WOODS-CHAPEL, or CHAPEL-IN-THE-WOODS,
a district parish, in the barony of LOUGHINSHOLIN,
county of LONDONDERRY, and province of ULSTER, 2½
miles (E.) from Magherafelt, on the road from Belfast
to Londonderry, by Toome bridge; containing 7471
inhabitants. Prior to the Reformation this district was
a parish, called in ecclesiastical records the parish of
Ross-Aglish, with a church, glebe, and glebe-house, as
appears by the return made to Hen. VIII. in 1540. It
was granted by Queen Elizabeth, together with Ardtrea
and Kiltinny, now called Upper Aglish, to the
Provost and Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, when
the three were united into a single parish under the
name of Ardtrea, and so continued until 1823, when
this district was severed from it, and constituted a perpetual
curacy, according to the ecclesiastical, and a
distinct parish according to the civil, arrangements.
The district, which consists of 15 townlands taken from
the parish of Ardtrea, extends from near Moneymore,
along the shore of Lough Neagh, by Ballyronan, Castledawson,
and Toome, to the neighbourhood of Bellaghy,
on the shore of Lough Beg; comprising an extent of
10,440½ statute acres. The soil in general is light, with
an occasional intermixture of rich land; that in the
neighbourhood of Ballyronan is very fertile and highly
cultivated, well fenced and planted. The crops most
usually raised are wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, turnips,
and flax; mangel-wurzel, clover, and vetches sometimes
form part of the rotation. In the neighbourhood of
Toome, between the lakes and towards Bellaghy, it consists
altogether of low marshy meadow, mostly covered
with water during winter, but in summer yielding excellent
and abundant pasturage. The Lough Neagh Improvement
Company proposes to draw off the surplus
waters of that lake through this tract, and thus not
only to effect the thorough drainage of this extensive
tract of rich land, but, by reducing the waters of Lough
Neagh to their summer level, to reclaim many thousand
acres now under water, and consequently unprofitable
during a great portion of the year. The soil rests mostly
on a substratum of basalt, which shews itself frequently
above the surface in knolls of rock, much broken and
decomposed; some veins of the coal formation from
Castledawson appear near Warwick Lodge, and a few
scattered fragments of the limestone formation from
Springhill: but in neither case does the appearance of
the seams hold out encouragement for an expenditure of
capital to work them. The proposed line of railway
from Armagh to Coleraine is intended to pass through
the parish, but no progress has yet been made towards
its accomplishment beyond the marking out of the line.
Close to the shore of Lough Neagh is the village of Ballyronan,
which see. The houses of the farmers, though
generally small, are well built, comfortably furnished,
and for the most part surrounded with small orchards
and gardens. The plantations about Lakeview, the seat
of D. Gaussen, Esq., being arranged partly in hedgerows
and partly in clumps or groves, give the neighbourhood
a lively and prosperous appearance. Warwick
Lodge is the residence of W. Bell, Esq.; Lisnamorrow,
of T. Dawson, Esq.; and Ballyneil House, of the Rev.
L. Dowdall, a lineal descendant of the celebrated Geo.
Dowdall, Archbishop of Armagh, whose opposition to
the orders of Hen. VIII. respecting the changes of the
liturgy gave rise to the long-continued controversy between
the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, as to
the right of each to the primacy of the Church of Ireland.
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the diocese of
Armagh, and in the patronage of the Rector of Ardtrea:
the income of the perpetual curate amounts to
£89. 4. 7½., of which £69. 4. 7½. is payable by the
rector of Ardtrea, and £20 from the augmentation fund
of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners: the glebes appear
to have been comprised in the grant by Jas. I. to the
London Society, or they have since merged into the
estate of the Salters' Company, which has an extensive
and valuable property there. The church, at Lisnamorrow,
ten miles distant from the mother church, and
between two and three east of Magherafelt, was built
in 1730, and enlarged in 1825, at an expense of £415
British, by a loan from the late Board of First Fruits:
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have lately granted
£183 for its repair. The ruins of the old church still
remain; and its yard is used as a burial-ground. In
the R. C. divisions the parish forms part of the union
or district of Moneymore, and has a chapel, a small
plain edifice, at Derrygarve. At Ballymaguigan, or
Gracefield, there is a small Moravian settlement, with
a chapel, burial-ground, and school attached to it. The
male and female parochial schools, at Lisnamorrow,
close to the churchyard, are chiefly supported by the
rector; one at Ballyronan is supported, by the Marquess
of Londonderry, Sir R. Bateson, Bart., and D. Gaussen,
Esq.; and there are others at Aughrim, Anahorish,
Ballymuldey, Ballymuldeymore, Creagh Moyola, and
Derrygarve, in connection with different societies: these
schools afford instruction to 330 boys and 250 girls,
and there are also five Sunday schools.