Gracefield C of I Church, Ballymaguigan Road, Gracefield, Ballymaguigan, Magherafelt, Co Londonderry

Gracefield Church of Ireland (formerly Gracefield Moravian Chapel)

This is a relatively small, single-storey, rendered gabled church dating from approximately 1764 to 1770, with a two-storey entrance tower topped by a timber cupola. It stands on the north side of Ballymaguigan Road within the small hamlet of Gracefield, roughly 3 miles south-west of Magherafelt. The building was originally constructed as a Moravian chapel. To its east side it merges with a two-storey former school section, possibly dating from around 1840. To the rear stand the overgrown random rubble remains of a large two-storey stable block.

Origins and History

The chapel was built by members of the Moravian Church — formally known as the Unitas Fratrum — a denomination founded at Herrnhut in Saxony in 1727 as a reconstitution of the 15th-century Bohemian Brethren. The Bohemian Brethren had been established in Prague around the middle of the 15th century, placing special emphasis on the role of the laity, active participation in worship, and the education of children. Their followers settled on the borders of Silesia and Moravia (in what is now the Czech Republic) in the 1450s. The movement was nearly extinguished during the Counter-Reformation of the later 16th and 17th centuries, when many members were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. Survivors continued as an underground movement, and in 1722 some migrated to the Berthelsdorf estate of the religious reformer Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, where they established the village of Herrnhut. Encouraged by Zinzendorf, the Moravians set out to spread their Evangelical Protestant message across Europe and beyond, initially intending to form sects within established churches — a plan that proved difficult in practice, leading eventually to the formation of a separate church.

The key figure in bringing Moravianism to this part of Ireland was John Cennick, the grandson of a Moravian who had fled to England from Bohemia in the early 17th century. Born in Reading in 1718, Cennick became a close associate of John Wesley in the late 1730s and a preacher of considerable note. After disagreements with Wesley — Cennick held Calvinist views, Wesley did not — he was dismissed from Wesley's service in 1739 and later encountered Moravian preachers in London. Received as a member of the Brethren in 1746, he embarked on an evangelising mission in Ireland, concentrating first in Dublin and then, between approximately 1748 and 1755, in Ulster. Much of his work centred on the area immediately around Lough Neagh, with converts drawn mostly from Roman Catholic and Presbyterian backgrounds. He established over 200 congregations, mainly in County Antrim. Cennick's early death in 1755 stifled the momentum of the church in Ireland, and despite the establishment of a Moravian model village at Gracehill in the years following 1755, the church rapidly declined across the country — its members, as historian David Hempton has observed, never able to fulfil the evangelistic promise of their first decade in Ireland.

The village of Gracefield itself was, according to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s, established in 1749, when local Moravian converts acquired land in Ballymaguigan and built the church, preacher's house, and other dwellings. This account is not fully supported by the surviving diary of the Lisnamorrow and Gracefield Moravian Congregation, however. This diary — written by successive Moravian ministers and surviving for the years 1759–63, 1770–72, 1776–77, 1793–95, 1799–1800, 1804–12, 1825–27, 1848–52, and intermittently up to 1902 — makes clear that although Moravian converts were present in Ballymaguigan and surrounding townlands in the early 1760s, their place of worship at that time was a thatched chapel (now apparently lost) at Lisnamorrow, some miles to the south-west. It was at the Church of Ireland at Lisnamorrow that John Cennick is said to have preached in 1748 or 1749, suggesting that the date of 1749 cited in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs refers to the establishment of a Moravian congregation in this general area rather than to the foundation of Gracefield in particular.

The townland of Ballymaguigan begins to be mentioned with any frequency in the diary only from May 1763, when the minister — the Reverend John Browne — records visiting the site and considering where best to build a new church. Land was acquired shortly afterwards, and the following month masons are recorded working in the area. In late July, Browne went with Brother Jonathan Simpson to look at timber for the building, and in October he acquired 55 barrels of lime in preparation for building work the following spring. No diaries survive for the years 1764 to 1769, but the final page of the 1763 diary contains two sketches of roof trusses and a list of accounts, strongly suggesting that construction had either begun or was imminent. Entries in the 1770 diary confirm that the chapel was in place by that date, along with a congregational house (presumably the preacher's residence adjoining the church), a hall, a farmhouse, and several family dwellings. Building work within the settlement appears to have been ongoing: minutes of a congregational meeting of 5 August record subscriptions for the ceiling of the chapel, while construction of new houses is noted in April and June, and a new burial ground was laid out to the east of the chapel early in the year. At this stage the settlement may not yet have had a name, being referred to simply as Ballymaguigan — the name Gracefield first appears in the diary in July 1776.

By the time of the Ordnance Survey map and first valuation survey of 1832, the settlement comprised the church, preacher's house, and sisters' house on the north side of Ballymaguigan Road, along with a scattering of small houses and a spade mill to the north-west. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1836 describe two small streets: one formed principally by the Moravian church, the clergyman's residence, the sisters' house, and a few other neat and uniform buildings; the other an irregular and straggling row of poor houses occupied mainly by weavers and mechanics. Of the 25 houses, 19 were single-storey and the remainder two-storey, and the village was described as neither improving in size, trade, nor appearance. A new schoolhouse was added to the east side of the church around 1840, but this did not reverse the settlement's stagnation. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1856 and the second valuation survey of 1857 both record a picture remarkably similar to that of 1832, with fewer inhabitants and, somewhat symbolically, the spade mill to the north-west recorded as being in ruins.

