Porter Memorial Cross

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A stone cross constructed in the style of an Irish High Cross and finely carved with Celtic interlacing ornamentation, standing in a central position in a rectangular enclosure of rubble stone walls of fairly uniform height except for a high gable to the south, which constitutes the remains of the old church at Carncastle which was built in the 17th century. The cross is placed on axis with a central opening hung with a wrought iron gate.

SETTING: The cross and its surrounding enclosure stand in the churchyard of St Patrick’s C. of I. Church (HB06/03/016), and are set in a rural location in open countryside.

Historical information

Erected to the memory of the Rev. Classon Porter who died in 1885; unsigned. At the time of his death Rev. Porter was the occupant of Ballygally Castle and was its first historian of note having published a lengthy article on it in the Larne Reporter in 1884 which was reprinted in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology in 1901. The cross stands within the area of a monument, SMR: ANT35:14.

References - Primary

1. Inscription on base of memorial.

Secondary

1. D.A. Chart, ed., A Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland (HMSO, Belfast, 1940), p 29.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A late Victorian Celtic Cross with finely carved ornamentation, of no special artistic merit in itself, but commemorating a figure of some local renown and occupying a setting of some antiquarian interest.