A long, narrow shell of a church stands on a rise above the Ballinderry River just outside Cookstown, with a graveyard that is still in use around it. The fabric you see was built around 1622, but it sits on the foundations of a much older church – excavation found the medieval parish church beneath the east end – on a site linked to the pre-Norman saint Luran, whose name is in ‘Derryloran’ (Doire Lúráin, Luran’s oak wood). The honest thing to say first: this is a place for people who like quiet, overgrown ruins, not a headline attraction, and it isn’t even marked on the Ordnance Survey map, so plenty who go looking for it find it by accident.
The church and its long ending
The building is one structure, long and narrow, with a small vestibule at the west end – an antechamber you pass through first. Look at the windows: those toward the west are detailed differently, because the church was lengthened in the 18th century, when the porch and bell-cote were added. It stayed in use as the parish church until 1822, when the congregation moved to a new church in the town – the one usually credited to the architect John Nash, built in hewn stone with a pinnacle tower and a plain spire. The old church at Blackhill was left to the weather, and the weather has been winning ever since.
It’s a State Care monument now, looked after by the Department for Communities’ Historic Environment Division. Access is normally open, but it can be closed off during conservation works, so it’s worth a quick check before a special trip.
What to look for
Against the chancel is the grand tomb of the Baron von Stieglitz and his family – a sizeable, durable monument that has outlasted the roof it once stood under. The graveyard itself is the other reason to walk the site slowly: it’s still used for burials, and some headstones go back to the 17th century. Because people are still buried here, tread lightly and don’t lean on the stones.
Finding it
This is the catch. The ruin is on the Drum Road / Sandholes Road side of Cookstown, a short distance out of the town, but it isn’t signed in the way a managed site usually is, and it’s absent from OS maps. The official grid reference is H8042076800, and the Department for Communities’ Historic Environment Map Viewer will pin it exactly – set that before you set off rather than trusting a road sign. There’s no car park, no toilets and no café; park considerately on the verge and walk in. Cookstown, with its very wide main street and the usual cafés, is a couple of minutes away for anything you need.
Nearby
- Tullyhogue Fort – the hilltop earthwork where the O’Neills were inaugurated as chiefs of Ulster, a few kilometres east and a far better-known site.
- Drum Manor Forest Park – woodland walks around the shell of a 19th-century house, west of the town.
- Beaghmore Stone Circles – seven Bronze Age circles and rows in the Sperrin foothills, a scenic drive northwest.