’Old Friends graveyard’, off Belfast Road, Milecross, near Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 4TJ

The ‘Old Friends graveyard’ is a small burial ground located off the Belfast Road, approximately half a mile northwest of Newtownards in County Down. Its construction likely occurred between the 1780s and 1790s. The graveyard sits adjacent to a former Quaker meeting house and is surrounded by a copse of mature trees, occupying a roughly square plot measuring approximately 20m x 20m. It is now overgrown and no longer in use.

The graveyard’s origins are uncertain, with suggestions that it may have been associated with the adjacent Quaker meeting house, built around 1796, or alternatively served as a paupers’ burial ground provided by the Quakers. Another possibility is that the site represents a medieval burial ground dating to the period of the nearby church of Kiltonga, which was in ruins by around 1683. The absence of headstones is unusual, potentially indicating either a Quaker tradition of simple burials or suggesting a possible medieval origin, although Quaker cemeteries typically include uniform grave slabs. Valuation records from approximately 1833 refer to the site as an “old burial ground,” suggesting it was already considered old at that time. The area was in the possession of the Bradshaw family from 1726.