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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Church

Fontstown Lower, County Kildare, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Church, Fontstown Lower, County Kildare, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Fontstown Lower
County
Kildare
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Church
Latest-edition OS map
Church (in Ruins)
Coordinates
53.05237, -6.89144
SMR number
KD031-014----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1830 · V.3:11-15:XV. Britisches Reich. C. Kon: Ireland. a. Prov: Leinster. Counties: 1-12 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

In a graveyard (KD031-014001-). According to Ronan (1941b, 96-7), the church was called 'Villa Fonti', and was he says, ‘in waste’ in 1294 according to an Ecclesiastical Taxation. The church and chancel are described as ‘ruinous' in Archbishop Bulkeley’s Visitation of Dublin, 1630 (op. cit). A ruined rectangular structure (traceable L 14.7m E-W; Wth 6.7m N-S) appears to comprise the N and S sidewalls of a medieval church built of random rubble limestone (wall T 0.9m) into which a later (18th/19th-century?) W gable wall (T 0.7m) was inserted. The E gable wall (T 0.75m) also appears to have been rebuilt. The ‘new’ structure (L 9.25m E-W) has a partially robbed out doorway (Wth 1.1m) in the W gable wall, two robbed out windows in the S sidewall, and a robbed out window and a blocked up window embrasure in the N sidewall. The E gable wall contains a round arched window incorporating some red brick and carries a bell cote. A broken font (KD031-014002-) lies in the NW corner of the overgrown interior.

Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy

Date of upload: 07 October 2013

References

Ronan, M.V. 1941 Archbishop Bulkeley's Visitation of Dublin, 1630. Archivium Hibernicum 8, 56-98.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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