Drumachose Christ Church (Limavady)

History

The ancient church of the parish stood at Fruithill in the Drenagh estate, where its ruins survive. The parish name Drumachose is given as meaning the ridge of the rent, or tithe.

In the 1622 survey the church was recorded as in ruins. A church was built some time before the 1641 rebellion and was badly damaged at that time. Records of 1736 refer to the church as Christ Church, and it was built on the same site in 1750. The north transept was added in 1824.

Major works in 1881 added the south transept, the chancel, an organ chamber, a vestry room and a new porch, along with several new windows. The old walls were raised and a new roof put on. The church was consecrated on 1 December 1881.

The building

The church is cruciform in plan, with nave, transepts and chancel. The tower, built in 1749, is of four storeys, with a small circular window in the porch at its base and a stairway within leading to the gallery. The chancel is entered through a carved stone archway bearing Celtic figures and symbols, with a leaping dog at the apex, from which the name Limavady, meaning leap of the dog, derives.

Three windows on the north wall have diamond opaque glass and tracery. The east window has three lights, showing the Ascension in the tracery above and, below it, the angels of the nativity, Jesus with the children and the Risen Christ.

Notable features

The second window in the south wall depicts St Columba and St Canice and is in memory of Alexander Boyle of Bridge House, who died in 1920, and of his wife. The third depicts the Ten Commandments and the new law, and commemorates John, Alfred and Margaret Ritter, 1950. The window in the south wall of the transept has three lights and depicts the parable of the Good Samaritan, in memory of Samuel Alexander of Roe Park, 1887. The window in the east wall of that transept shows Christ the Light of the World and the Raising of Lazarus, in memory of Conolly MacCausland of Drenagh, who died in 1902. A rose window in the north wall of the north transept carries floral patterns around a central Dove of the Holy Spirit and commemorates Robert Macrory, who died in 1890.

The panelling in the chancel and sanctuary was carved by the Rev Richard King, Rector from 1904 to 1921 and later Dean of Derry. The altar commemorates his son Robert of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed at Ypres in 1915, and the cross upon it was carved in 1967 by another son, Major Travers King. The organ, of two manuals and pedals with a detached console, was installed in 1881 in memory of Canon Andrew Ferguson Smyly, Rector from 1880 to 1883, and of his wife.

The Great War memorials on the north wall of the nave are in three sections of Bath stone, 3 metres high.