Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB16/22/021

Address :
Christ Church COI Church Road Bessbrook Co. Armagh

Townland:
Clogharevan

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Survey 2:
A

Date of Listing:
01/12/1988 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:
266/1NW

IG Ref:
J0436 2860

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Owner Category

Church - C of I

Exterior Description And Setting

Multi-bay mid-Victorian Gothic style church in local stone with polychrome brickwork detailing and Giffnock Sandstone dressings, built between 1866-68 to designs by Welland & Gillespie. Cruciform plan form facing SW onto Church Road having single or grouped lancet windows, double gabled transepts, an octagonal apse to SE and an attached projecting gabled porch and square plan gabled tower with buff brick spire to SW. Pitched and gabled natural slate roof with roll top back clay ridge tiles and occasional decorative cocks comb cresting. Transepts have moulded stone chimneys with trefoil detail; SW transept retains a tall octagonal buff clay pot. Raised verges and moulded kneelers to gables; sandstone coping with trefoil detail to gable apexes. Narrowly projecting eaves with exposed painted timber rafter ends. Generally cast iron RWGs; half round guttering on decorative brackets discharges to circular section downpipes. Some rectangular hoppers and square section downpipes. Porch has a decorative angular cast iron hopper discharging to a square-section downpipe. Generally random-coursed squared blocks of rock-faced local Newry Granodiorite walling set on a double plinth. Windows are typically either single pointed lancets with dressed granite jambs and heads or grouped lancets with crowning quatrefoil lights set within decorative pointed arches; flush red and buff brick sections to arch with a keystone. Windows generally have clear lattice glazing with boarders or stained glass. Doors are generally polished sheeted timber with decorative painted metal hinges and handles. Principal elevation Main elevation faces SW and consists of a central rectangular plan nave with a polygonal apse (chancel) to SE. Nave has two windows and is fronted by a double gabled transept to SE and a square-section tower to NW. Nave windows are triple lancets, with quatrefoil lights above, set within decorative flush red and buff brick arches. Transept projects to SW by a single bay; pointed arch lancet with stained glass and storm glazing. Transept gables each have single decorative pointed arch windows composed of quatrefoil lights above paired trefoil-headed lancets; sandstone hood moulds and stained glass to windows with storm glazing fitted. Blind lancets to top of each gable and narrowly projecting angled buttresses to transepts. Similar windows and arrangement to transept of NE elevation. Apse at SE is fronted by a monopitched single storey vestry attached to SE side of transept; vestry door has a decorative pointed arch head with bead moulding to springers and triangular dentilated detail to head. Square-plan tower is attached at NW having three separate bands of red brick below belfry level. There is a stepped string course at GF with two staggered square-headed lancets above. Belfry has a pair of lancets with a recessed cinquefoil light above to each of its four sides; slate louvres to lancets and a flush red brick band forms pointed arches above cinquefoil windows. Pointed spire in buff brick, with five paired bands of red brick, rises from tower gables; decorative copper finial to apex. Gabled single storey porch is attached to re-entrant corner between tower and nave; moulded granite trefoil headed arch to door on SE side of porch. Northwest elevation NW elevation consists of a gabled block with church tower attached flush to its SW. Gabled block has four trefoil headed lancets to GF, a large tracery window in red sandstone to FF (Gallery window) , an oval window to gable with moulded trefoil detail to gable apex and a moulded stone chimney to NE side of apex. Tower has two staggered square-headed lancets leading to FF level with a stepped cill course below, which runs horizontally beneath large window of gabled block to NE. Northeast elevation Rear elevation faces NE and consists of a rectangular nave with three windows and which is fronted at SE by a double gabled transept with similar windows to transept of SW elevation but with lattice glazing. Two windows of nave have triple lancets with quatrefoil lights above and are set within pointed decorative brick arches. First bay from NW is defined by a narrowly projecting buttress and a plain pointed lancet window. Replacement square-section red brick mid-ridge chimney to transept. Southeast elevation SE elevation is dominated by a central polygonal apse (chancel) to SE end of nave having five sections of canted walling divided by narrowly projecting diagonal buttresses. Four sections each have a trefoil headed lancet windows with stained lattice glazing and decorative brick work to arches, the fifth section to the SW being abutted by an attached vestry. Lancet window with lattice glazing to NE is blind. Apse has an angled roof and is flanked by transepts; SW transept is fronted by two bay single storey monopitched vestry with a paired lancet and a single lancet. Transept to NE has a single pointed lancet window. Moulded stone chimneys to ridge of each transept are located towards apse. Setting Christ Church COI is set back to the NE side of Church Road within private grounds accessed through a set of vehicular gates; painted metal gates with spearhead finials hung on square-section stone built pillars with granite pyramidal caps. Site is bound along Church Road by dwarf stone walling with concrete coping topped by plain painted metal railings. A similar foot gate is hung on slim posts to SE side of vehicular gate. A decorative metal scrollwork notice board (dated 1964) displays service times. There is a graveyard to rear NE and SE and a tarmac path leads from the front gate around the church. A larger graveyard extends down the hill to the NE beyond a wall of random-course rock-faced stone. Bessbrook's former RUC Station is located to the SE and the Presbyterian Meeting House is located to the NW. A newly built church hall (2011) with rendered walling and stone-built gables is located to the N of the church. Materials: Roof: Natural slate (buff brick to spire) RWGs: Cast iron Walling: Newry Granodiorite, Giffnock sandstone and brick Windows: lancets with lattice glazing or stained glass

