Priory Plantation House ( Remains of)

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The ruins of a former Augustinian Priory with nave and chancel adapted in the early 17th cent. to a Plantation fortified house and church with walls standing almost to wallplate level. It is built in coursed random rubble. To the S W corner there are the lower wall remains of a fortified Plantation house. The east gable has 2 centrally placed narrow lancets with pointed heads and splayed sandstone trim. The pointed heads appear to be cut out of one stone. The top part of the gable is missing. The walling in the lower part of the wall is roughly coursed while above the lancets it is random rubble work. Some of it is probably rebuilt. The quoin stones form a good line. There is a passageway between the gable and the higher ground of the graveyard which is retained by a stone wall.

The passageway continues along the south wall of the chancel and nave and there is an obstructing piece of masonry across it in line with the gable. The S wall of the chancel has a single lancet about 3 times the width of those in the gable and set above a former doorway now built up. The lancet has a modern glazed timber frame and is protected by a steel mesh. The wall of the chancel is set back on each side from that of the nave.

The south wall of the nave has a small round headed window, not unlike that at Banagher old church ruins. This window is about 1/3 the length of the nave wall from the chancel. The wall is almost demolished towards the S corner where there is a semblance of a door leading into what would have been the base of the former tower. The west wall has only 1.5 metres of height remaining. It would have been part of the former tower house and if so the thickness of the wall would have been greater. It has a doorway to the south side entering under the tower.

The north wall of the nave has the principal door to the church. A round headed opening with a flanking wall projecting at right angles suggesting a porch. Between this door opening and the chancel a large pointed window with hood moulding and the eroded remains of stops. There are the stumps of stone tracery in the pointed upper part. Possibly the window had flamboyant tracery similar to that in Monea Church of Ireland and taken from Devenish church ruins. There are no openings in the north wall of the chancel. The stonework is impressive, semi coursed with roughly squared blocks. A temporary timber fascia caps the chancel wall. The chancel has a protective corrugated iron roof.

The walls of the fortified house are generally only a metre or so high and appear as a result of excavations carried out in 1982. The exposed walls show 3 compartments at ground level, 2 in line at right angles to the church at the S corner. A great width of masonry separates the 2 spaces suggesting an internal fireplace.

The Priory and fortified house ruins are sited in the midst of an old graveyard east of Dungiven at the end of the long well kept pathway known as Priory lane. The graveyard sits on a prominence overlooking the River Roe in a pleasant secluded locale.

Historical information

It is thought that the priory falls within 2 periods, the chancel perhaps being the older and dating from the 12th century while the nave is 14th cent. The tower house may be later either 15th or 16th cent.. The priory was suppressed in the 16th cent. and at the beginning of the 17th cent. was occupied by Doddington, Elizabethan solider and servitor to the Skinners Co. He erected a fortified house and the Priory chapel became a Church of Ireland parish church. A new chancel arch was constructed similar to that at the Garrison church, Ballykelly. Doddington died in 1618 and his widow, his second wife and a Beresford, remarried Sir Francis Cooke. Lady Cooke obtained a lease of the estate for a period of 47½ years. Her daughter by her 1st marriage married George Carey so on Lady Cooke’s death either in 1679 or 1688 the estate was obtained by Carey. The Priory church remained in use as a place of worship until 1718 when a new church was built at the top of Dungiven main street. The roof timbers of the Priory church were reused in it.

The tower at the west end collapsed in 1784. There is an illustration of it in Sampson’s Statistical Account of the County of Londonderry. The Priory ruins and those of the excavated fortified house are Scheduled Monuments in State Care No. Ldy 31.15.
The 1st Survey of Historic Buildings does not refer to the Priory.

References

Primary Sources
O.S. Memoirs of Ireland Parishes of County Londonderry IV 1824, 1833-5 p. 38, 39, 40, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58
ed. by Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams QUB.
O.S. Map 1832 Londonderry sh. 25.
O.S. Map 1832 Rev. 1856 Londonderry sh. 25.
HMSO Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland 6th Ed. p. 38, 51, 52, 53, 58, 127, 128.
Brannon & Blades UJA 43 (1980) p 91 – 96.
Simington The Civil Survey 1654 1656 Donegal, Derry & Tyrone p. 210

Secondary Sources
Curl The Londonderry Plantation, 1609-1914 p. 39, 52, 56, 57, 58, 208, 223, 286, 287, 291 and 294
Bunn Dungiven Days 1978 p. 12
Rowan Buildings of Ireland – North West Ulster
Lewis Topographical Dictionary p. 581
Leask Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings Vol. 2 p.148 Vol 3 p. 158, 167
Gwynn & Hadcock Mediaeval Religious House Ireland p. 174
Munn Notes on the Place Names of the Parishes and Townlands of the County of
Londonderry p 155, 156, 157, 160
McCloskey (1788-1876) Statistical Reports of Six Derry Parishes 1821 p. 75

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

The remains of an important mediaeval religious building of the 12th and 14th centuries and remains of a fortified house established by one of the English Servitors for the Skinners Co. during the Plantation of County Londonderry in the early 17th century. It contains one of the finest specimens of a niche tomb in Northern Ireland. It is a scheduled monument in State Care.