Church in Newcastle North

Situated at the W end of Newcastle village. This medieval parish church comprises a nave (int. dims. 13.6m E-W x 6.9m N-S; ext. dims. 15.5m E-W x 8.7m N-S) and chancel (int. dims. 12.8m E-W x 6.9m N-S; ext. dims. 13.5m E-W x 8.7m N-S) with residential W tower (dims. 6.5m x 5m). The chancel is ruinous while both nave and tower are in use. The tower is square in plan with a stair turret in the NW corner (int. dims. L 3.37m x Wth 2.94m). It rises to three storeys with a battlemented parapet and a double bellcote. Built of coursed limestone blocks, with dressed quoins. The W tower is entered through a later door on the S side. This opens onto a vaulted porch with access to the nave and a stair turret in the NW angle. There is a vaulted roof over the ground, first and second floors. Fireplaces are present in the NE angle on both upper floors. The first floor is lit by cusped ogee-headed windows with stones seats in the W and S. There is a loft at this level which provides access to a gallery in the nave of the church. The nave is still in use but the chancel is ruinous. The interior was lit by a double light window with round moulding and cusped ogee-heads in N wall. Close to it is another blocked opening with a round arch. This may have been an original entrance. There is another blocked doorway at the E end of the nave (int. dims L 13.4m x Wth 6.5m). There are buttresses along the N wall of the nave. The chancel is entered in the E gable through a round arched opening. Above this is a large pointed arched opening where until 1724 there was a fine tracery window until it was placed in the E end of nave (Leask 1960, 3, 18; O'Keeffe 1986, 47-53). Within the chancel are two deep embrasures, now blocked. On S side is a double light ogee-headed window with spandrels and chamfered jambs (int. dims. L 12.75 x Wth 6.9m). S of the medieval church is a Latin cross carved from granite and set into a granite base (DU020-003003-). Newcastle Church ruins were described by Ní Mharcaigh (1997, 272-4) as follows; 'Newcastle Church was originally a nave-and-chancel church with a west tower that was both a priest's residence and a belfry. The church at present in use consists of the former nave and the entrance is through a modern door in the south wall of the tower, the ground floor of which acts as a porch to the church while the top floor continues in use as a belfry. The intervening floors of the tower are not in use but are intact. The chancel. The chancel is the same width as the nave and almost the same length. The east window (now in the nave) has three cinque-foiled lights, chamfered and cusped, with round heads, all three within a single pointed arch. The tracery above has quatrefoil openings with daggers between, all with chamfers and cusps. In the east wall of the chancel, underneath the opening from which the window was removed, is an entrance with recessed jambs, under a segmental arch, opened to admit burials within the chancel when that part of the church fell into disuse. The south wall of the chancel has three windows, two of them blocked up. Each window has two lights, ogee-headed with a foil each side, cusped under a square hood with concave spandrels. Inside the chancel these windows have pointed arches. There is only one window in the north wall of the chancel. It is a two-light window, ogee-headed and foiled, similar to the windows in the south wall but the inside arch is a plain shallow-curved one. Also in the north wall of the chancel, at the eastern end and near the present ground level, are two aumbries, 2ft sq. and 1ft sq., respectively. St Finians head. On the outside of the south wall of the chancel, near the east end, is a small carved head of sandstone, known locally as St Finnian's head. The nave. There are three windows in the south wall of the nave and none now in the north wall. However, on the outside, the outline of a tall narrow window in the north wall of the nave, near the original chancel arch, is visible. It shows the remains of a plain architrave with a square lintel. There is also a blocked doorway at the east end in the south wall and, near it, the hood of a blocked window opposite the blocked one in the north wall. The existing windows in the south wall of the nave are round-headed with two lights, cinque-foiled with chamfers and cusps and a cruciform opening above, centred. The north wall of the nave is buttressed in three (evenly-spaced) places. The tower. Entrance to the church is through the vaulted ground-floor of the tower. In the north-west corner, a stone stairway leads to the priest's apartment. The first floor has a fireplace in the north wall and cusped trefoil-headed windows in the west and south walls with window seats. There is a cupboard in the south west angle. A loft over this floor has a narrow west light. The second floor has a rectangular window in the south wall, widely splayed, with window seats. The chimney continues up the north wall from the floor below. The stair turret, which projects from the north wall of the tower, is lit by small slits. An oversailing course near the top of the tower carries the double bellcote and a parapet with battlements. The east and south windows of the nave, essentially curvilinear in type, are coeval with the square-headed, fifteenth-century windows in the chancel. Leask suggests an early fifteenth-century date for both nave and chancel, with the tower an early addition to the building (Leask 1960b, 18-19). O'Keeffe considers the nave to be earlier than the chancel, which he dates to about 1420 (O'Keeffe 1986, 52-3). Bradley and King consider that the nave and tower were built together in the early fifteenth century and that the chancel is a mid-fifteenth century addition; they accept O'Keeffe's date of 1420 for the chancel (Bradley and King 1988, 277-9). The first quarter of the fifteenth century is suggested for the whole building, with the chancel slightly later than the rest'. To see a 3D model of the twin-light cusped ogee-headed window in the S wall of the chancel visit https://skfb.ly/oI6Oy To see a 3D model of the twin-light cinque-foiled traceried window in the S wall of the nave visit https://skfb.ly/oI6SF See attached plan of church taken from Ní Mharcaigh 1997, Fig. 12 Compiled by: Geraldine Stout Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 10 May 2023