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CASTLEROCK |
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Five miles or so west of Coleraine, at the Castlerock crossroads, is
Hezlett House (April, May & Sept Sat & Sun noon-5pm; June-Aug Mon & Wed-Sun
same times; £1.80), built in 1690 and restored after a fire in 1986. The
house is a fine example of cruck-truss construction, an early method of
prefabricated building using wooden frames filled with clay and rubble
that was common in England but is enough of a rarity here to warrant
preservation by the National Trust. The last owner of the house is
buried in the graveyard at Downhill, where his gravestone quaintly bears
both his own version of the spelling of his name and that of his father,
a Mr Hazlett.
Lying almost a mile north, the small resort of CASTLEROCK has a long
strand reaching eastwards to the Barmouth, where the River Bann's
estuary draws flocks of migratory birds and watchers. Unless you're a
surfer, there's not much else to tempt you, apart from the renovated but
still cosy Bertha's Bar (known locally as Love's ).
Two miles west of the Castlerock crossroads, a pair of huge ornate
Pompeian gates alongside the main A2 road mark the main entrance to
Downhill Palace (April-June & Sept Sat & Sun noon-6pm; July & Aug daily
same times; free; grounds open all year), built in the 1780s by
Frederick Augustus Hervey , Anglican Bishop of Derry and fourth Earl of
Bristol. Hervey was an enthusiastic grand traveller, after whom all the
many Hotel Bristols throughout Europe are named, and was also an art
collector and great sportsman, once organizing a pre-prandial race
between Anglican and Presbyterian clergy along the strand. His palace,
accessed through pleasant gardens, lies in ruins and was last occupied
by US troops, billeted there during World War II. Across fields at the
back of the house is the diminutive Mussenden Temple (same times), which
clings precariously to the eroding cliff edge and, naturally, offers
stunning sea views. Its classic domed rotunda was apparently modelled on
the Roman temple of Vespa and was built by Hervey in honour of his
cousin Mrs Frideswide Mussenden, who died aged 22 before it was
completed. It was subsequently used as a summer library. Later, with
characteristic generosity and a fairly startling lack of prejudice,
Hervey allowed a weekly Mass to be celebrated in the Temple as there was
no local Catholic church. The inscription on the temple frieze
translates rather smugly as: "It is agreeable to watch, from land,
someone else involved in a great struggle while winds whip up the waves
out at sea." The bishop's other constructions include a folly in the
grounds of the palace, and the Bishop's Road , which runs from Downhill
and across Binevenagh Mountain on its way to Limavady.
There's camping in nearby Downhill Forest (tel 028/7084 8728), across
the road from the palace gates. The main A2 road continues down the hill
a few hundred yards to DOWNHILL hamlet, where you'll find the excellent
and spacious Downhill hostel (tel 028/7084 9077) on the edge of the
hugely long, car-accessible beach which is itself overlooked by
Mussenden Temple on the cliff-edge above.
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