Bruce Vault

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing carved sandstone mausoleum, erected c.1810, in memory of the Hervey-Bruce family. Octagonal on plan and standing at the southwest corner of Dunboe Church Graveyard, located to the west of Mussenden Road.

Octagonal plan rendered vault with gently tapered vaulted roof supporting an octagonal panelled sandstone shaft on plinth base with crowning cornice and supporting a spherical urn with fluted band and surmounted by a carved pineapple. Mausoleum is enclosed by wrought-iron railing laid out on an octagonal plan.

Setting
Located to the southwest corner of Dunboe Church graveyard accompanied by several upstanding stone grave markers and tombs with a ruined rubblestone church on a mound to the centre of the graveyard. Graveyard enclosed by rubblestone walls with a short grave lane opening onto Mussenden Road to the east.

Roof N/A
Walling Rendered
RWG N/A
Windows N/A

Historical information

The Bruce family vault lies in the graveyard of the old Dunboe parish church which is captioned ‘Old Church’ on the first edition OS map of 1831. The ‘Vault’ is captioned for the first time on the second edition of 1848. Built in 1810 for the first baronet Downhill, Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, the vault was the last resting place for the baronet and his wife, a couple whose happiness, both financial and domestic, had been secured through Bruce’s friendship with his cousin the Earl Bishop of Derry, builder of Downhill House. (Eccles)

The original church on the site is said to have been founded by St Patrick and there is documentary evidence of a church here in 1291. Walter McQuillan was slain and Conor O’Kane burned in the church in 1532 by the sons of Donal O’Kane, the cleric. The Clothworkers’ Company are known to have had the church ‘well repaired’ in 1622 and the building continued to be used until 1691 when the church at Articlave was built. (Girvan)

The Earl Bishop intended to build a folly spire beside the church to form an eye-catcher when viewed from the main house, such as was built on his Ballyscullion estate. However, the plan was never executed. In 1803 after the Earl Bishop’s death, the Downhill estate passed to Henry Hervey Bruce, a cousin of Frederick Hervey, the Earl Bishop, and brother to Frideswide Mussenden, to whom Mussenden Temple is dedicated. The Earl Bishop settled an income of £400 on Henry as a young man, enabling him to marry his love-match, Letitia Barnard. The two men became close friends, the Earl Bishop appointing Henry steward to the estates at Downhill, effectively leaving Bruce in charge during his long absences on the continent. Henry Hervey Bruce was also rector of Tamlaghfinlagan parish at this time but the Earl Bishop, having separated from his wife and fallen out with his son, informed Bruce in 1791 that he would inherit Downhill. The Earl Bishop died in 1803 and Bruce duly inherited the estate at Downhill and unentailed estates in England. Bruce preferred to live at Downhill rather than the Earl Bishop’s other residence at Ballyscullion which was partly dismantled in 1813 in order to evade window tax. (Girvan; Eccles)

Bruce was created baronet Downhill in 1804 and the Downhill estate and the title passed down through the Bruce family, being retained today by the eighth baronet who succeeded to the title in 2010. (http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.co.uk) Bruce’s beloved wife Letitia died in 1816 and was buried in the present vault which her husband had built in 1810. The Rev Sir Henry Hervey Bruce died not long afterwards in 1822 and is also buried in the vault. (Eccles) The vault was listed in 1977. (HB file)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/2/1 First Edition OS Map 1831
2. PRONI OS/6/5/2/2 Second Edition OS map 1848
3. PRONI OS/6/5/2/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/2/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
1. PRONI D1514 - Hervey/ Bruce papers
5. HB file – 03/12/017

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry III, 1831-5, Vol. 11.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991.
2. Eccles, J “Downhill, A Scrapbook of People and Place” London: Bath Press, 1996
3. Fothergill, B “The Mitred Earl: An Eighteenth Century Eccentric” London: Faber and Faber, 1974
4. McGuire, J and Quinn, J, eds “Dictionary of Irish Biography” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Royal Irish Academy, 2009
5. Girvan, W D “Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in North Derry including Limavady, Ballykelly, Castlerock, Downhill and Magilligan” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1975
6. Rankin, P “Irish Building Ventures of the Earl Bishop of Derry” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972
7. http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.co.uk

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
V. Authorship
S. Authenticity
R. Age
T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

Free-standing carved sandstone mausoleum, erected c.1810, in memory of the Hervey-Bruce family. Octagonal on plan and standing at the southwest corner of Dunboe Church Graveyard, located to the west of Mussenden Road. An unusual memorial, now largely obscured by vegetative growth, the structure forms part of a wealth of grave markers on this ancient burial site. It has group value with the wider collection of structures associated with the Downhill Estate (HB03/12/015A-I).

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and T - Historic Importance also apply.

Renumbered as part of a group. Formerly HB03/12/017.