MAGILLIGAN covers 441.9 km² in Northern Ireland. With 161 historic sites and 21 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 97th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 110 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 94th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 101.4 recorded sites — the 98th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Modern period, spanning 6 archaeological periods, around the NI median for chronological depth.
Heritage at a glance
Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.
Population context
The recorded heritage of MAGILLIGAN
Of the 161 historic sites recorded, the most common are Round Cairn (12, 7% of historic sites), Enclosure (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated) (8), and Enclosure (7). For Round Cairns, this is the 50th percentile among NI wards that record this type. For Enclosure (O.S. Memoir Site, Unlocated)s, this is the 66th percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 441.9 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.66 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.14° of latitude and 0.13° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Round Cairn | 12 | — |
| Enclosure (o.s. Memoir Site, Unlocated) | 8 | — |
| Enclosure | 7 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 21% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
With a mean elevation of 107m, this ward sits above the NI median (76th percentile), but the ward reaches 382m at its highest point — a vertical span of more than 275m within its boundary, indicating significant topographic diversity. Mean slope is 4.6° (62th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.7 (66th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (67%), woodland (22%), and arable farmland (10%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is elevated but relatively gentle terrain — typical of plateau country, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Mesozoic era (Triassic period). Rock formed during the age of dinosaurs; in NI this typically appears as Triassic mudstones and Jurassic clays now buried beneath younger deposits. Peat coverage is limited (2%). Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.83, on a 0-1 Simpson-style scale), with multiple geological units within the ward boundary. Geologically diverse wards historically offered a wider range of stone types for building, toolmaking, and quarrying — a relevant factor when interpreting the material culture of nearby sites.
Placename evidence
The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 143 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 6 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-), 5 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-), and 3 Plantation-era (17th c English/Scots settlement names). Note: Irish-language (name_ga) forms are recorded for roughly half of NI placenames in the combined sources, so anglicised forms whose Irish original could belong to multiple categories may be misclassified.
Placename categories
Scheduled monuments in MAGILLIGAN
Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).
| Monument | Type | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Sweat house | Sweat House | Unknown |
| Wedge Tomb | Wedge Tomb | Neolithic |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Drumachose Church | Drumachose Church | Unknown |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Defensive Earthwork | Defensive Earthwork | Unknown |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE – circular cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – circular enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – cropmarks | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
Listed buildings in MAGILLIGAN
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Bellarena House Seacoast Road Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 OHZ | A | 1780 – 1799 |
| Courtyard Buildings Bellarena House 248 Seacoast Road Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 0HZ | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Estate Outbuildings. Bellerena House, 248 Seacoast Road Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 OHZ | B1 | 1780 – 1799 |
| Ice House Bellarena House 248 Seacoast Road Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 OHZ | B1 | 1800 – 1819 |
| East Gate Lodge, Bellarena House 248 Seacoast Road Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 OHZ | B1 | 1920 – 1939 |
| Dispensary + Cottage 238/240 Seacoast Road Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Bellarena Gate Lodge 26 Scotstown Road Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry | Record Only | 1860 – 1879 |
| Plantation Lodge 253 Seacoast Road Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry BT49 0JX | Record Only | 1820 – 1839 |
| Bellarena School 260 Seacoast Road Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Minearny Base Tower Minearny Bellarena Limavady Co Londonderry | B2 | 1820 – 1839 |
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Want a deeper view?
Grounding History: 10 Maps of Northern Ireland’s Past
A spatial history report bringing together analysis of all 462 wards into one place through 10 high-quality maps — covering monument density, archaeological periods, placename heritage, terrain, wetland, and the historic landscape at first survey.
About this profile
What is a ward?
A ward is the smallest electoral and statistical geography used by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The boundaries used here are the 2014 NISRA / OSNI Wards (462 across Northern Ireland), each typically covering 1-700 km² and a population of a few thousand. Wards do not align with parishes, townlands, or any historic administrative unit — they are a modern statistical convenience, used here only as a fixed spatial frame within which to summarise heritage records.
What counts as a site?
Three distinct heritage record types are reported separately, not combined: (1) Historic Sites — entries in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR), the inventory of recorded archaeological sites and findspots, dated from prehistoric to early-modern; (2) Scheduled Monuments — sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995 and maintained by the Historic Environment Division (HED); (3) Listed Buildings — buildings of architectural or historic interest protected under the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and graded A, B+, B1, B2, or Record-Only by HED. A site appearing in more than one register is counted in each register independently.
Editorial principles
These ward profiles describe evidence, not history. They report what is recorded, not what occurred. Where the data is ambiguous, we say so. We do not infer historical processes — population movements, settlement expansion, periods of decline — from patterns in the record. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in Northern Ireland, where antiquarian survey was uneven and modern excavation is geographically biased, a gap in the record almost always reflects the limits of recording rather than a genuine historical absence. We mark such gaps explicitly where they appear in the data.
Limits of coverage and known caveats
Several caveats apply to every ward profile: (1) NISMR coverage is uneven across NI — some areas (notably parts of the south-east and the Belfast urban fringe) have been more intensively surveyed than others, so a low recorded site count does not reliably indicate a low past density of activity; (2) period attributions in NISMR are often 'Unknown', and chronological breakdowns reported here reflect only the dated subset; (3) placename classification depends on the Irish-language form (name_ga), which is recorded for approximately 50% of NI placenames in the combined sources, so ecclesiastical and pre-Christian counts may be understated where anglicised forms remain unparsed; (4) terrain percentile ranks compare each ward only to the other 461 NI wards; they are not absolute thresholds. For absence-dominant land cover categories (wetland, water, cropland), percentile ranks are suppressed below 1% raw value, since the ranking of zero-value wards is not meaningful.
Data sources (11)
- Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/nismr-public-mapviewer
- HED Scheduled Monuments Dataset https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@historic-environment-division/scheduled-monuments-northern-ireland
- HED Historic Buildings Record https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/historic-environment/listed-buildings
- OSNI OS Open Names (Northern Ireland) https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data—50k-gazetteer
- Logainm — Placenames Database of Ireland https://www.logainm.ie/
- GeoNames https://www.geonames.org/
- Census 2021 (Northern Ireland) https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2021-census
- OSNI Open Data — Largescale Boundaries https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data-largescale-boundaries-wards-2012
- Copernicus GLO-30 DEM https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/collections/copernicus-digital-elevation-model
- ESA WorldCover https://esa-worldcover.org/
- GSNI 1:250,000 Geology https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/maps/