Shankill Graveyard Gateway, Boundary Wall and Railings, Shankill Road, Belfast, County Antrim

A Victorian classical style gateway dated between 1833 and 1858 forming the entrance to Shankill Graveyard fronting onto the N side of Shankill Road. The site is enclosed by stone walling with railings to S and stone walls to N, E and W. Walling to gateway laid to coursed rock-faced rubble basalt masonry with stone coping, rendered to street side. Wrought iron railings with top rail and pointed railing heads. Gate piers and four boundary piers built in ashlar Giffnock sandstone; square section with panelled sides, cornice and projecting plinth. Semi-circular coping stones with carved honeysuckle ornamentation. A bronze plaque with the Belfast City Council coat of arms to each gate pier and OS benchmark carved to the base of W gate pier. The gates are of wrought iron. Within the graveyard, two of the boundary piers (mid W and mid E) bear engraved inscriptions. The mid W boundary pier is the ‘Cunningham family burial place’. Illegible inscription to mid E boundary pier. Surviving remains of the rectangular-plan ‘Watch-House’ attached to the W walling. Coursed basalt walling to a height of approximately 1 m, topped by square-section concrete capping. A memorial and a gravestone are located within the watch-house walling. The graveyard was transformed into a ‘Garden of Rest’ in 1958, laid out as a grassed park with a cross-plan pathway and seating resulting in the loss of many of the historic gravestones. A number of headstones and memorials are fixed to the boundary walls or proped against them. A statue of Queen Victoria is located in the centre of the graveyard. Sculpted in 1897 in Portland stone by the Manchester-based sculptor John Cassidy, the statue originally stood outside Christ Church on College Square North. The statue stands within a sandstone lancet arch niche with hood mould and colonnetes. The niche is incorporated within red brick walling with a bronze plaque bearing Queen Victoria’s initials. Setting: The Shankill Graveyard fronts onto the N side of Shankill Road. The site is enclosed by stone walling with railings to S and stone walls to N, E and W and surrounded by housing to N, E and NW. A separate ‘Garden of Reflection’ to W. A second access to the Graveyard is through the boundary walling to the ‘Garden of Reflection’.