Banagher Church of Ireland, Feeny Road, Rallagh, Dungiven, Co Londonderry

Banagher Church of Ireland is a fine example of late 18th-century Planter's Gothic style church design, notable for its excellent Georgian tower and spire set within a tree-crowded landscape. Its historic association with the Earl Bishop of Derry and his architectural influence is significant. The spire forms a distinctive feature of the surrounding townlands of Derrychier, Rallagh, Knockan and Drumcovit.

The church is a three-bay nave structure with a west tower and spire, to which a chancel and lean-to vestry have been added. The nave is built of random rubble schist with smooth rendered long walls, slated gabled roof, and a continuous plinth. The tall two-stage tower projects from the west gable with clasping buttresses at each corner and a plain string course defining the stages, in line with the bottom of the bisected pediment. The pointed entrance door is on the north side, with louvred pointed openings on the north, west and south sides serving the belfry. A pointed blank window with sandstone trim and cill sits on the west side of the first stage, with a relieving arch above repeated on all tower openings. The tower is built of random rubble sandstone with ashlar work to the clasping buttresses and entrance door. The second stage stonework is noticeably darker, as if the lower work had been cleaned in the past. The tower is crowned by an elegantly proportioned, eight-sided spire without ornamentation that flares out at its base to adapt to the square tower and overhangs it to form a slim cornice. At the spire base is a plain band fluted on the face. Circular holes appear on every other facet of the spire, presumably to vent the interior space.

The west gable of the nave features a narrow blank lancet on each side with triangular pediment ends above, finished in random rubble stonework. The south front of the nave has three large pointed windows evenly spaced with sandstone trim and Y-tracery to two of them with patterned iron lights. The third window has lost its tracery due to stained glass installation. The sandstone cill to each window is overly long. The wall is smooth rendered and unpainted, with a slated roof without barge stones at the east end.

The north wall of the nave is similar to the south side in all respects except that the three windows have moulded sandstone hoods with horizontal stops. The later vestry overlaps the nave wall at the sandstone trim of the first window. A ramp and steps to the vestry door, finished in smooth plaster with galvanised decorative railing, have recently been formed. Half-round metal gutters are supported on metal brackets above a sandstone corbel eaves course.

The short chancel is built of schist rubble stonework and features a three-light middle pointed east window with sandstone tracery, trim, and moulded sandstone hood with plain stops, above a relieving arch. Two broad shallow shouldered buttresses strengthen the gable corners. The roof is steeply pitched without barge stones but with a simple moulded kneeler on one side, with cast-iron round downpipe. The roof is slated.

The vestry abuts the north side of the chancel and overlaps the nave, its gable wall in line with that of the chancel, with unequal roof slopes forming a valley with the chancel roof. The stonework is similar without buttresses but features sandstone quoins. A pair of small lancets with sandstone trim and diamond pattern metal lights appear on the gable, with two single similar windows on the long wall. The vestry door is narrow and shouldered with sandstone trim and wooden sheeted door, with chamfered plinth all around.

Attached to the south side of the nave, tucked into the angle of the nave gable and tower, is a lean-to store with corrugated roof, wooden door on the west and plastered walls. A similar lean-to appendage exists at the other end of the nave. Both are considered inappropriate additions.

The church occupies a tree-crowded location on top of a low ridge, accessed via a winding avenue rising steeply from decorative piers and gates on the Feeny Road. A well-filled cemetery surrounds the church, predominantly to the southeast, with headstones of the Stevenson family prominent at the north corner.

An old church of St Moresius may have been intermittently used during the 17th century. After a new church was erected in Dungiven in 1710, parishioners from Banagher appear to have attended services there. The new church of St Moresius was built between 1780 and 1784, though accounts relating to it are dated 1775. The Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry, subscribed to the erection of the spire at a cost of £883. Michael Shanahan was probably the architect, as he was associated with other churches in the Diocese around this time, namely Desertoghill, Ballyscullion, Tamlaghtfinlagan, Tyanee and Tamlaghtard. The chancel and vestry bear all the hallmarks of architects Welland and Gillespie and are typical of their church additions, suggesting construction around the 1860s.

In 1898 the former plaster ceiling of the nave was replaced by the present wood ceiling, necessitating reslating. At the same time new mosaic tiling and a new heating installation were executed. A portion of the spire was rebuilt in the 1980s to replace iron ties with stainless steel. A new ramp and steps were constructed to the vestry entrance in the 1990s.