair of blind stone plaques and hood moulding over. Replacement hardwood panelled door and y-tracery timber fanlight. To either side of the door is a gothic-arched blind panel with voussoired stone and sill. North side elevation has three windows to the nave with a further smaller window opening to the west end having voussoired stone to arch, flush tooled stone surround and sill, with iron quarry-glazed fixed window with pivot sash. Rear east elevation comprises polygonal apse built in rock-faced random coursed stone with a pointed-arched window opening to each side having rock-faced voussoirs, tooled chamfered surrounds and stone y-tracery with trefoil heads, leaded stained glass and weather glazing. South side elevation, as per north elevation. Setting Church is set back from the road within its own landscaped grounds on a corner site, with several stone grave markers and tombs dating from mid eighteenth-century. Site enclosed by rubble stone walling with bitmac hardstanding directly to the west and pair of tall tooled stone piers with lanterns and pair of replacement steel gates. A further pedestrian entrance with replacement steel gates located slightly to the south and a single-storey stone structure to the northwest with its west gable incorporated into the boundary wall with timber doors.

Architects

Welland & Gillespie

Historical Information

The church is shown on the first edition OS map of 1833 captioned ‘Cappagh Church’. By the third edition of 1906 there is a polygonal apse at the eastern end. The church replaces an older building in Dunmullan townland (see HB11/16/007) captioned as the ‘old church' on the first edition. The church is recorded in the Townland Valuation as ‘Parish Church & Graveyard attached’, and valued at £14.10s.4d. Griffith’s Valuation of 1858 values the church at £15, and the graveyard at £1, with the Rev. J. Byrne listed as the rector. No significant changes are found in the Valuation Revisions. Beaufort’s journal of 1787 mentions ‘the elegant church which [Dr Gibson] built…at the expense of £1,5000 of which he expended £750 himself’. The OS Memoirs comment, ‘The Parish Church was built by Dr Gibson (rector) in 1780. It is a neat erection of cut stone with a spire and will contain about 300 persons. It has no gallery and is warmed by the flues lately put up by Mr Hart, the present rector. It is prettily situated in Mountjoy Forest.’ Lewis gives a slightly different date of construction and attributes a more significant financial role to Dr Gibson. ‘The Church is a large and handsome edifice in the Grecian style with a lofty and beautiful octagonal spire; it was erected in Mountjoy Forest in 1768 at the sole expense of Dr Gibson, then rector.’ (p.251) The Dublin Builder of 15 March 1861 invites tenders for repairing Cappagh Church, ‘according to the plans and specifications to be seen in the hands of the Resident Minister of the [Parish]’ The polygonal apse was added in 1870 to designs by Welland & Gillespie (Rowan, p.429). The Irish Builder of 15th September 1917 reports renovations to the building including a new roof, marble steps in the chancel and a new sexton’s house. It is conceivable that the church was designed by Thomas Cooley in 1768, when he was working for Archbishop Robinson of Armagh. It is identical to Ballymackenny, Drogheda, Co Louth and may have been the prototype of 'spire-type' churches by Coley. Other details are similar to those used by Coley. However, there is no documented evidence for this. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI MIC250/1 – Beaufort Journal of a tour through part of Ireland begun 26 August 1787. 2. PRONI OS/6/6/35/1-4 - Ordnance Survey Maps (1833, 1854, 1906, 1935-7) 3. PRONI VAL/1/A/6/35 - Townland Valuation Map (1820-1840) 4. PRONI VAL/1/B/645A&B - Townland Valuation (1820-1840) 5. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/47A - Griffith’s Valuation (1858) 6. PRONI VAL/12/B/41/32A G– Valuation Revisions (1860-1929) 7. Day, A. and P. McWilliams, eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Tyrone II, 1825, 1833-5, 1840, Vol. 20.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1990. 8. The Dublin Builder, 15th March 1861, p. 460 9. The Irish Builder, 15th Sept, 1917, p. 473 Secondary Sources 1. Lewis, Samuel. “A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” London: S. Lewis & Co., 1837. 2. Rowan, A.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

V. Authorship W. Northern Ireland/International Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Free-standing double-height stone Church of Ireland church, built c.1780 with three-stage front entrance tower and spire, and three-sided canted apse to rear, built c.1870. This rural church is a fine example of the hall and tower type favoured by the Church of Ireland and retains a wealth of original fabric, along with the addition of the polygonal apse in the late nineteenth-century by Welland and Gillespie. It is one of relatively few dating from the late Eighteenth century. Continuing a long tradition of religious use, the site is greatly enhanced by the present church with its vertical emphasis, stone craftsmanship and historic associations. The church in its setting demonstrates the refined character typical of the period and continues to display all of the characteristics that make it a building of special architectural and historic interest.

General Comments

Date of Survey

09 June 2009