Old church graveyard, Main Street, Loughgall, Co Armagh

A graveyard on Main Street in Loughgall, containing a ruined medieval church and burial monuments from the 19th and 20th centuries. The site is enclosed from the street by decorative cast iron railings mounted on a limestone rubble wall, with gateways at both ends.

The old church ruin comprises a west gable built of roughly coursed limestone rubble with hammer-dressed limestone quoins. The main body of the church dates from the 15th century. A later central segmental brick arched opening at ground level was inserted at an unknown date, with a small window above it of 15th century date featuring a pointed ogee head and chamfered jambs and cill (the south jamb is damaged). Pecked dressing is visible on the head and jambs. Part of dressed stone coping survives on the gable, which is surmounted by a bell-cote of probably 17th century date, built in ashlar with a lintelled opening topped by a moulded cornice and a roughly triangular pediment, now much weathered. The rear face of the gable has later modern buttresses flanking the doorway. The interior of the church ruin is occupied by burials.

The church itself is the successor to an earlier medieval church mentioned in the Papal Taxation of 1302-1306. It was recorded as "well repaired" in the Visitation of 1622 and was pressed into use as a prison during the Irish rebellion of 1641. The church remained in use until 1795, when the present Church of Ireland parish church was built to the west of the village centre. The old churchyard was vested in Armagh District Council from at least the early 20th century. Conservation work was carried out on the church ruins in 1960-1961.

Within the graveyard are railed burial plots, including a prominent freestanding tomb with scrolling pediments, pilasters decorated with laurel wreaths and down-turned torches, standing on a podium enclosed by plain iron railings. This memorial commemorates members of the Cope family of Drumilly, including the Reverend Dr Walter Cope who died in 1787. The graveyard contains vaults of the Copes, the Verners, and other prominent county Armagh families, and remains in active use.

The boundary enclosure along Main Street is of particular architectural merit. Cast iron railings of good quality consist of ornamental spear-headed sections punctuated at intervals by spiral-shafted railings with decorative finials and scrolling brackets at the base. These railings are mounted on a snecked limestone rubble wall with dressed stone copings that ramp and step up the site from east to west. The rear face of the boundary wall is of random rubble. The railings terminate at each end in broad rectangular snecked rubble piers with dressed quoins. At the west end, the boundary walling steps back to the left of the terminal pier to form a recessed gateway comprising a pair of plain spiked-railinged gates set between square rubble piers with swept pyramidal caps. At the east end, the boundary walling angles back to the right of the terminal pier to form a slightly recessed gateway containing a pair of finial-railinged gates set between short lengths of canted screen walls with flat tops. The railings are stylistically dated to the mid-19th century, though their precise date is not recorded.

The graveyard faces Main Street, with the west gateway immediately opposite the east end of the Manor House gatescreen. The boundary to the west is formed by a rendered wall extending to a rubble stone wall northwards. The boundary to the north is formed by fencing and hedge. The boundary to the east is formed by a rubble stone wall.