Ballinderry Old Graveyard, Church Hill, near 117 Ballinderry Bridge Road, Coagh, Cookstown

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A walled graveyard of irregular form containing a number of memorials dating from the 18th century, and some scattered field stones.

It stands in a rural area, its front wall raised above the public road and set back from it slightly beyond a grass verge.

The boundary wall is of rubble stonework, with much smeared cement pointing. It contains a gateway approached directly from the public road by a flight of rough stone steps bounded by a simple iron handrail. The gateway consists of a pair of circular stone piers roughly cement rendered with what are presumably conical or rounded caps now overgrown with creeper; set between them is a pair of old ironwork gates with arrow-head railings.

Within the boundary walls the graveyard is grassed, with its ground level higher than outside and containing a raised central portion which incorporates loose field stones at the south end, possibly the remnants of a previous church on the site.

The burial ground contains a number of stone memorial slabs, some dating from the late 18th century, as well as an iron railed enclosure which is in a state of dereliction and collapse.

Historical information

The precise date of the graveyard is not recorded but it was probably originally an Early Christian site. Later, in the early 17th century a church was built here, described as "in building" in a report of 1622. Known as Ballinderry church, it was destroyed by rebels in 1641, and then rebuilt. It was replaced by what Lewis described as "a large edifice in the later English style", erected in 1707. That church was in turn superseded in 1849 by the present Church of Ireland church, St John's, Ballinderry, built on a new site some distance to the north to be nearer to the rectory which was built in 1800. Following Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland the old church site was vested in the local District Council of Magherafelt. Among the legible grave slabs are some which date from the 1770s to 1790s.

References - Primary Sources
1. OS map of 1832 (shows church).

Secondary Sources
1. S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), Vol 1, p 112.
2. J.B. Leslie, Armagh Clergy and Parishes (Dundalk, 1911), p 124.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A walled graveyard of irregular form containing a number of memorials dating from the 18th century, and some scattered field stones.
This is an old graveyard of possibly Early Christian origins, which has a boundary wall and gateway of possibly late 18th century date, but contains no memorials of special interest and no church remains of any significance.