Vault at Muckamore House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Vaulted chamber built into an overgrown earthen mound. Entrance faces west.

Basalt rubble front gable, partly faced with granite ashlar to left, with snecked basalt to left of that; similar snecked basalt stonework to right of main gable. Front contains an open rectangular doorway, with damaged brick segmental arched head, and basalt and granite dressings; granite coping to curved gable above but most stones displaced due to roots of trees.

Exterior is mounded over with earth and overgrown with mature trees. One tree has fallen revealing a hole in the mound to the north side of the chamber.

SETTING: The structure stands to the east of an old graveyard, just outside the rear boundary wall of the graveyard and within the grounds of Muckamore House (HB20/13/031A).

Historical information

Precise date of mausoleum not known: it is marked for the first time on the OS map of 1857. Presumably built for interment of members of the Thompson family of Muckamore Abbey, the predecessor of the present Muckamore House, but the bodies presumably disinterred c 1840 and removed to the new mausoleum built alongside St Jude's Church of Ireland church. The mausoleum lies within an historic monument, no.ANT50:77.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50 (mound marked as 'Vault').

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a structure of at least early 19th century date of some historic interest in relation to the development of Muckamore Abbey demesne, and for being located within an earthen mound, but is otherwise of limited architectural interest.