Lych gate, St. Malachy's Parish Church of Ireland graveyard, Main Street, Hillsborough, Co. Down, BT26

A timber lych gate erected in 1925 as a memorial to Dr Henry J Boyd, a local physician who served for 40 years as Medical Officer at Hillsborough Dispensary and died in 1915. The gate provides access to the square-plan walled graveyard of St Malachy's Parish Church of Ireland, dating from approximately 1660.

The lych gate is a pegged timber construction with a hipped terracotta tiled roof featuring ball finials and a ridge comb. The roof is supported on four square timber posts. A pair of timber gates spans the opening, framed by three arch braces to the horizontal members with double Tudor-inscribed arches. The boarded soffit and plain timbers are visible throughout.

The structure carries inscribed dedications on its horizontal and arched members. The south horizontal member reads: "Erected by his friends and neighbours to the memory of". The south arch records: "Dr. Henry J. Boyd, J.P., 1857 40 years medical officer Hillsborough Dispensary 1925". The north horizontal member states: "Also to the memory of his wife", and the north arch reads: "Annie Boyd. 'In Death They Were Not Divided.'"

The graveyard itself is positioned in a depression in the terrain and is laid out in lawn with bitumac footpaths and yew trees. It is enclosed on all four sides by rubblestone walls, possibly erected during construction of the present church in the 18th century, with concrete coping in parts only and broken to the south by the lych gate entrance. The graveyard contains various upstanding stone, marble and iron grave markers dating from the mid-18th century to the present day, including wall-mounted tombs, loose grave markers, and a single pedimented granite ashlar mausoleum with a Tudor-arched entrance, iron panelled door and vaulted interior. The earliest recorded death in the graveyard dates to 1686.

The graveyard was formally enclosed in 1772, when bodies previously buried outside the new walls were moved inside so the ground around the church could be levelled. The graveyard is the final resting place of many prominent Hillsborough figures, including Bishop Richard Mant of Down, Connor and Dromore (died 1847), Archdeacon Robert Mant (died 1834), vicar Frederick William Hogan, members of the Hill family, composer Hamilton Harty, and four members of the Boyd family, all respected doctors who operated the local dispensary between 1884 and 1974. The lych gate holds group value with the adjacent St Malachy's Parish Church, Sexton's House and the Gateway to Pleasure Garden. The gate is located to the north of St Malachy's Parish Church, facing its north nave, and opens onto Main Street, Hillsborough.