Killyleagh’s Parish Church celebrates landmark 375th anniversary
Whilst Killyleagh is a town that is perhaps best known for its castle, believed to be the oldest still inhabited in Ireland, there is also another prominent local landmark celebrating an important milestone in 2015.
Situated on top of the hill just a few hundred metres opposite the castle, St John the Evangelist, Killyleagh Parish Church, has reached its 375th birthday, meaning that the town is also now home to one of the oldest churches still in use in the Diocese of Down and Dromore.
The history of the church however, which was first formed in 1640, is colourful and stretches back even further than this, as its roots are buried in Killyleagh’s original church dating to medieval times.
This original church was, like many, shaped by the 1536 reformation when it became Protestant and it was the influences and actions of the British Monarchy that have helped to shape the church today.
It was under the rule of King Henry VIII, who made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England that Killyleagh’s first church fell into disrepair, but it wasn’t until King James 1st came to power that the church moved to its current site and started to take shape.
It was King James who awarded his namesake James Hamilton the land from Killyleagh to Bangor, and he was the man who set about rebuilding a new place of worship on top of Church Hill where it remains today.
Most likely a simple barn–like structure, this new church built by Hamilton is thought to have stood until 1811, when some of the earliest vestry minutes show that a loan of £2,000 was secured from the Board of First Fruits, a Church of Ireland body to rebuild the then crumbling building.
Setting the further expansion and development of the building over the next 200 years aside for a moment, there is another important date from this early era that stands out in the churches history.
Twenty years after it was consecrated, in 1660, one the church’s most famous parishioners was baptised at the same font still in use today. Sir Hans Sloane as he became known, was born in Killyleagh and grew to become a celebrated scholar, physician and collector.
His thousands of personal artefacts became the founding displays in the British Museum, and he is also credited as the founder of chocolate, having discovered cocoa in Jamaica and developed a recipe to manufacture it.
Along with King Henry VIII and King James, Sloane is just one of many that has played their part in the early story of Killyleagh’s Parish Church.
To celebrate the 375th Anniversary of a church on the top of the hill, Killyleagh Parish are organising a concert on 28 November at 7.00 pm. The concert will feature the Kerygma Choir (who sang for Archbishop of Canterbury at Down Cathedral on Saint Patrick’s Day this year) Paul Young, Principal Trumpet with the Ulster Orchestra and Jana Walsh, a Soprano who sings with Down High School and Downpatrick Cathedral choirs. The compere for the evening wil be BBC’s Karen Patterson.
Entrance to the concert is free, the organisers want as many people as possible to celebrate with them on this momentous occasion.
By Andrew McClenaghan