’Old Friends graveyard’

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small, now overgrown graveyard to the S of the Belfast Road, roughly half a mile NW of Newtownards. The graveyard is next to a former Quaker meeting house. There are no headstones, which may indicate Quaker tradition of simple burials (though they usually used uniform headstones) or it may indicate that this is in fact a mediaeval grave site. The whole plot is square in plan and measures roughly 20m x 20m and surrounded by a copse of mature trees. The graveyard is no longer in use.

Historical information

There appear to be conflicting notions as to the origin and nature of this small graveyard. On the one hand it has been suggested that it belonged to the adjacent small Quaker church (built in c.1796). However, the writers have also been informed that it was a paupers’ burial ground. This confusion may have arisen from the fact that the graves themselves appear never to have possessed headstones which whilst it could well indicate a plot for paupers, may also indicate a (so some locals believe) a Quaker custom of dispensing with any kind of grave marker. However, the latter suggestion appears somewhat dubious as many other Quaker cemeteries contain simple and uniform grave slabs.

In medieval times there was a church within this townland, known as the church of Kiltonga, which William Montgomery noted in his description of the area in c.1683 as being in ruins. Could this graveyard (which the valuation records of c.1833 referred to as ‘old’) have been associated with the medieval church?

References- Primary sources
1 “William Montgomery and the description of the Ards”, ed. D.B. Quinn, Irish Booklore vol.2 no.1 (1972), p.40.
2 PRONI D.654/LE31/1-3 Londonderry Papers- Leases relating to Milecross townland, 1726-1852. [Milecross came into possession of the Bradshaw family in 1726.]
3 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st edition 1833/4, Co. Down 5.
4 PRONI VAL 1B/322 1st valuation, Parish of Newtownards, townland of Milecross, c.1833. [The valuation records refer to the ‘old burial ground’, implying that it this plot was considered old even in 1833.]
5 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision 1858-60, Co. Down 5.

Secondary sources
1 'Ulster Journal of Archaeology', 8 (Belfast 1902), pp.55-56.
2 'Archaeological survey of Co. Down' (HMSO 1966), p.346.
3 W. Edgar ‘Notes on the history of three Newtownards churches’ Ards Historical Society Publication No.2 (Newtownards 1980), pp.52-59.
4 Trevor McCavery Newtown 'A history of Newtownards' (Dundonald 1994), pp.81-82.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small graveyard without headstones, possibly used by local Quakers c.1790s-1830s, or perhaps a pauper’s graveyard provided by Quakers, or possibly even a medieval burial ground associated with the Medieval church of Kiltonga.