St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church is a Gothic Revival stone church prominently located in a grouping of ecclesiastical buildings on Patrick Street in St. John’s, NL. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.
Formal Recognition Type
Registered Heritage Structure
Heritage Value
St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1997 due to its aesthetic and historic value.
In 1853, Bishop John Thomas Mullock began to plan a new church in Riverhead, a neighbourhood in the west end of downtown St John’s. The newly-built Basilica of St. John the Baptist was insufficient to serve the growing population of the largely Irish area known as Riverhead. Mullock envisioned a new church which would surpass even the Basilica in grandeur. The cornerstone of a provisional St. Patrick’s church building was laid in 1855, just days after the consecration of the Basilica; however, Mullock did not lay the cornerstone for the current structure until 1864. Construction of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church continued intermittently, as supplies and funding became available. The building was finally finished and consecrated in 1881. The bell tower was added much later, in 1912. It was topped with a spire in 1914 and received a bell (imported from New York) in 1915. By the late twentieth century, the spire had deteriorated to the point of instability. It was replaced with an aluminium replica in 1997.
While the Romanesque style of Bishop Fleming’s Basilica had emphasized ties with the Papacy in Rome, Bishop Mullock’s Gothic Revival vision for St. Patrick’s hearkened back to the medieval roots of Catholic Ireland. This style resonated with the Catholics of St. John’s, many of whom were first-generation Irish immigrants. Influential Irish organizations, such as the Benevolent Irish Society and the Total Abstinence Society, funded construction of St. Patrick’s. Local parishioners contributed by hauling quarried stone from the Southside Hills and by making monetary donations. The church eventually formed part of a complex which included the Deanery – also a Registered Heritage Structure – and St. Patrick’s Convent and Convent School. The community involvement in the construction of St. Patrick’s speaks to the role of Catholicism in building identity and community in Irish St. John’s.
St. Patrick’s is a rare Roman Catholic example of a Gothic Revival church in the province. Though many Anglican churches of the period followed the strict Gothic style laid out by Tractarians such as Bishop Feild, Gothic Revival never became as popular for Roman Catholic churches. St. Patrick’s was designed by Irish ecclesiastical architect James Joseph McCarthy, who was inspired by medieval Irish churches such as St. Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny. His uniquely Irish Gothic style is visibly different from the early English Gothic style common in the province’s Anglican churches; most notably, it lacks a separated nave and chancel.
St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church is sheathed in rough cut ashlar stone (dating to the 1911 replacement of the original stone) with alternating stone quoining. The arched double front doors are surrounded by sandstone voussoirs. The bell tower is topped with a 19 metre spire, featuring louvered Gothic dormers with cross finials at the peak of each dormer. Inside, the building has a central aisle with arcaded side aisles supported by quatrefoil piers. A row of paired lancet windows overlook the clerestory on either side. There are triple-stepped lancet windows in the east and west gable ends, a visual nod to the triple-stepped windows of St. Canice’s Cathedral. The king post trusses, tie beams and curved struts are carried by the arched roof braces. Typical of the Gothic style, the visual effect is to direct the eyes upward. As one of the tallest buildings in the west end of downtown St. John’s, the prominence of St. Patrick’s reflects the central importance of religion in nineteenth century St. John’s.
Source: Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador property file “St. John’s – St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church – FPT 1649”
Character Defining Elements
All those exterior and interior elements that are reflective of the ecclesiastical Gothic Revival style of architecture executed in stone, including:
-rectangular layout with clerestory;
-steeply gabled nave roof;
-cross pinnacles on nave;
-bell tower with lancet windows, arched louvred windows, and spire with finials;
-rough cut ashlar facing;
-alternating quoining;
-stone foundation;
-all original window and door openings;
-triple-stepped lancets and rose windows on gable ends;
-paired lancet windows above clerestory;
-arched, wooden plank doors with sandstone voussoirs;
-mullioned, pointed arch transom above doors;
-vaulted ceiling with arcaded bays;
-king post trusses;
-arcade with quatrefoil moulding on supporting piers;
-use of columns;
-building massing, height, dimensions, location and orientation.
All those elements reflective of the building’s historic importance in the area, including:
-proximity to ecclesiastical and formerly ecclesiastical buildings, such as the Deanery and St. Patrick’s Convent and Convent School;
-prominent height and visibility in the downtown’s west end, and;
-visibility from harbour.