Movilla Abbey

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Ruined remains of a medieval church situated on a high bank on the S side of the Movilla Road on the NE edge of Newtownards, with a large graveyard to the S.

The ruins measure c.33m x 6m and are in split stone rubble.

Much of the E and W gables are still standing.

The E gable still retains the ‘outline’ of a large three light pointed arch window opening with tracery, but the opening itself is now blocked with a small narrow semicircular headed window inserted into the middle light. This narrow window is splayed ‘internally’.

The W gable contains a pointed arch window, set at a higher level and with transoms with cusping.

The N wall (which faces out onto the Movilla Road), has large sections which have been repaired in fairly recent times, with evidence of a now blocked doorway in the centre and a pair of small lancet windows to the E (left). Now propped up against the ‘inner’ side of the N wall are 8 medieval grave slabs, with the largest stone to the left with a Gaelic inscription (ÓRDO/DERTREND- ‘A prayer for Dertrend’), and probably Early Christian in origin. The other slabs are probably 13th century, with one (the second from the left) containing a carving of a pair of shears.

Nothing remains of the S wall and within the former interior of the church are various gravestones dating from the 1600s onwards as well as a large rubble built tomb in the shape of a miniature gabled church (late nineteenth century).

Historical information

The monastery of Movilla is reputed to have been founded in 540 by St. Finnian, a member of the royal dynasty of Dál Fiatach, who ruled over much of what is now County Down. Originally known as ‘Mag Bile’ the settlement around the church appears to have been quite extensive, and, like many other Early Christian important ecclesiastical centres in Ireland, probably amounted to a small town. A measure of its importance can be gauged from the fact that its head sometimes appears with the title of ‘Bishop’.

The monastery was plundered by the Norse in 824, a blow from which it never fully recovered. In 910 it was joined to that of Bangor and adopted the Augustinian rule, bringing Movilla in line with many other houses within Ireland and Europe.

After the coming of the Normans to the area, the church appears to have been rebuilt to serve the rejuvenated settlement of Nove Ville de Blathewyc or ‘New town’. The building was extended in the 15th century, but its life was brought to an abrupt end in 1542 when it was suppressed by Henry VIII. At the time of its dissolution, the church was in possession of many townlands within the immediate area, a measure of both its wealth and importance.

The graveyard to the south of the church, which contains many graves dating from the 1600s to the present, was originally bounded in the south by the line of the ‘old’ Movilla Road, however, the road was redirected to the northern side of the church ruin in the mid 19th century, allowing the graveyard to expand southwards.

References- Secondary sources
1 'Archaeological Survey of County Down' (Belfast, 1966), pp. 283-84.
2 R.S.J. Clarke (compiler) 'Gravestone Inscriptions Vol.11 County Down, Barony of Ards' (U.H.F. Belfast 1975).
3 Trevor McCavery 'Newtown: A history of Newtownards' (Dundonald 1994), pp.20-41.
4 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', pp. 233-36. [The Place-Names lists all of the known medieval sources with
references to Movilla.]
5 Bill Wilsdon 'The Sites of the 1798 Rising in Antrim and Down' (Belfast 1997), p.132-34.
6 State care monument DOW006:013

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Ruined remains of a medieval abbey whose former interior is now somewhat cluttered with relatively recent gravestones.