Architects

Welland & Gillespie

Historical Information

Christ Church, a mid-Victorian Gothic-style cruciform church located on Church Road to the west of the village of Bessbrook, was constructed in 1866-68. This church was built for the local Church of Ireland congregation as part of the social development of Bessbrook, which had been initiated by the Richardson family from as early as the 1840s. Bessbrook had been effectively founded in 1845 when John Grubb Richardson (1813-1891), a linen merchant from Lambeg, purchased one of the derelict mills at the site and began to build housing for the textile workers in the immediate vicinity. Bessbrook was established as a ‘model village’ in a number of phases with the layout influenced by the work of William Penn, an American Quaker who had been responsible for the planning and development of Philadelphia in the late-17th century. Richardson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends and, according to Harrison, possessed a ‘typical Quaker mix of pragmatic and altruistic expectation to provide jobs and good working conditions for his employees.’ By providing his workers with good standards of living Richardson hoped to ensure good relationships between employers and the employed. He therefore established the village as a social experiment where his workers could both live and work in contentment. Harrison states that Richardson’s philanthropic spirit led him to bring the poor, the unqualified and beggars from the surrounding countryside to work and live at Bessbrook, hoping that he could encourage them to improve themselves and excise old habits. Bessbrook is often referred to as a village without the ‘Three P’s’ due to Richardson’s stipulation that there would be no ‘Public House’ or ‘Pawn Shop’ in the settlement and therefore no need for ‘Police’ to be stationed there. In exchange for keeping the village free of alcohol Richardson provided recreational and educational facilities at the Institute (HB16/22/009), a number of well-stocked shops (located at nos 1-5 Charlemont Square East) and also had milk, tea and cocoa distributed to his mill workers. The strategy was effective as the majority of the population voted to preserve the ordinance in the 1870s and, to this day, there remains no public house at Bessbrook. Police were not stationed at the village until the turn of the 20th century (Harrison; Brett, p. 243). Despite Richardson’s principles and his relocation of many labourers of the Quaker faith to the village, Bessbrook possessed a sizeable Church of Ireland population. The first church had been constructed in Camlough parish in 1773, however this was replaced by the larger Christ Church in 1866-68 due to the expansion of the village of Bessbrook in the mid-19th century. Harrison notes that Richardson facilitated the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Episcopalian communities by providing the plots of land on which their houses of worship were built. Christ Church was designed by Welland & Gillespie who had been appointed joint architects to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1860. The Dictionary of Irish Architects notes that, between 1860 and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, Welland & Gillespie ‘developed an increasingly personal and idiosyncratic version of Gothic in the churches which they designed.’ Christ Church was designed in a typical Gothic style and was built utilising Scottish-imported Giffnock Sandstone and locally-quarried Newry Granodiorite. This granite was utilised in the masonry of most buildings at Bessbrook and was produced locally at a quarry opened on the former Charlemont Estate (granite from the Bessbrook Quarry is of a high quality and was used to build Manchester Town Hall and the great steps of St. George’s Hall in Liverpool). The builder contracted to carry out the construction of the church was a Mr. Matthew Doolin and the completed church was consecrated in September 1868 (Dublin Builder, p. 44; Irish Builder, p. 245; DIA; NSD; Harrison, p. 18). Christ Church was initially valued at £55 by the Annual Revisions and was depicted on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of Bessbrook (1906) along its current cruciform layout suggesting that few major structural changes have been made to the site since the early-20th century. Field inspection of Christ Church, carried out as part of the Second Survey, has found that the church possesses a number of interesting stained glass windows. The