Moyletra Parish Church, Kurin Road, Garvagh, Co. Londonderry

Moyletra Parish Church is a late 18th-century rubblestone hall-and-tower type Church of Ireland parish church, built in 1784 to designs by Michael Shanahan — the architect employed by the Earl Bishop of Derry — and situated on the north side of Kurin Road, southeast of Garvagh. It stands on a mature site in a picturesque rural setting within the townland of Moyletra Kill. Despite various refurbishments and alterations over the years, these works have been largely sympathetic, and the church retains its original proportions and much of its original character. It is a fine example of a modest Georgian rural parish church in an unspoiled setting, and holds significant local interest and social importance for the surrounding community.

The building has a rectangular plan with a square entrance tower to the west and a later gabled vestry projecting to the north. The pitched natural slate roof dates from 1858 and is finished with blue-black angled ridge tiles and raised stone verges. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods run along projecting stone eaves, with carved stone brackets supporting the eaves at the vestry. The walling is part-coursed random rubble on a chamfered plinth, with repair cement pointing and ashlar stone dressings. A string course marks the division between stages of the tower and also runs across the east gable. The vestry has sandstone quoins.

The windows on the south elevation are replacement uPVC interlocking Y-tracery lights. The east gable has a Y-tracery metal lattice window with a central casement panel, fitted internally with secondary glazing, all set in ashlar surrounds with projecting stone sills. The north and west elevations have blind openings; those to the west retain blocked chamfered surrounds and projecting stone sills. The vestry is lit by paired pointed-headed metal lattice windows with margin panes, set in chamfered ashlar surrounds.

The west-facing gable front is joined at its centre by the two-stage square tower, with a blind opening to the gable on either side. The tower has shallow corner piers rising to a stone coping. At belfry level, pointed-headed Y-tracery louvred openings face all four sides. The west face of the tower has a round-headed blind window at ground floor level, and a doorway to the south with a double-leaf timber-sheeted door surmounted by a pointed-headed fixed timber-sheeted tympanum, all set within a blocked ashlar surround with voussoirs and a rectangular recess above. The north elevation has three pointed-headed blind openings with rubble stone voussoirs. To the left of these is the projecting gabled vestry, built in random rubble laid to courses. It is lit on its left cheek and has a doorway to the west fitted with a timber-sheeted door in a chamfered sandstone reveal with a blocked sandstone surround and a shouldered head, accessed via six stone steps. The east gable has a narrow pointed-headed louvred loop opening in a blocked sandstone surround at the apex, positioned above the double Y-tracery timber window. At ground level on the east gable, a corrugated tin awning shelters service pipes.

The church is approached from the south via a long, straight gravelled avenue flanked by rubblestone walls with stone coping. The entrance is marked by squared stone piers with pointed caps, supporting cast-iron gates with fleur-de-lis heads. A small graveyard lies to the south, containing a variety of headstones dating from the 19th century. The surrounding farmland is bounded by wire fencing and a mature hedgerow.

The parish of Desertoghill — meaning "the desert or hermitage of O'Tuohill" — had an earlier church situated a mile to the north in the townland of Ballynameen. Ordnance Survey Memoirs suggest this earlier church had been founded by St Columbkille in the 5th century, though it was abandoned in 1773 when it became structurally unsound and too expensive to maintain. The townland name Moyletra Kill signifies "the lower hill of the church," and tradition holds that one of the O'Cahans, the Gaelic chieftains of the area, had established a church on the site of the present building with an attached burial ground in which he was later interred. A well, said to have served as a water font, is reputed to stand beneath the centre window of the present building.

The Rector from 1754 to 1785, the Reverend Lewis Burroughs, was an intimate friend of the Earl Bishop of Derry. Following a vestry meeting on 4th October 1774, the building was declared in a "ruinous condition" and the parishioners were levied £20 per year for three years — in 1775, 1776, and 1777 — to fund the construction of a new church. Surviving accounts by Shanahan and subscriber lists in the Earl Bishop's own hand suggest building work began in 1775, though the diocesan history gives 1782–84 as the construction date. Subscriptions came from several local landowners, with the Earl Bishop and the Ironmongers Company among the largest donors. The total cost amounted to £383 10s 9d, though another account gives the figure as £500, of which Shanahan received more than £160. The treatment of the gables as pediments has been identified as typical of Shanahan's work. A wooden spire was originally fitted to the tower but was taken down in 1819 as it had become structurally unsound.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835 record that the pews were very old but that the floor had been laid in 1831. The roof was in poor repair and the walls were damp, though a fireplace had recently been installed at the east end at the rector's expense; it was felt that a central position would better warm the building and help preserve the walls from damp. The building stones were quarried in the same townland, approximately 40 perches from the church, the lime came from Desertmartin, and the slates from Coleraine. The ancient family of the Churches had influenced the siting of the church by outvoting the rest of the parish at a vestry meeting. The church was restored in 1836 — described at that time as a "very plain building" — when it was painted externally, re-ceiled and plastered internally, reflagged, fitted with new windows, provided with back seats to the pews, and given two lofts in the steeple. At this time it could accommodate 218 adults. It had no windows to the north side, which was characteristic of earlier churches. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners granted £227 4s 1d towards these repairs.

The church and graveyard appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831–32 as a simple rectangular hall with attached tower, and with minor additions the building has remained largely unchanged in plan form since. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists the nave and tower with dimensions, valued at £7 18s, and also records a thatched stable to the north of the church — no longer present, though it remained in use as a fuel shed until at least the 1930s. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 lists the church at £7 10s and the graveyard at 10s, with no further changes noted in the Annual Revisions.

In 1858, works were carried out to designs by Joseph Welland; it was at this time that the vestry was added to the north elevation and changes were made to the pulpit and seating. The new vestry first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. Valuation records from the 1930s note that the church was in poor repair at that time. The parish was amalgamated with Errigal in 1878. The church was renovated in 1968, though when examined in the early 1970s it still contained a centrally placed iron heating stove with a flue rising through the ceiling. The church was listed in 1977.