Arches at 'The Rockery'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three rustic stone Gothic arches built as garden features in a rockery garden laid out with informal paths lined by low stone walls which surround an informal pond.

SETTING: The arches stand in a garden which lies close to the shore of Lough Neagh within the Shane's Castle demesne. Bounded on the north side by a precipice-like bank of rock, some portions of it vertically fissured with polygonal stacks. Reached by a pathway to east and west, and by a steep flight of stone steps to the north.

Historical information

Built by the O'Neill family of Shane's Castle as garden features located in a former quarry known as 'The Rockery'; precise date of construction not known, but they appear to date from the 1860s, probably from shortly after the new Shane's Castle was built following extraction of its stone from the quarry at this site.
The arches are in the manner of the 'picturesque' movement in British garden design of the late 18th to early 19th century but they appear to be a late manifestation of it as the garden layout does not appear on the OS maps of 1829 & 32, or 1858. On the OS map of 1829 & 32 the ground at the garden appears to have been under water, and
references in the 1830s to the masses of columnar basalt, somewhat similar to those of the Giants Causeway, to be seen today on the north side of the garden, describe them as descending into Lough Neagh and disappearing under water, with no mention of the garden. On the OS map of 1858 the shoreline is shown receded, due to the lowering of the lough level, but the ground at the present rockery is featureless. Later OS maps show the rockery garden fully laid out with paths and a pond. The garden was described by one source in the 1880s as follows: "The Rockery is a particularly interesting spot, and is an excellent illustration of the way in which effort and taste may transform inert desolation into living beauty. This Rockery was originally a quarry, from which the stone was hewn for the building of the new castle, and probably, also, for that used in the erection of a portion, at least, of the old one. It is of considerable extent, and is ingeniously laid out, there being small flower-plots, embankments, archways, rockeries in abundance, and a pond at one end." Reportedly there were originally more arches than the present three.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1829 & 32, Co Antrim 49.
2. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 49.
3. OS Map 1902, Co Antrim 49.
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 19: Parishes of County Antrim VI, 1830, 1833, 1835-8 (Belfast, 1993), p 81 (refers to a specimen of columnar basalt close to the edge of the lake).
5. S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Vol I (London, 1837), p 519 (refers to the columnar basalt masses descending into the lough).

Secondary Sources
1. Rev W.S. Smith, Shane's Castle – a sketch (Belfast, 1881), pp 16 and 17 (refers to the archways).
2. Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Committee, Heritage Gardens Inventory (Belfast, 1992), AN/064.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

These stone arches are garden features built in a rustic gothic manner typical of the late 18th to early 19th century picturesque movement in garden design but they are late manifestations of the style, dating from the mid-19th century.

General comments

This record was originally numbered as HB20/04/069.