Moyletra Parish Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A late-eighteenth-century rubblestone hall-and-tower type Parish church with square entrance tower; built 1784 to designs by Michael Shanahan and located in a rural
setting to the north side of Kurin Road southeast of Garvagh. Rectangular plan with square tower to west and later gabled vestry to north.

Pitched natural slate roof (1858) with blue/black angled ridge tiles and raised stone verges. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting stone eaves (on carved stone brackets to vestry). Walling is part-coursed random rubble on a chamfered plinth with repair cement pointing and ashlar stone dressings; string course between stages of tower and at east gable; sandstone quoins to vestry. Windows are uPVC interlocking Y-tracery to south; Y-tracery metal lattice window to east with central casement panel, fitted internally with secondary glazing; all in ashlar surrounds with projecting stone sills. Blind openings to north and west; those to west have blocked chamfered surrounds and projecting stone sills. Vestry is lit by paired pointed-headed metal lattice windows with margin panes in chamfered ashlar surround.

West-facing gable front is abutted at centre by the two-stage square tower, flanked at left and right by a blind opening to gable. Tower has shallow corner piers rising to stone coping; pointed-headed Y-tracery louvered opening to four sides at belfry; round-headed blind window to west face at ground floor and opening to south with a double-leaf timber-sheeted door surmounted by pointed-headed fixed timber-sheeted tympanum, in blocked ashlar surround with voussoirs; rectangular recess over.

The north elevation has three pointed-headed blind openings with rubble stone voussoirs. At left is the projecting gabled vestry in random rubble built to courses, lit to left cheek and opening to west with a timber-sheeted door in chamfered sandstone reveal with blocked sandstone surround and shouldered head; accessed via six stone steps.

The east gable has a narrow pointed-headed louvered loop opening in blocked sandstone surround at apex of gable, over the double Y-tracery timber window. At ground level is a corrugated tin awning over service pipes.

The south elevation is lit by three windows.

Setting:

Situated on a small plot in a picturesque rural setting, to the north side of Kurin Road. Accessed from south via a long straight gravelled avenue, flanked by rubblestone walls with stone coping. Entrance has squared stone piers with pointed caps supporting cast-iron gates with fleur-de-lis heads. Small graveyard to south with a variety of headstones, dating from the nineteenth-century. Bounded to surrounding farmland by wire fence and mature hedgerow.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Part-coursed random-rubble
Windows: Replacement uPVC and timber lattice window
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

Moyletra Church, parish of Desertoghill (The desert or hermitage of O’Tuohill), was built on a new site to designs by Michael Shanahan, the architect of the Earl Bishop of Derry. The former parish church was situated a mile to the north in the townland of Ballynameen and dated back to at least 1622. OS Memoirs suggest that the earlier church had been founded by St Columbkille in the 5th century but was abandoned in 1773 when it became unsound and was too expensive to maintain. (OS Memoirs)

Moyletra Kill, the name of the townland where the church is situated, signifies the ‘lower hill of the church’ and it is said that one of the O’Cahans, Gaelic chieftains of the area, had established a church on the site of the present building with an attached burial ground where he was later interred. A well sunk to serve as a water font is said to stand under the centre window of the present building. (www.placenamesni.org; OS Memoirs)

The Rector of the church from 1754-85, Rev Lewis Burroughs, was an intimate friend of the Earl Bishop of Derry. After a meeting in the old church on 4th October 1774, it was decided that the building was in a ‘ruinous condition’ and that the parishioners would be levied £20 in 1775, £20 in 1776 and £20 in 1777 to be put towards the construction of a new church. (Rankin; OS Memoirs)

Accounts by Shanahan and lists of subscribers in the Earl Bishop’s own hand have survived and suggest that building work on the church began in 1775. (Rankin) However, other sources disagree and the diocesan history gives 1782-4 as the date of construction. (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe) Subscriptions came from a number of local landowners as well as the Earl Bishop himself, although he and the Ironmongers Company were the largest donors. The total cost amounted to £383.10s.9d (another account gives the total as £500) of which Shanahan received more than £160. (Rankin) Rankin points to the treatment of the gables as pediments which he suggests is typical of Shanahan’s work. (Rankin) A wooden spire was originally fitted to the tower but was taken down in 1819 as it was in an unsound state. (OS Memoirs)

OS Memoirs of 1835 record that the pews were very old but the floor had been put down in 1831. The roof was in bad repair and the walls damp but a fireplace had been lately put up at the expense of the rector at the east end of the church. It was thought that this should be placed in the centre of the church and ‘would add greatly to the warmth of the house and in a great measure preserve the walls from damp’. The stones for building the church were found in the same townland, about 40 perches from the church. The lime came from Desertmartin and the slates from Coleraine. The ancient family of the Churches had brought their influence to bear on the location of the church, by outvoting the parish in a vestry meeting. (OS Memoirs)

The ‘very plain building’ was restored in 1836, ‘painted outside, new ceiled and plastered, new flagged, newly fitted with windows, newly fitted up with back seats to the pews and had also two lofts put in the steeple’. The church could accommodate 218 adults and had no windows to the north side as was usual in earlier churches. (OS Memoirs)The Ecclesiastical Commissioners granted £227.4s.1d for the repairs. (OS Memoirs)

The church and graveyard are captioned on the first edition OS map of 1831-2, where the church appears as a simple rectangular hall with attached tower. With minor additions the building has remained largely unchanged in plan form.

The church is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) and dimensions are given for the nave and tower, valued at £7.18s. Also listed is a thatched stable to the north of the church (no longer present, but used until at least the 1930s when it was a fuel shed.) Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the church at £7.10s and 10s for the grave yard, with no further changes in Annual Revisions.
In 1858 works were carried out to designs by Joseph Welland and it was at this period that the vestry was built on the north elevation. Changes were also made to the pulpit and sittings. (www.dia.ie) The new vestry is first shown on the third edition of 1905 and valuation records of the 1930s state that the church was in poor repair. The parish was amalgamated with Errigal in 1878. (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe)

The church was renovated in 1968 but when viewed by Rankin in the early 1970s still had a centrally-placed iron heating-stove with flue rising through the ceiling. (Rankin) The church was listed in 1977.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/26/1 First Edition OS Map 1831-2
2. PRONI OS/6/5/26/2 Second Edition OS map 1853
3. PRONI OS/6/5/26/3 Third Edition OS Map 1905
4. PRONI OS/6/5/26/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1925-7
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/54A-C Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/10 Griffiths Valuation (1861)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/12A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/3 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/U/5 First General Revaluation 1933-57
10. HB file – 03/02/020

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry VIII, 1830, 1833-7, 1839, Vol. 27.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994.
2. Fawcett, FW Rev Canon; Crooks, DWT Rev Canon; Leslie JB Rev “Clergy of Derry and Raphoe” Ulster Historical Foundation, 1999
3. Rankin, P “Irish Building Ventures of the Earl Bishop of Derry” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972
4. www.dia.ie
5. www.placenamesni.org

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A late-eighteenth-century rubblestone hall-and-tower type Parish church with square entrance tower; built 1784 to designs by Michael Shanahan and located to the north side of Kurin Road southeast of Garvagh. Situated on a mature site in a picturesque rural setting and accessed via a traditional gravel pathway to south. Despite various refurbishments and alterations over the years, works have been largely sympathetic and Moyletra Church retains its original proportions and much of its original character. A fine example of a modest Georgian rural Parish church in an unspoiled setting the church retains It is of significant local interest and social importance to the surrounding community.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and T - Historic Importance also apply.