Antrim (Antrim All Saints)

History

The names of several early vicars appear in Reeves' Ecclesiastical Antiquities, the first recorded being Wm. Proketour in 1380. Archaeologists have suggested that the church stands on a medieval burial mound. The present building was constructed in 1596. The tower, designed by John Bowden, was added in 1816 at a cost of £1,500 and was financed by the Board of First Fruits.

The building has been endowed by the Massereene family over several centuries. The Massereene and Clotworthy families funded the building of a transept in 1869 and the west window. In 1892 the church was restored at a cost of £1,300: it was re-seated, the Massereene transept was refurbished and choir stalls were placed alongside a newly constructed organ chamber, which housed an organ supplied by Messrs. Conacher of Huddersfield. The organ pipes were cleaned, gilded and restored in 2020. The Massereene Pew, formerly used by the family alone, was converted into the Massereene Chapel in the 1950s.

The building

An original Elizabethan window with a date stone survives. The north elevation dates to 1596. There are pillars at the front entrance, a bell tower, and a gallery overlooking the nave. The Massereene family have a burial vault beneath their pew. Several funerary monuments stand in the church, including one by R A Flaxman.

The graveyard holds headstones dating from the eighteenth century, many of them worn by weathering; the engraving on one stone of 1734 remains largely intact. The ashes of Dr Alexander Irvine, author of My Lady of the Chimney Corner, are interred there.

Notable features

The east window, given in 1870 in memory of the Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, was designed by William Wailes of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and depicts the events of Holy Week, from the entry into Jerusalem to the Ascension. Two windows on the north elevation carry maker attributions: one, given in 1890 in memory of Olivia, Viscountess Massereene and Ferrard, who died in 1874, was designed by Aldam Heaton & Co. of London; the other, given in 1899 in memory of George, Ellen and William Jackson and of Thomas and Anne Clarke, was designed by Shrigley & Hunt of Lancaster. A window bearing the Massereene coat of arms was presented in 1897.

A lancet window holds two panels of unknown provenance which the parish records as older than any other glass in the church. The upper panel depicts the Virgin and Child with St Hieronimus, St Carolus and an angel preaching below; the lower depicts the beheading of St John the Baptist.

The memorial to the 11th Viscount Massereene of Ferrard, who died in 1905, carries references to the Masonic order and an alabaster violin with a broken string, signifying the silence of the instrument at the death of its owner. The Angel Tablet commemorates Oriel John Clotworthy Whyte Melville Skeffington, 1871 to 1903. Two war memorials record those from the parish who served and fell in the Great War of 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War of 1939 to 1945.