Walled Garden & Dovecote / Ice-house, Downhill Demesne, Seacoast Road, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4RP

Walled Garden and Dovecote/Ice-house, Downhill Demesne, erected around 1780

This quadrangular walled garden and circular stone dovecote were erected around 1780, set on a northwest/southeast axis on the east side of Seacoast Road, to the west of Downhill House. The complex formerly served all the kitchen needs of Downhill House and forms an important component of the wider Downhill Demesne. The combined dovecote and ice-house is of particular interest, functioning as a focal point both to the garden and to the broader landscape. The site is now run by the National Trust as a visitor attraction and has group value with the other listed structures on the Downhill estate.

The Dovecote and Ice-house

The dovecote is a double-height circular rubblestone structure surmounted by a domed roof constructed in vaulted double-baked black brick on a cement base. Above the dome rises an octagonal black brick blind lantern with a cement top. To the south elevation is a series of dove niches constructed in red brick with slate ledges. The louvred openings are south-facing so that the birds were sheltered from the prevailing winds. To the north elevation, a battered rubblestone retaining wall accommodates the sloping terrain, with stone steps and a gravel area providing access to the ice-house at the lower level. Over the retaining wall, a parabolic arched footbridge constructed in red brick with a timber balustrade gives access to the dovecote. The west elevation is abutted by the northern boundary wall of the garden, which has a pedestrian opening constructed in red brick with a timber gate. The pedestrian bridge leads to a square-headed door opening formed in voussoired basalt. At the lower level, a rubblestone projection contains a camber-headed door opening formed in voussoired basalt, with brick-lined walls opening into the ice-house.

Inside, rows of nesting boxes line the inner wall. A central post, which may at one time have been fitted with a rotating arm, could have allowed a ladder to be rested against it to gain access to the nesting boxes and harvest birds for eating. The ice-house is built into the lower part of the building.

The Garden

The rectangular plan of the walled garden is divided by a tall rubblestone wall with red brick courses running across its centre, creating a north garden and a south garden. A range of single-storey lean-to rubblestone structures in the north garden now provides public facilities. The south garden is further divided by rubblestone walls into three compartments. The east boundary wall incorporates a one-and-a-half-storey rendered former gardener's house at the north end, its west gable fronting into the north garden. The central dividing wall has a pair of segmental-headed openings with voussoired stone and a single red and yellow brick chimneystack abutting its north elevation. The southern boundary wall has a pointed-arched pedestrian opening with a rock-faced basalt surround, and there is a bitmac car park to the south. The west boundary is enclosed by a wire fence only. The roof of the dovecote is vaulted black brick; the walling throughout is rubblestone; there are no windows listed.

Setting

The complex is located on an elevated site on the east side of Seacoast Road, to the south of the north Londonderry coast, and is accessed via the Lion Gate to the south. Beyond the north boundary wall stands a further single-storey rubblestone outbuilding with an enclosed yard to the east. The former gardener's house has an enclosed front garden and a separate access lane running along the south and east boundary walls.

Historical Background

The walled garden was laid out in 1778, shortly after building of the main house began on the site. The garden was extended in 1783, and the dovecote and ice-house were added in 1786, built by David McBlain. Both structures are shown, uncaptioned, on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831.

The dovecote and ice-house performed an important practical function for the Earl Bishop's dining table, while also serving as a picturesque addition to the estate buildings. The cylindrical, domed shape of the structure provided an architectural echo of the nearby Mussenden Temple, closing the vista at the end of the glen to the southeast. Scholar Eccles takes the view that the domed roof was added specifically to achieve this stylistic coherence with the nearby temple, with the ventilator taking the place of the temple's urn.

Pigeons have a rapid breeding cycle, producing two chicks eight or more times a year. On this basis, three nesting holes are likely to have been provided for every two pairs of birds, suggesting the Downhill dovecote could have accommodated around 225 pairs. Pigeons provided an important source of fresh meat at relatively low cost, especially in winter, with the young birds — known as squabs — particularly prized for their soft, juicy meat. The dovecote would originally have been fitted with a heavy door to prevent vermin from entering, which also explains why the nesting holes are positioned at a high level. The cooing of pigeons flying to and from the building, when it was in use, would have added to the atmosphere of cultivation expressed in the walled garden.

According to Eccles, ice would be gathered in the winter months from a depression in the field to the north of the building and then packed into the ice-house using insulation such as sawdust or shavings. What is thought to be the first ice-house ever constructed was built for Charles II in St James's Park in 1660. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, before refrigeration, ice-houses were a feature of most large country houses throughout Ireland.

It is thought that heated glasshouses were installed in the walled garden towards the end of the 19th century, and local people recall buying peaches from the Downhill gardens. A gardener's house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831 extending from the northeast corner of the garden, though this appears to have been rebuilt in 1878, when it is newly entered in valuation records at a valuation of £5. For many years the house was occupied by Charles William Lynes, the English-born Head Gardener at Downhill. The 1911 census records him living there with his wife and six children in a second-class, eight-room house. A photograph of around 1900 in Jan Eccles's Downhill Scrapbook shows him with his wife and elder three children. Charles Lynes also created a bog garden, originally called Lady Bruce's Garden, behind the bridge at the Bishop's Gate.

In the First General Revaluation of 1933–34, the accommodation in the house is listed as a reception room, kitchen, scullery and pantry on the ground floor, and four bedrooms upstairs. The estate gardener and bog baillie still occupied the house on a service tenancy at that time, and dimensions are recorded for the one-and-a-half-storey house and its two single-storey returns. During the 1930s, market gardening was being undertaken at Downhill, and a former gardener's bothy in the walled garden was in use as a potting shed.

The garden was purchased by Londonderry County Council in 1973 for amenity purposes and shortly afterwards passed to the Department of the Environment, being listed in 1984. The walled garden was transferred to the National Trust in the 1980s. Remedial repair work was carried out to the dovecote in 1988–89, including repointing, repairing the roof dome, eaves, flaunching and ventilator, and restoring the bridge. In 1992, visitors' facilities were built within the garden and a section of defective wall was removed.