Ballynahinch Church (in ruins)

In undulating terrain, on ground sloping to N, in pasture. The church is located centrally within the graveyard (TS060-059007-), and along the N side of a roughly square raised area (dims. 18m N-S; 21m E-W) defined by scarp (H 0.4m) which mostly extends S of the church. This nave and chancel church, aligned E-W, is composed of roughly coursed limestone rubble. The chancel was destroyed in 1821 when an enclosed stone-walled burial plot (dims. 4.9m x 7.1m) was built, containing a funerary monument above a vault for the Butler family (White 1892, 8; O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 91-2 (248-9)). The surviving masonry consists of a length of the W gable (ext. L 3.75m; T 0.8m) extending from the SW angle, the S wall of the nave (ext. L 8.5m) and a short return of the E wall (T 0.8m) of the nave at the SE angle. There is a window opening near the E end of the S wall of the nave and a broken-out area towards the W end of this wall may have contained another window. A broken quernstone is incorporated in the masonry near the base of the W gable and a fragment of a stone tile was found near the W gable. The foundations of a possible house (TS060-059011-) within an enclosure (TS060-059008-) is located in a field known locally as 'the church field' c. 60m to the W. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011