The Temple of the Winds, Mount Stewart, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2RU

Octagonal, two storey hipped banqueting house of c.1782-5 by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, based directly on the 1st century BC Tower of the Winds in Athens, a design made popular in the British Isles by Stuart through the publication of his Antiquities of Athens in 1762. The building is set on a promontory to the east of Mount Stewart house, affording commanding views over Strangford Lough. The main roof is pitched and has a central octagonal chimney. Both the main roof and that to the stair projection are slated. The building is octagonal and constructed in fine Scrabo sandstone. To the SE and SW faces are porticoes with entablature with dentilled cornice supported on two fluted Corinthian columns with respondent pilasters without bases, but with leaf capitals. Over the porticoes are balustrades which enclose small balconies. To the N face is a three-quarter-round stair projection which is slightly shorter than the main building and has a domed roof. Each face of the main section of the Temple has a sash window, with Georgian panes, to the ground and first floors. The portico entrances are filled with similar window frames. There are pediments to the windows above the porticoes, but the rest of the windows have narrow plain surrounds. At the base of the stair tower there are three openings with that to the E filled with a timber panelled double door and windows (as before) in those to the N and W. To the corresponding positions on the upper level are windows as before. There is a string course between the floors, an eaves cornice and the whole building rests on a stepped base. There is a basement level which can be glimpsed via light wells set into the stepped base above each of the basement windows. The basement is accessed via a subterranean passage the entrance to which is a few metres to the N.