Old Straid Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Located 300 metres north east of Straidarran House, in the middle of fields are located the stone ruins of a mediaeval church measuring 16 metres long by 5½ metres wide inside of walls and enclosed by a stone wall 1.5 metres high. The wall also forms a small graveyard which has an average width of 8 metres by average length of 16 metres. One wall of the church ruin is contiguous with the graveyard wall.

Little remains of the north and south walls and the east wall remains to a height of 2 metres approximately and appears to have had a central opening in it, probably a window. The west gable remains clad in ivy and a small opening high up can be discerned with splayed reveals. It could well be that the little church had a loft and derived daylight from this window. The plan form is a triple square. Gravestones abound within and without the church, indeed a recent burial, outside the east gable, took place in January 1997. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs record only Presbyterians using the graveyard in the past two decades (ie during the1800's and 1820's).

Historical information

Straid Church could be one of the seven churches said to have been established by St Patrick in the Faughan valley area and James McCloskey, in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, suggests that its antiquity is older than Banagher Old Church.

References:

1. 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 30. Parishes of County Londonderry X', ed Angelique Day & Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1995) p 39.
2. SMR Ref LDY 29:8
3. OS Map 1st Edition 1831 Co Londonderry 23

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

An important historical church ruin of early Christian times.