Old Graveyard, Ballycarry, Larne, Co Antrim

Old Graveyard at Ballycarry

This is a walled graveyard of considerable antiquity, though its present shape and boundary walls are comparatively recent. The site contains the ruins of Templecorran church, a scheduled monument, and several listed memorials within its bounds.

The graveyard entrance faces north and consists of a pair of square stone piers with angled tops, rendered in wet dash, supporting a single gate of flat ironwork. A modern turnstile is attached to the right-hand pier. The boundary to the right comprises basalt rubble walling with basalt rock-hewn copings, returning north to meet a pair of square basalt piers with concrete caps and a pair of original wrought iron gates. A hedge forms the boundary to the north side. The western boundary is basalt rubble wall with cement-rendered coping. To the south, the boundary is shared with St John's Churchyard and is formed by mounded earth and basalt rubble. The eastern boundary consists of hedge, returning with lumped-up basalt rubble walling back to the main entrance gateway. An area in front of the main entrance has been surfaced as a hard car park with a driveway aligned with the village's main street.

The church itself is cruciform in plan, built of greystone rubble with walls surviving to one storey height. The tall east and west gables and lower north and south gables are heavily overgrown. Two doorway openings are present, one in each side wall of the nave west of the transepts, with one window opening to the west of each doorway. A window opens from the north wall to the east of the north transept, and a large window opening exists in the east gable. Two loopholes are visible in the west gable, one to each side just above present ground level inside. The interior is grassed and continues to serve as a burial ground.

The north transept features a segmental arch formed of bevelled sandstone voussoirs, later blocked with roughly coursed basalt rubble containing a rectangular window. This window has rusticated block sandstone reveals, sandstone head and cill, with an iron-barred gate. Above the window sits a segmental-headed sandstone panel inscribed 'Erected March Anno Domini 1860', detailing members of the Fletcher family interred in the vault thus created, including Philip Fletcher MD (died 1844) and his son Captain Philip Fletcher (died 1859). The transept is roofed with a segmental stone vault; the floor is overgrown.

The south transept has likewise been closed up to form a burial vault. Its front is faced with ashlar sandstone with rustications to quoins and base courses, containing a rectangular opening fitted with a sheet iron door. Above the doorway sits a sandstone plaque in a damaged aedicule surround, inscribed 'Herelieth the body of Noah Dalway who departed this life ... July 1820 ... this monument erected by his son Marriott Dalway'.

To the left of the Dalway vault, set in the south wall of the church, is a memorial stone to Edward Brice. The south-east corner of the church is occupied by a single-storey mausoleum or vault in Tudor Revival style, belonging to the Horsborough family, built into the corner walls.

The graveyard around the ruined church contains numerous memorials, many taking the form of flat sandstone slabs with curvilinear tops. The most architecturally interesting memorials are the Orr Memorial and the Lewis Vault, built by Richard Gervas Ker of Red Hall in memory of Mrs Anne Lewis of London, who died at Red Hall in 1819. The Lewis Vault is a gabled rectangular structure of sandstone ashlar in classical style, with panelled pilasters and mutules to the frieze. The sides and rear are rendered in rough cement and lime render, while the roof is covered with cement render.

Historical Development

The church is recorded on the 1831 Ordnance Survey map as a ruin in cruciform plan. The present driveway from the north appears on the 1858 OS map. The church was rebuilt in 1622 but had originally been medieval and was reduced in size at that time. It ceased to be used after 1710 when the Unitarian Meeting House, forerunner of the present Old Presbyterian Church, was constructed in the village. A portion of the roof comprising oak rafters and slates remained in position until 1770.

The north transept was vaulted over and its arch closed up in front by the Edmonstone family of Red Hall (who purchased the parish from the Dalways in 1609) to form their family burial vault. The date is not precisely known but predates 1760, when they sold their property to the Kers. The vault was later occupied by the Fletcher family; though the date is uncertain, by the late 1830s the Fletcher family had control, and the present inscription panel was erected in 1860.

The south transept was vaulted over and its arch closed up by the Dalway family to form their burial vault, of uncertain date. The front was later faced with cut stone, probably in the 1820s or 1830s.

The Brice Memorial slab dates from an uncertain period but its original inscription references members of the family across four generations. The Horsborough Vault dates from approximately the early to mid-1830s. The Orr Memorial was erected in 1831. The Lewis Vault dates from around 1819.

Archaeological evidence from extensive building foundations discovered in the immediate vicinity of the church and in adjacent fields suggests that a religious complex of considerable significance once stood on this site. In the early 17th century, the rector was Reverend Brice, who was the first Presbyterian clergyman to come to Ireland and founded the first Presbyterian congregation here. Dean Swift also preached at the church for a period.

According to records in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s, the church originally possessed six square-headed windows distributed across the nave and chancel (one each in the east and west gables, and two in the nave walls, one to each side of the transept on both north and south sides). Two loopholes were present in each of the west, east, and north gables. Square-headed windows occupied each transept gable, though these were later built up except for small ventilation holes. Red sandstone was used to dress the windows and yellowish sandstone in the arches of the transepts. Later vaulted roofs were constructed in each transept.

The church is a scheduled monument (no. ANT47:10). Although examination of all ruins is now difficult due to extensive overgrowth on some walls, the transepts being closed up as vaults, and later memorial slabs having been affixed to internal walls, the key architectural features have been recorded.

The graveyard is situated in a rural area to the south of Ballycarry village, on an elevated site offering distant views across Larne Lough to Islandmagee to the east.