The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Patrick (now)
Cathedral church
Fragments associated with the original monastic site in Downpatrick, now reset within the late 18th - 19thc. cathedral.
Augustinian house, former
A large cruciform, aisleless early 13thc. church standing next to the abbey ruins (W
wall of nave to E wall of chancel 40.23m, w. across transepts 22.86 m). The rebuilt
chapter house and sacristy survive and are also early 13thc. while the remains of the
cloister and domestic buildings are mainly 15thc. The church has a vaulted chancel
with a chamber above and two barrel-vaulted chapels in each transept, the inner
round-headed and the outer pointed and rather taller. The sacristy adjoins the south
transept and abuts onto a small chamber, accessible from the cloister walk. The
chapter house is attached to the sacristy. A 17thc. chapel adjoins the chancel on the
S. The nave was rebuilt in 1270. Plain round-headed doorways are found in the N wall
of the N transept and N and S side of nave (all reconstructed in 1965-6). The plain
sacristy doorway and the doorway to the storeroom in the E cloister range are
original. This doorway is round-headed and of three plain chamfered orders, the first
order with a tympanum and the others continuous. There are plain round-headed windows
at clerestorey level (one on S two on N); one in the E wall of each transept chapel,
with a small rectangular window above; and two, one above the other, over the triple
window on the E face, the upper being rectangular. There are a number of narrow
round-headed windows to the chapter house, some reconstructed. Romanesque sculpture
is found on the corbels of the crossing, the chancel vaulting and E window, the W
door of the chapter house, a reset corbel and a mortar (used as a font).
Church (ruin)
A small nave (15.00 m x 5.00 m) and chancel (7.00 m x 3.90 m) church built of limestone and Greywacke rubble with dressed stone jambs. Apart from the W gable which survives close to its original height, the walls survive only at a low level.
Church of Ireland Cathedral
This church of Ireland cathedral was rebuilt in 1802, and renovated in 1969, it incorporates a 15thc castellated tower on the NW. An Early English capital iies loose in the grounds to the SW of the Cathedral.