Old Church Graveyard

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Cemetery, dating from eighteenth century, located to the south of Church Road, opposite Christ Church (HB21/03/001). The cemetery contains remains of an old church, gravestones and gated plots. Earliest stone found dates from 1765.

The cemetery is accessed from the north-west corner through rubble square pillars and original cast-iron gates. Immediately on entry to the east is single-storey gatehouse, once a crypt house. Roof is pitched and stone tiled. Walls are of random rubble with narrow slit window opening to gable-ends, and splayed piers flanking entrance.

At centre of graveyard is a collection of tombs and remains; plot with gable-ends connected by wall surmounted by cast-iron railing, with memorial stones fixed in west wall; to west, rectangular walling gabled to north with grass roof, and remains of square tower to west corner; to south-west, remains of corner of church, containing arched opening to south; to east, mausoleum with pitched stone tiled roof and granite quoins.

Graveyard bounded to north by random rubble walling, supported to the road by modern brick walling.

Historical information

This graveyard is a reminder of Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver's Travels) who was minister of Kilroot parish, which included Ballynure. The ruins are of the old parish church once on the site. The graveyard contains a small stone building at the entrance, the 'corpse house', originally used to store bodies until they were no longer 'fresh' enough for body snatchers to make money from them, before they were buried.

Armstrong, in his book, ‘Through the Ages to Newtownabbey’, notes the remains of the old church in the centre of the graveyard, ‘where many notable families like Dodds, Ellis, etc. are buried, and at the gate is a crypt which was originally used to deter the profitable practice of body-snatching’ (pg 170).

OS memoirs for the area, dated 1840, record the earliest readable stone as 1717. The graveyard is built on the site of an ancient religious house. The church, now in ruins, was described as a ‘clumsy little structure, with a low square tower and belfry at its western end. It measures 52 feet long and 30 feet wide, and would accommodate about 100 persons… very neglected and dirty state’. The memoir recorded the church as approximately 100 years old at that time, with a tower, added 1815, and bell, 1819.

The Townland Valuation map of 1836, shows a church on the site of the graveyard. By the time of the Griffiths Valuation, 1859, the site is marked as Graveyard, valued at £1.0s.0d.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/45/1 -First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/45/2 -Second Edition OS Map (1857)
3. PRONI VAL/1/A/1/45 -Townland Valuation Map (1836)
4. PRONI VAL/2/A/1/45C -Griffiths Valuation Map (1859)
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/12 -Griffiths Valuation Fieldbook (1859)
6. PRONI Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Antrim XII, 1832-33, 1835-40: Ballynure and district, Vol 32.

Secondary Sources

1. Armstrong, R, ‘Through the ages to Newtownabbey’, 1979
2. Newtownabbey Information. [Internet Source]. Available from:
Accessed 28/10/08

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Graveyard of some age, including gravestones dating from the seventeenth century to the present day. Within the graveyard are the remains of an old church, with some connection to Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. The graveyard has a collection of mausoleums and plots, with various families represented. The remains of the church, along with the gravestones, give the graveyard character, and many of the elements are well preserved examples of their type. However, graveyards such as this are not suitable subjects for listing and it is accorded a more appropriate degree of protection by being a scheduled monument.