Graveyard,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A small graveyard of roughly rectangular shape set on a hillside amongst trees. The entrance, through an original pedestrian gate of looped iron railings with finialled iron posts, faces north. Gateway flanked by modern concrete post and wire fencing.

Graveyard grassed; contains two low stone-walled enclosures of basalt rubble, and a sunken smooth rendered vault standing in an iron-railed enclosure, as well as memorial slabs, none of any special architectural or historic interest.

SETTING: The graveyard stands in a very rural area, in an isolated position on an elevated site next to the main road; approached from the main road by a short lane leading up to the gate.

Historical information

Precise date and origins of graveyard not known but it appears on the OS map of 1832; the earliest memorial recorded in the first survey in 1970 was dated 1809; the earliest apparent now dates from 1816. In the 1830s the Ordnance Survey Memoirs described it as being exclusively for the burial of Roman Catholics.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 20.
2. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 13: Parishes of County Antrim IV, 1830-8 (Belfast, 1992), pp 4 and 7.

Secondary Sources
1. SMR no. ANT 20:22.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a small graveyard dating from at least the early 19th century, in a pleasant setting, but of no special architectural interest or apparent special historic interest.