Tattykeeran Church

A small Fermanagh church – which has been painstakingly restored as a family home – has to be one of the county’s more unusual houses. Tattykeeran church, Tempo – which is currently on the market – was bought as a derelict property in the mid nineties by Limavady couple, Jimmy and Mollie Armstrong, who didn’t embark on its conversion until about a decade later.

Initially, the Armstrongs, who have strong family links with the county, viewed the rural church, on behalf of their niece, Cathy Burns, from Enniskillen. “She asked for our advice on it,” recalls Jimmy, who had previously undertaken similar renovation projects.
And when she decided not to go ahead, the Armstrongs bought the former Church of Ireland building – which had been one of a several churches on Colebrooke estate.

Armstrong remembers seeing the listed 19th-Century building for the first time – the striking Gothic windows and the way the property sat so naturally in the landscape.” “I thought it would be an interesting challenging project and I was very enthusiastic for my niece. But I had no idea what cold be converted or how it could be done,” he says.
When Burns later decided not to buy the property – after an architect explained the scale and cost of the work required to convert a church – the Armstrongs swooped in “a moment of madness, a whim” and bought it for about £30,000.

“We bought it from a local man who had bought it from the church,” explained Jimmy, who recalls that when they bought it in the mid nineties, “it was very derelict at that stage”.

He guesses the decommissioned building, with its eye-catching Gothic windows, had lain unused for the best part of 20 years when they started working on its conversion in 2006 and they did not finish the scheme until the middle of 2008.

“That was around 1995,” says Armstrong. “We bought it off a local man who bought it off the Church of Ireland after it was decommissioned in the 1980s. I remember thinking I should do something with the place, so I planted a beech hedge in front of the Church. People would come up to ask us what we were going to do with the property – with a sense of amusement.” Fifteen years on, the former church is anything but tatty. Completed two years ago, the property combines the period features of the chapel with a contemporary cedar-clad barn – the “sleeping wing”

“The outside of the church was not touched in any way,” explains Jimmy, whose scheme retains all the building’s architectural features.

“We did not change the shape or the style of the building. The church is extensively as it was built in 1841 – it’s still exactly the same today.”

Transforming the church became a labour of love – and the Armstongs’ toughest restoration – but they didn’t start work on it straightaway. “The church sat empty for ages after we bought it,” says Armstrong. “It was a project in waiting, something we would get around to some day. We weren’t worried about losing money on it, even though there was very little interest in the property at that time – there was no boom. It was after I retired as chief executive of the Rural Development Council in Northern Ireland, in 2000, that I started to think about it.” From then on, the conversion became a family affair. Nathan, the couple’s son, an architect based in Tokyo, came home in 2001 to work for a time in Britain. It was his enthusiasm and ideas that renewed their interest in the project. “The planning stage definitely got under way after Nathan reappeared,” says Armstrong.

The original gothic windows

The first stage was deciding that this would be a house. The next was deciding whether to go for a self-contained renovation within the church or build an extension

It has been built in a comtemporary barn style clad in cedarwood; it is a very simple style” and a very modern style

said Jimmy.

The Armstrongs had to be careful that their conversion did not damage the listed church. To their relief, the historic buildings division of the Department of the Enviroment immediately approved their proposals. The planners, however were more difficult to persuade “it took a lot longer to convince them, almost a year from the date of planning approval,” says Armstrong. “They didn’t like the idea of a barn or cedar cladding on a barn. They thought it was rocking the boat too much. Eventually, we got the go-ahead.

The two buildings are connected by a corridor, known as “The link”. In the middle of the link is a reading area – a window seat with tatami seating and glazed bi-folding doors that look out to a Japanese garden, which has been designed to create a sense of calm. The extension, or sleeping wing, has a bathroom and four bedrooms, three with en-suites. The church building is an open-plan space, housing the lounge, dining room and kitchen. Over the kitchen is a floating studio pod. The oak-clad design is currently used as a work room but could be an extra bedroom. It has a built-in wardrobe, low-voltage spotlights, solid wood-strip floor, a glass panel overlooking the living area, and feature wall lights.

Describing the interior, Jimmy says inside it reflects a very modern style –

“there is a lot of glass – a lot of steel – and a lot of oak panelling”.

Clean lines, light colors and glass dominate

There are very clean lines and lots of light. He believes the transformation worked very well and they really enjoyed doing it.

“We are very reluctant to sell it but we made the decision to to stay where we are.”

With only some small finishing touches to be done, Jimmy reveals that they are now repairing the original church bell, which they plan to re-install.
Hence it will ring the changes at Tattykeeran church – a nineteenth century building with an interior that is set in the 21st century.