St John's C of I Graveyard

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Churchyard on SW side of Graveyard Lane (off John Street), SW of St John's Church.

Entered by a pair of wrought-iron gates with twisted pointed dogbars and chamfered cuboidal finials to the top bars. Hung from strap-pointed concrete-block pillars. The space is delineated to three sides by hedges, and bounded to the lane by a random rubble wall.

Immediately left on entry is a plot to Joseph Haslett (died 1870) and family. Its polished granite headstone is set in a brick-trimmed semicircular-headed recess in the boundary wall.

The enclosed graveyard is grassed and still used for burials; it contains an assortment of gravestones. The small indecipherable ones are probably of 18th/early 19th C date (these are nearest the entrance), the cut stone ones of mid 19th C, and the finely dressed/ polished ones of later 19th and 20th C date.

Historical information

This church yard is associated with St John’s Parish Church (HB16/08/001) which lies to the North. Construction of St John’s was began in 1730.

This graveyard was recorded on the HMBB survey card of 1970 - 'Pre 1776. A walled graveyard containing slate slabs and other memorials. Earliest headstone deciphered is dated 1779.'

Shown on 1776 Mead Estate Map.

Primary Sources:
1. Meade Estate: A Map of the Town of Rathfriland (1776) Now in Norfolk and Norwich Record Office.

Secondary sources:
1. HMBB survey card, Built Heritage, 5 - 33 Hill Street, Belfast, BT1 2LA

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Of local interest primarily and without any features of special significance.