Limavady Union Workhouse

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Long thin plot of land perpendicular to Scroggy Road bounded by tall trees and a timber fence on three sides and a concrete block wall and wire fence along Scroggy Road. Small slate plaque screwed to a rough hewn piece of sandstone and concreted into a rectangular stone base is located in the centre of the plot near the road. There is no other memorial. The plaque reads: ‘Limavady Union Graveyard, This consecrated plot was used as a workhouse burial ground between the years 1841-1931. The public are earnestly requested to refrain from trespassing or dumping rubbish.

Historical information

Third graveyard of Limavady Union workhouse. The others were located closer to the present building. This graveyard was located as far as possible from the main workhouse buildings because of fears of cholera and other infectious diseases communicating to the inmates of the institution. Much of the dead in this plot were victims of the famine. See HB02/15/006 for more information on the workhouse and the earlier graveyards. When the building was changed to a hospital in the early 1930s the Paupers Graveyard was no longer required.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A sad and poignant place made all the more so by the present lack of anything normally associated with a graveyard. The fence is the same as that to the field next door. The only boundary indication is the trees planted deliberately around the periphery. The plaque is very small and its administrative lack of emotion ties with the institutional lack of emotion these people must have experienced in the last days of their lives. The workhouse is just visible over rooftops to the south west.