Aghanloo Old Churchyard, Aghanloo Road, Rathfad, Limavady, Co Londonderry

Aghanloo Old Churchyard

An important early church site and associated graveyard on Aghanloo Road, the site creates a dramatic impression as the road curves out of its natural line around the boundary. The raised ground contained by the curving wall reinforces the sense of an historic location.

The graveyard is enclosed by a circular basalt wall approximately 1½ metres high, strengthened with concrete facing on the field to the north. The ground level rises approximately one metre from the top of the wall and drops sharply to the floor of the former church, which aligns with the top of the boundary wall. Access is from Aghanloo Road at the southern end through a low strap iron gate flanked by square basalt pillars. A recess in the grass banks leads directly to the former church.

No visible remains of the building survive, but the plan can be clearly recognised from the regular rectangular recess. The church, which aligned east-west, measured 50 feet long by 23 feet 8 inches wide (15.2 metres by 7.2 metres). To the north is the grave of Reverend George V Sampson, enclosed in a decorated iron railing and wall. To the east stand two yew trees. To the south west is a second enclosure containing the graves of the Martin family. Various other gravestones and slabs are present throughout the yard.

The church on this site is reputed to have been founded in the 6th century by St Teca (Kill Teca), though it has also been suggested that since Aghanloo means Lugh or Louis' ford, St Lugha may have been the patron saint. The church is mentioned in Manus O'Donnell's life of St Columba (1532) and is included as a church in the taxation of 1306. A survey of 1622 recorded the building as "ruinous and uncovered" when it formed part of the Haberdashers' Company proportion and was entrusted for upkeep to their agent Sir Robert McLelland. After being rebuilt, the church was destroyed in the rebellion of 1641 and again rebuilt in 1693 by forfeiture by order of King William III.

Reverend George Vaughan Sampson served as rector of the church while writing his Statistical Survey of County Londonderry in the late 18th century. In 1806 Leslie recorded that the church was again falling into ruin with walls too deteriorated to repair. In 1812 "the old church was taken down by act of vestry" according to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. Reverend Sampson performed divine service in the Glebe House until the replacement church was finished in 1825.

According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, the church had no steeple. The roof was of Glenwood oak with couples (rafters) spaced two feet apart, with boards nailed to the couples to which slates were attached without laths. By 1835 the side wall of the church remained standing to 8½ feet high. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs drawing shows the churchyard as a roughly rectangular enclosure on the north and west, differing from the present curved form.

Two wells are associated with the site: Mecrins Well to the north and Tobar Tiggy to the south, both described in 1835. These are no longer identifiable, though Tiggy may correspond to the "issues" in part of the farmyard of Rose Cottage.