Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB09/11/008

Address :
Ardboe Church of Ireland Church 216 Ballymaguire Road Stewartstown Dungannon BT71 5NR

Townland:
Aghacolumb

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
26/01/1976 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Church

Former Use
Church

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
Yes

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
125-16

IG Ref:
H9275 7438

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Owner Category

Church - C of I

Exterior Description And Setting

A small T-shaped roughcast church comprising a nave with north transept, and a projecting gabled porch at the west end. It stands in a very rural area facing a public road but set back from it within its own grounds. Walls are of cement roughcast finish, with smooth cement rendered quoins to extremities, and a projecting smooth rendered plinth. Roofs are of Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Rainwater goods are of cast iron, with moulded gutters and circular downpipes. The main south elevation comprises the porch which is set back to the left of the nave and the nave wall. The main entrance is in the porch at the right and is a rectangular ledged timber door with a semi-circular ledged timber tympanum, set in painted long-and-short stone surrounds with a keystone in the semi-circular arched head. The nave contains two two-light two-centred headed windows set in hammer dressed sandstone surrounds with semicircular heads, containing lozenge-shaped metal frames with plain glazing. Near the west end of the nave wall is a rectangular inscribed sandstone memorial slab on a tall sandstone pedestal built up against it, recording the first burial in the churchyard in 1714 and others of the same family who followed in the first half of the 18th century. The west gable of the nave is blank with the porch set on the left. It is surmounted by a gabled bellcote of regular coursed ashlar sandstone which contains a bell in a chamfered Gothic arched opening. The west gable of the porch is blank. The south side of it of similar materials contains a small rectangular timber window of plate glass. The south elevation of the nave has the transept projecting from it left of centre. To the right of the transept the nave contains one window, a tall semi-circular headed two-light, timber framed, transomed and Y-traceried, containing lattice pattern leaded glazing. The west side of the transept contains one window, a tall two-light similar to those on the entrance front. The south gable of the transept contains a tall Gothic headed three-light timber framed window, transomed, with intersecting Gothic tracery, containing lattice pattern metal glazing bars. The east side of the transept is blank. Set in the angle between it and the nave is a later lean-to roofed vestry with asbestos slates to the roof. The south side of the vestry contains a modern rectangular timber door set in a plain surround approached by concrete steps; the east side contains a modern rectangular timber window of fixed lights and a top hung vent. The east gable of the nave contains a Gothic arched three-light stone-framed window with segmental arched lower lights and intersecting tracery lights, but with signs of the stonework decomposing. It contains lozenge pattern metal glazing bars, with coloured glass in the tracery lights. SETTING: The church is approached from the public road by a cement screed path which extends around the perimeter of the building. Beyond the paths the grounds are grassed and contain graves and some shrubs and trees. The front boundary is formed by a smooth rendered wall with a recessed main gateway comprising a pair of scrolling ironwork gates hung on simple square roughcast piers flanked by curving roughcast screen walls. There are several graves enclosed by what looks like early 19th century ironwork railings, including one immediately outside the east gable which contains a very fine stone sarcophagus in neo-classical style replete with carved acroteria and urn, on a stepped granite plinth, to the memory of Rev John Darley who died in 1836.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Built in 1709 by Stewart Blacker and William Latham at their own cost using materials from a previous church on the shore of Lough Neagh; consecrated on 25 September 1713. The wooden door in the west end of the nave, the font, the east window tracery and the tracery of a window above the door in the west end of the nave were all reputedly brought from the old church. The north transept was added in 1832. The organ was made by Stephen White of London and presented by the Earl of Castlestuart during the incumbency of Rev Garnett, in or sometime after 1875. Church re-roofed in 1996, and replastered internally and refurbished internally, with the replacement of ceilings and floors, and installation of a new window in the transept, in 2005. Originally there was a gallery over the west doorway, with the organ originally installed in it, but it was removed in 2005 when the organ was then moved to a central position along the nave wall, and the font moved to the west end. It was during the refurbishment of 2005 that the window tracery above the west doorway was discovered, it having been used as the doorway into the gallery with its stonework details plastered over. References - Primary Sources 1. OS 1st Edition Map of 1833. Secondary Sources 1. S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), Vol 1, p 39. 2. J.B. Leslie, Armagh Clergy and Parishes (Dundalk, 1911), pp 90-97. 3. D.A. Chart ed., A preliminary survey of the ancient monuments of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1940), pp 242-243. 4. A.J. Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North-West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979), p 108. 5. H.J.W. Moore et al, St Colman's parish Church Ardboe: A Short Sketch 1830-2005 (Cookstown, 2005).

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

A small T-shaped roughcast church comprising a nave with north transept, and a projecting gabled porch at the west end. This is an early 18th century church of modest and simple character, which has undergone various changes in layout and fabric over the last two centuries. Among its various features which exhibit different styles and represent different periods, reflecting its historical development, are some important elements dating from the 17th century, having been brought here from a previous church elsewhere in the parish. The church enjoys a pleasant rural setting, and is of some social importance due to the nature of its function. It is also of local importance as containing elements reused from a previous church in the locality, dating from the 17th century, and the rarity of these survivals particularly the wooden door, and stone tracery from that century in fully developed form, gives this church added significance.

General Comments

Date of Survey

18 December 2007