2008:316 - The Abbacy and Ardquin Parish Church, Abbacy Road, Ardquin, Down

During the spring and summer of 2008 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s Built Heritage Directorate funded and project-managed conservation works at the ruins of the Abbacy in Ardquin town-land, Portaferry, Co. Down. While the works were primarily aimed at consolidation of the ruin, they allowed a rare opportunity to gather more information toward a fuller interpretation of this enigmatic building. The ruin is recorded in the Archaeological Survey of Co. Down (1966, 255–6) and is interpreted there as containing many elements of a manor house occupied by Bishop Echlin during the earlier 17th century. Recent work suggests that this is in fact a late medieval building, perhaps functioning as a manor retreat for the Bishops of Down prior to Echlin’s arrival. In addition, it is now recognised that elements of the surrounding landscape have developed around the manor house building and the nearby church, with these as the foci.
Further to the conservation works, some small-scale excavation was undertaken around three carved stones in the graveyard beside the modern parish church, with consent from the Church of Ireland. These had been reused as burial markers in the post-medieval period and the excavation work was aimed at aiding interpretation and securing the future of two of the stones which were considered vulnerable to potential theft and to the effects of weathering. Excavation, through a homogenous humic graveyard soil, targeted the minimum area necessary to expose the stones for these purposes and did not disturb the burials themselves, although disarticulated fragments of bone were encountered. The depth of each small box section varied in accordance with the depth to which each of the stones was buried (from 0.3–0.8m).
One stone proved to be the upper part of an Anglo-Norman coffin lid of Scrabo sandstone with a foliate cross decoration, which would date to the 13th century. A second stone is a quarter fragment of an Early Christian cross-slab and is tentatively dated to between the 7th and 10th centuries ad. The complete slab would have made a particularly impressive feature, depicting a ring-headed cross with intricate interwoven decoration around it, and is particularly significant in pushing the date of ecclesiastical activity at the site back much further than previously believed. A third, plain stone with rolled moulding on two edges may be the shaft of a large cross and was considered safe to leave buried in situ. Both of the decorated fragments and a stone depicting a simpler crude ring-headed cross which was found by a member of the local congregation, have been placed for display within the modern parish church, under an agreement between the parish and NIEA to ensure their protection, appreciation and long-term survival. It is suggested that a raised linear area of ground in the northern part of the graveyard may be the site of the demolished earlier church at this site. Architectural fragments in the High Gothic style, which can be found around the graveyard, give some indication as to at least some of the decorative elements of an earlier church in the late medieval period.
Reference
Waterman, D. 1966, 862. Ardquin: The Abbacy. In M. Jope (ed), An Archaeological Survey of Co. Down, 255–256, HMSO.