Downhill, Dún Bó, Co. Derry

Dún Bó · Co. Derry

A strand, a ruined palace, and a temple on the cliff that watches the weather.

Downhill is not really a village. It is a strand, a demesne, and a row of cottages that happen to share a name. The headland behind it is the whole story. Frederick Hervey - 4th Earl of Bristol, Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry from 1768 to 1803, called the Earl-Bishop and not much liked at his own dinner table - laid the place out between 1775 and 1785. House, temple, gates, mausoleum, walled garden, a sea cliff to hang the whole composition from. He had an income of seven thousand a year, a taste for the Italian rotunda, and a cousin he was fond of.

Mussenden Temple was finished in 1785. The Earl-Bishop modelled it on the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli and built it as a summer library for his cousin Frideswide Mussenden. She died that same year. The library became a memorial; the dome carries an inscription from Lucretius about the pleasure of watching the storm from a place of safety. Downhill House - Michael Shanahan was the architect - was filled with Correggio, Dürer, Murillo, Rubens, Tintoretto. A fire broke out in the round room on 16 May 1851 and destroyed the library; most of the paintings were carried out. John Lanyon's son rebuilt the house through the 1870s. The RAF were billeted there in the Second World War, the roof came off in the 1950s, and the National Trust took it on. What is left is a Georgian shell on a cliff with the wind running through every empty window.

Do not drive up to the demesne car park, photograph the temple, and leave. That is the worst version of Downhill. Park in Castlerock, walk the strand west at low tide, climb the path up through the Bishop's Gate or the Lion's Gate, come at the temple from the back. Then walk through the ruin. Then drop back down to the strand for the last of the light. It takes a half day and it makes the place make sense.

Population

Around 150 (hamlet)

Walk score

The whole hamlet in five minutes

Founded

Demesne laid out from 1775 by the Earl-Bishop of Derry

Coords

55.1672° N, 6.8161° W

01 / 06

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 The demesne

Downhill House and Mussenden Temple.

Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, built the lot between 1775 and 1785 - house, temple, gates, mausoleum. The temple still stands. The house is a Georgian shell on a cliff. National Trust runs the gate.

Stories & lore → 02 The strand

Eleven kilometres of sand to the west.

Downhill Strand runs from the foot of the Mussenden cliff toward Magilligan Point. Stannis Baratheon burned the Seven on it in 2013. Most days it is just a strand with a train running through the dunes behind it.

Walks & outings → 03 The hamlet

A handful of cottages at the foot of the headland.

The village is a row of houses on the A2 between the strand and the demesne wall. No shop, no post office, no station - Downhill Halt closed in 1973. For everything else, Castlerock is two miles east.

Getting there →

02 / 06

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

A library that became a memorial

The Earl-Bishop and his cousin

Frederick Hervey called Frideswide Mussenden 'cher cousin'. She was his first cousin once removed - married to Daniel Mussenden of Larchfield, Co. Down - and the Earl-Bishop admired her badly enough to build her a rotunda on a cliff. The temple, finished in 1785, was meant as her summer library: a place she could retire to when she came to visit. She died that same year, aged twenty-two. The library stayed. The inscription around the dome, from Lucretius, reads: 'Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem' - pleasant to watch from the shore the great struggle of another at sea. The Earl-Bishop kept the building open to local people, Catholic and Protestant, and used to ride down for Sunday services in the small chamber underneath.

16 May 1851

The burning of Downhill House

The fire started in the round room at the far end of the western wing, where the library and picture gallery sat. The house had been built from 1775 with Michael Shanahan as architect and the Earl-Bishop as patron, and stuffed with Correggio, Dürer, Murillo, Rubens, Tintoretto. The servants got most of the canvases out. The library and the round room did not survive. John Lanyon's son rebuilt the house between 1870 and 1874 - a competent Victorian restoration, less wild than the original. It limped through to the 1940s, was billeted with RAF personnel, lost its roof in the 1950s, and slid into the ruin it is today.

Game of Thrones, season two

The strand and the burning of the Seven

HBO filmed on Downhill Strand in 2012 for the second-season opener, 'The North Remembers'. Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon stand at the water's edge with the seven idols of the old gods on a pyre behind them, Mussenden Temple watching from the cliff above as Dragonstone. The temple is a National Trust building and was not on fire - that was a separate set of statues, dressed and ignited at the tideline. The crew came in for a week and the strand returned to itself within the next one. The eleven kilometres of sand have been a Game of Thrones pilgrimage site ever since. Most weeks, there is nobody on it.