North Transept of the church possesses a pair of memorial windows. The Henry Memorial window was installed in 1868 in commemoration of the Rev. Joseph Henry, the first incumbent of Camlough Parish, and his wife Isabella. The adjoining White Memorial window was erected at in the mid-to-late-19th century to commemorate John White, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace, and his wife Elizabeth. John and Elizabeth White resided at Divernagh House near Bessbrook and had both died by 1867, suggesting that the memorial window was installed around that time. The McConnell Memorial window was added to the North Transept in 1979 to commemorate Hugh McConnell, a RUC Constable who was shot in 1978. This window was installed by CWS Design Stained Glass Studios of Lisburn. The value of the church was raised to £160 under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) and was further increased to £172 by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72). Christ Church was listed in 1988. The NIEA HB Records note that Christ Church was damaged as the result of mortar bomb attack on the neighbouring police station on 1st March 1993. A contemporary damage report states that the church received moderate damage to its roof and cast iron rainwater goods whilst much of the original glazing to its North Transept and Sanctuary was smashed. The current modern church hall was erected to the west side of the church in 2011 (NIEA HB Records). References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/2/26/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1861) 2. PRONI OS/6/2/26/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906) 3. PRONI OS/8/31/3 – Ordnance Survey Town Plan (1906) 4. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/6A-6F– Annual Revisions (1866-1929) 5. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/4A – Annual Revisions (1924-29) 6. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/12 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) 7. PRONI VAL/4/B/2/20 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72) 8. George Bassett: The Book of County Armagh (1888) 9. Ulster Town Directories (1880-1918) 10. First Survey Record – HB16/22/021 11. NIEA HB Record – HB16/22/021 Secondary Sources 1. ‘Bessbrook: A record of industry in a Northern Ireland village community and of a social experiment, 1845-1945’ Belfast: Nicholson & Bass Ltd., 1945. 2. ‘The Church of Ireland: An illustrated history’ Booklink, 2013. 3. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of County Armagh’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1999. 4. Harrison, R., ‘The Richardson’s of Bessbrook: Ulster Quakers in the linen industry (1845-1921)’ Dublin: Original Writing Ltd., 2008. 5. ‘Bessbrook Conservation Area Guide’ Belfast: Department of the Environment (N. I.), 1983. Online Resources 1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie/ 2. Natural Stone Database - http://www.stonedatabase.com/

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

R. Age S. Authenticity V. Authorship W. Northern Ireland/International Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

Multi-bay single-phase mid-Victorian Gothic style church in local stone with imported Giffnock Sandstone dressings and polychrome brickwork detailing, built between 1866-68 to designs by Welland & Gillespie. Cruciform plan form facing SW onto Church Road having lancet windows, double gabled transepts, a polygonal apse to SE and a square-plan gabled tower with brick spire, attached to SW. Displaying good proportions and quality detailing the church retains its original plan, external fabric and much of its internal joinery. The contrast between local stone walling and polychrome brickwork, with an unusual buff brick spire, gives the building considerable character. Built for the local Church of Ireland congregation as part of the social development of Bessbrook, the internationally significant early planned mill village begun in the 1840s by the prominent linen merchant John Grubb Richardson (1813-1891) from Lambeg. Christ Church has group value with the Presbyterian Meeting House adjacent HB16/22/022 and the other significant public buildings in the village including The Town Hall (HB16/22/009), The Former Schoolhouse (HB16/22/016) and The Shop/Former Quaker Meeting House HB16/22/007; the church and it's surrounding graveyard are of significant historical and social significance.

General Comments

Date of Survey

11 March 2015