Grange Abbey
Photo: FredDeFaun · CC BY-SA 4.0
Church

Grange Abbey

Mainistir na Gráinsí

Church ruin in Donaghmede, Ireland.

  • AccessNot confirmed
  • National MonumentIn State care
  • 13th-centuryIn the record
  • FolkloreNone recorded
  • PhotoWikimedia Commons
Co. Dublin53.39907, -6.16041
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Unofficial guide. Not the National Monuments Service, the OPW, Fáilte Ireland or the landowner. Disclaimer

At a glance

  • TypeChurch
  • Date or period mentioned13th-century
  • Recorded sizeint. W 4.8m, L 13.7m
  • StatusNational Monument

What to look for

  • Nave and chancel
  • Graveyard

Picked out from the Archaeological Survey description below.

Can you visit?

  • No source says it is open to the public.Most monuments in Ireland stand on private farmland.
  • Ask the landowner before crossing fields, close gates, leave the stones as you find them.Visiting responsibly
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History and description

Situated in a green belt area behind a housing estate. This is a small rectangular building orientated ENE-WSW (int. dims. Wth 4.8m, L 13.7m), and is a National Monument (No. 605) in state care..

Full archaeological record 305 words

Situated in a green belt area behind a housing estate. This is a small rectangular building orientated ENE-WSW (int. dims. Wth 4.8m, L 13.7m), and is a National Monument (No. 605) in state care.. It is built of uncoursed limestone masonry with dressed limestone quoins. Served as chapel for the tenants on the grange farm associated with the Priory of All Hallows (Joyce 1912, 276-77, Appleyard 1985, 153-4).

Comprises an undivided nave and chancel with steeply pitched gables. The nave is entered through opposing doorway (now headless). S door way is rebated and there are draw bars present. Interior of nave lit by a double light, cusped, ogee-headed window with a central mullion which is a modern replacement. It has an internal splay. The chancel is lit by a double-light ogee-headed window, partially restored with sandstone. There is a blocked ope in the S wall of the chancel. Either side of the chancel there are aumbries with a piscina at E end of S wall.

Excavations undertaken in 1986 exposed burial in the interior and sherds of 13th-century pottery (Swan 1987, 16-17). The site has been landscaped leaving no trace of the graveyard. Further investigations in 1999 uncovered the remains of a stone wall which may represent part of an eastern precinct wall. To the east the remains of a small stone 'water-house' were also found, which was dated to the mid- to late 17th century and was probably used to control water into a series of fishponds (marked on the Ordnance Survey map dated 1843). This structure was well built and tapped into a stone drain that extended through the entire site, allowing access to the water at that point. At the western end of the site the excavation exposed domestic refuse pits in an area that originally formed part of the pond complex.

References

  • This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 3/1981).

Archaeological Survey of Ireland, National Monuments Service (CC BY 4.0) · Compiled by Geraldine Stout · Updated 26 August 2011. It describes the site as it was when surveyed.

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