Garden grotto and bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Roughly 185m to the SW of Rubane House is a small bridge, which spans an equally small stream, set amidst wooded and somewhat overgrown surroundings. The bridge itself is rubble built with a single span and segmental brick arch with ramped parapets with relatively recently added cement rendered brick coping. There are Coade stones with decorative heads to the keystones to the arch. The walkway over the bridge is now partly overgrown and needs attention.

About 15m W of the bridge is a small rectangular rubble built grotto (c.3.3m x 3m).

To the SW and NW the grotto is partly covered in ivy, with an ogee shaped cupola now almost completely covered in ivy also. The building has a plain cornice and remnants of battlements to the NE side.

The front (SE) has a central narrow arched doorway opening with a semicircular arch head, with a small semicircular arch headed niche to either side. Above this are five similar niches which rise from a plain string course just below the parapet. This elevation is faced with beach stones many of which are noticeably pitted.

Historical information

This bridge and grotto are shown on the OS map of 1834 and may have been built in the later eighteenth century. The grotto had pedestalled pinnacles to each corner but these are now gone.

References- Primary sources
1 Walter Harris 'The Ancient and Present State of the County of Down' (Dublin 1744), p. 48
2 PRONI D.891 Title deeds to lands in Echlinville and Kircubbin, Co. Down, Echlin and Blakely families 1800-1927
3 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 18.
4 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 84-5. [c.1834]
5 PRONI VAL 1B/312 1st valuation, St. Andrews, c.1835.
6 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision, 1860, Co. Down 18.
7 PRONI 2nd valuation, St. Andrews, c.1863.
8 Alexander Knox 'A history of Down from the most remote period to the present day' (Dublin 1875), p.462.

Secondary sources
1 'Ulster Journal of Archaeology' vol.23 (1960), pp. 124-5, plate XXII.
2 'Archaeological Survey of County Down' (Belfast, 1966), pp. 382-85, plate 189.
3 Brother Albert F.S.C. ‘Decorative stonework in disguise: plaques and medallions in Coadestone’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No. '1 (1977), p. 18
4 Brother Albert F.S.C. ‘Rubane House: The present reality’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No. 2' (1978), p. 11.
5 Dr. F. Duff ‘The Echlin Story’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.3' (1979), pp. 4-10.
6 Anne Taggart ‘The two Eleanor’s and the Coade stone: A brief account of 18th/19th C. Coade Stone’ in Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.21' (1997), p. 11.
7 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', pp. 107-8, 110.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Small neat rubble bridge and small, folly-like, garden grotto of possible late eighteenth century origin.