St John’s Graveyard

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A graveyard partly on a steep slope of a knoll, bounded on one side by a rubble stone retaining wall, and containing a number of memorials of 18th, 19th and 20th century date, as well as the overgrown ruins of Glynn Old Church. The church ruins consist of a nave and chancel, the former at the west, the latter at the east end. Walls and gables of basalt rubble still standing but incomplete. Entrance in south side near west gable. Few architectural features of identifiable date. East window of Gothic shape with chamfered sandstone dressings to inside and outside, but incomplete; no tracery. Window in nave topped by flat stone lintel of indeterminate origin.

Setting: the graveyard is situated at the end of a leafy lane running alongside a river and is occupied at its west end by the nineteenth century church, St. John's C of I church (HB06/06/012).

Historical information

Memorial stones date from 18th century; church ruin appears to date from medieval times at least; the site is believed to be that of a church founded by St Patrick in 435. The church ruin is a historic monument, no ANT 40:10.

References - Primary

1. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of County Antrim X, Vol 26 (Belfast, 1994), pp 30-32, 35, 44-45.

Secondary

1. D.A. Chart, ed, A Preliminary Survey of Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland, HMSO, Belfast 1940, pp 33-34.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A graveyard whose memorials are of no special architectural interest but which contains the ruins of an early church which is of some archaeological interest.