Sometime between approximately 1836 and approximately 1856 — possibly around 1840 — the church and its attached buildings underwent significant changes. The schoolhouse section to the east was rebuilt, a small single-storey return to the rear of the church was demolished, and a large two-storey outbuilding was added to the north-eastern corner. It is also possible that the preacher's house was extended further westward at this point or later: the dimensions recorded in the 1832 valuation (25 feet by 26 feet by 14 feet) do not appear to match a drawing of the building made in 1889 by John England, which shows a building as long as the chapel itself. The asymmetrical arrangement of the chimneystacks in that drawing also suggests a building that had been extended at some point.

In 1937, Moravian worship at Gracefield ended and the chapel was sold to the Church of Ireland. Some years later the former preacher's house, which had originally adjoined the west side of the church, was demolished. The school section was retained and has since served as a Sunday school.

The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that the chapel was capable of accommodating 130 persons and was neatly fitted with forms with railed backs, with men and women seated separately. The same source refers to the building being surrounded — or possibly surmounted — by a wooden cupola. A caption on John England's 1889 drawing reads commenced 1767, apparently indicating that the chapel was begun in that year.

Exterior Description

The front elevation faces roughly south. The church portion of this elevation is symmetrical, but taken together with the school section to the left, the whole elevation is asymmetrical. A square, two-storey entrance tower stands to the left of centre of the front elevation.

On the west face of the tower, to the left of centre at ground floor level, is the main entrance. This consists of a panelled timber double door set within panelled pilaster jambs, surmounted by a semicircular fanlight with spoke tracery comprising five panes. A string course runs at fanlight level, with a further string course at first-floor level. Markings in the render indicate that there was formerly a small window at first-floor level on this face.

On the south face of the tower there is a tall semicircular-headed window with a fixed frame and Georgian glazing panes. The remaining windows throughout the building are similar to this. The exception is the first-floor window on this face of the tower, which is considerably smaller and consists of conjoined semicircular-headed lights with three-pane fixed frames. String courses as described above are present on this face, as on the east face, which is otherwise blank. Markings in the render on the east face suggest there was formerly a semicircular-headed doorway on this side, as well as a small first-floor window.

The tower is finished in plain render with in-and-out stone quoins and is topped with a shallow-pitched hipped slated roof that rises to a square timber cupola — presumably originally housing a bell — with a lead-covered ogee roof surmounted by a weathervane.

To the left of the tower on the main body of the building there are two windows matching those on the south face of the tower but with simple stone surrounds incorporating impost and keystones. At what is now the west edge of this portion of the elevation there is a full-height panelled pilaster. To the right of the tower there are two further windows of the same type, also with a pilaster to their right.

To the right of this the church merges with the former schoolhouse section. Here there is a plain timber sheeted door at ground-floor level, with a large window with a modern frame to its right. An identical window occupies the first floor. The west gable, which was not originally exposed, is blank, though outlines of former doorways — which once linked the church to the now-demolished preacher's house — are visible in the render. The east gable is also blank.

To the rear of the building there are two windows towards the centre-right, matching those on the church front but without surrounds. The front elevation and gables are finished in unpainted cement render. The rear elevation is in unpainted roughcast. The gabled roof is covered in what appear to be asbestos-type tiles and has a slight overhang with plain bargeboards.

The Stable Block

To the rear of the church stand the random rubble remains of a large outbuilding, almost certainly originally a stable. This structure is sited very close to the church but does not appear to have ever been attached to it. It is now roofless and a large portion of it has been smothered by thick plant growth. The east wall is considerably taller than the west wall, suggesting either that the building had a mono-pitched roof sloping from east to west, or that it was originally fully two-storey and that the upper portion of the west wall has since collapsed. At the north end of the building there is a small single-storey section that appears to have originally had a lean-to roof.

On the west elevation of the outbuilding there are three doorways of varying size: that to the left is the largest, while the other two are of pedestrian scale. The left and centre openings have elliptical arch heads; that to the right has a flat arch. To the right of these is a small flat-arch window, and further right again is a relatively small square projection with a small window on its north face. On the short north elevation there is a single central window. On the east elevation there are two large elliptical-arch vehicle doorways, with an upper-level window at the right-hand end. Much of the short south elevation faces directly into the rear elevation of the church building and is therefore blank. None of the openings in the outbuilding is filled with a door or window frame, but most are brick-dressed.

Setting and Curtilage

To the west of the church, the space formerly occupied by the preacher's house is now laid with concrete and functions as a small car park. This area, together with the small forecourt directly in front of the church, is also concrete-surfaced and enclosed by a low rendered wall with a concrete coping. To the south is a recent vehicle gateway with square piers clad in Bradstone and modern wrought-iron gates. To the north, an opening in the wall is filled with a recent farm gate.