The Earl-Bishop liked an entrance

Lion's Gate and Bishop's Gate

Two of the demesne's original gates still stand. The Lion's Gate, on the A2 side, has a pair of mossy carved lions on stone piers - they used to look painted from a distance, and stories accumulated about which Earl-Bishop in particular had added them. The Bishop's Gate, up the lane behind Downhill on the inland side, opens onto a sheltered wooded valley called the Black Glen, with a pond dug in the 1840s and the temple eventually appearing above the trees. Both gates were free of the National Trust's car park before the National Trust existed; both are still the better way in.

03 / 06

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Downhill Strand West along the sand from the foot of the cliff toward Magilligan. Train running through the dunes behind you, Mussenden watching from above, the Atlantic doing its work. Tide-dependent - check it before you set out.

6 km returndistance

1.5 hourstime

Mussenden Temple cliff path Along the cliff edge from the demesne entrance to the temple and on to Downhill House. Free if you walk in through the Bishop's Gate; you only pay if you drive in past the main gate.

2 km returndistance

45 mintime

Bishop's Gate and the Black Glen Up the lane behind the hamlet, in through the Bishop's Gate, down the Black Glen - a wooded valley with a pond dug in the 1840s - and onto the demesne from below. The approach most people miss because the car park is on the far side.

3 km loopdistance

1-1.5 hourstime

Downhill to Castlerock via the strand Pick up the sand at the demesne end and walk east. The line of cliff softens, the Bann mouth comes into view, and you finish at Castlerock seafront. Train back from Castlerock station if you don't want to walk it twice.

4 km one waydistance

1 hourtime

04 / 06

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

Bluebells in the Black Glen in late April and early May. The strand is empty. The temple has the light to itself.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

The demesne car park fills on July and August weekends. Walk in from Castlerock or come on a weekday and the place returns to itself.

◐ Mind yourself

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The locals' season. Big skies, low light, the temple at its most photographable, the strand to yourself most mornings.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Storm-watching country. Wind off the strand will rearrange you. The National Trust gate runs shorter hours. The walk-in routes still work.

◐ Mind yourself

05 / 06

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Driving up to the demesne car park for a forty-minute Mussenden photo

You will pay, you will queue, and you will miss the better walk. Park in Castlerock village, take the strand or the Black Glen in. Same temple, free, ten times the day.

Looking for a pub or a shop in Downhill itself

There isn't one. The hamlet is a row of cottages on the A2. Castlerock is two miles east - Marine Inn, Golf Hotel, chocolate shop, the lot.

Expecting to get off the train at Downhill

Downhill Halt closed in 1973. The Belfast-Derry line still runs through the tunnel and across the strand, but the only stop is Castlerock. Walk the strand in from there.

Getting there.

By car

On the A2 between Castlerock and Magilligan. Belfast to Downhill is about 1h 20m on the M2 / A26 / A2 via Coleraine. Derry is 45 minutes. Park in Castlerock village, not at the demesne, unless you mean to pay the National Trust gate fee.

By bus

Translink Ulsterbus 134 runs Coleraine-Limavady along the A2 and stops near Downhill on request. Limited service, no Sunday timetable to speak of.

By train

No station at Downhill - the halt closed in 1973. The Belfast-Derry line dives through Downhill Tunnel (307 yards) and runs along the strand, but the nearest stop is Castlerock, two miles east. About 2 hours from Belfast Lanyon Place, 30 minutes from Derry.

By air

City of Derry (LDY) is 40 minutes by car. Belfast International (BFS) is 1h 15m. Dublin is 3 hours.

Next on the tour

Co. Derry

Castlerock

Two miles east. The resort village with the train station, the strand, the pubs and the chocolate shop. The base camp for Downhill.

Co. Derry

Bellarena

Six miles west along the A2 and the train line. Another small halt, another Georgian demesne, the Magilligan plain opening out beyond it.

Co. Derry

Coleraine

Ten minutes east by train. The market town at the head of the Bann estuary and the rail junction for Portrush.

Co. Derry

Articlave

Two kilometres up the A2 from the strand, with its 681 AD hillfort and a chipper on the front.