Ballyhanedin is a

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic orig ...

in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

Banagher Banagher ( or ''Beannchar na Sionna'') is a town in Ireland, located in the midlands, on the western edge of County Offaly in the province of Leinster, on the banks of the River Shannon. It had a population of 3,000 at the height of its econ ...

in County Londonderry,

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. It is located a 3km from the village of

Feeny Feeny () is a village and townland in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is between Dungiven and Claudy. In the 2011 Census it had a population of 690. Feeny lies just inside the boundary of the Sperrins Area of Outstanding Natural Beau ...

,C6106 : Ballyhanedin Townland 3 km from Feeny, Ireland
online at geograph.org.uk (accessed 3 March 2008) and is situated within

Causeway Coast and Glens Ulster Scots: ''Causey Coast an Glens'' , settlement_type = Borough , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_alt = , image_caption = , image_shield = , shield_size ...

district. It lies on the A6

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

to Derry road.The Munreery Climbing Lane
online at roadimprovements.roadsni.gov.uk (accessed 3 March 2008) Although it is only a townland, Ballyhanedin has a boundary sign which shows where it begins.C5711 View south-east from Ballyhanedin 5 km from Claudy, Ireland
showing ''Ballyhanedin'' sign and drum gateposts, online at geograph.org.uk (accessed 3 March 2008)

History

The townland was settled in the seventeenth century by the

Worshipful Company of Fishmongers The Worshipful Company of Fishmongers (or Fishmongers' Company) is one of the 110 Livery Companies of the City of London, being an incorporated guild of sellers of fish and seafood in the City. The Company ranks fourth in the order of prec ...

of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. A report in the Company's archives reports a deputation which surveyed its Estates in 1820:Banagher Presbyterian
online at historyfromheadstones.com (accessed 3 March 2008) The Court of the Fishmongers' Company decided to build two new Presbyterian Church meeting houses in the Classical Greek style, with dressings of Dungiven

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

. The Court voted £2,200 for the building at Banagher, which was constructed over three years and opened in 1834. An

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

memoir of Banagher from the 1830s, says that the new meeting house was: Griffith's valuation of Ireland, completed in 1864, shows some thirty tenements in Ballyhanedin, including one occupied by the Reverend Robert Rogers. The other surnames of those then occupying property in the township were Allen, Brazil, Christie, Cole, Connor, Dogherty, Duddy, Evans, Hewston, Lyons, McClusky, McKeever, McLenihan, McLoughlin, Monteith, Mulfawl, Nutt, Rosborough (eight tenements), Sherrard, Simpson, Walker and Williams.

Present day

Much of the townland is rural. Photographs of this area some miles out of Feeny are online at geograph.org.uk and include a windswept hill to the north of the junction of Ballyhanedin Road and Glenshane Road.C6006 Ballyhanedin Townland 4 km from Feeny, Ireland
online at geograph.org.uk (accessed 3 March 2008) Some of the fields have substantial drum-shaped stone gateposts, which are common in Northern Ireland. As part of the Munreery Climbing Lane road scheme, completed in 2005 to improve the A6 Glenshane Road west of Dungiven, the former 'Bennett junction' at the Ballyhanedin crossroads, which dated from the 1960s, was replaced by a 'ghost island' layout.

Notes

{{County Londonderry Townlands of County Londonderry Causeway Coast and Glens district