Belvoir Mausoleum

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A freestanding mausoleum, erected 1765 for the Dungannon family in Belvoir Park demesne, now incorporated into Lagan Valley Regional Park and bordering Belvoir Park Golf Course. The mausoleum was erected in the Neoclassical style, with pediment and urns to dressed sandstone frontispiece, but these are now gone.

The mausoleum comprises a barrelled vault of brick construction, heavily colonised with moss and ivy growth, and fronted by an ashlar sandstone frontispiece containing a segmental headed entrance, now without door, and having cement-rendered head. A socket formerly containing a memorial plaque surmounts the entrance, and the plaque has been removed. The frontispiece is without pediment or blocking course, and is colonised by ivy growth.

Setting:
The mausoleum is located in a small graveyard on the perimeter of Belvoir Park demesne (HGI Ref D006), in heavily wooded and overgrown ground. Remains of broken headstones lie scattered in the undergrowth. The graveyard is bounded to north, west and south by a rubble stone boundary wall, having recent cement-based mortar applied to the top, along with metal security railings and barbed wire. The east side is bounded by a band of mature trees and undergrowth, beyone which is Belvoir Park Golf Course.

Walling: Sandstone and brick

Historical information

Belvoir Mausoleum, a vaulted neoclassical tomb structure located in the townland of Breda, was constructed on the site of a former church and graveyard dating from the medieval period. Lewis records that prior to 1658, there were two separate parishes contained in the current parish of Knockbreda; these were known respectively as Knock and Breda. Breda Church was first recorded in a source dating from 1442, however the church is believed to have dated from much earlier; Lewis noted that the church lay in ruins by 1658 and, upon the restoration of Charles II, the formerly separate parishes were joined to form Knockbreda. Knockbreda Parish Church (see HB25/16/005A) was constructed in 1737 and, a century later, Lewis wrote that ‘of Breda Church there are no remains, except the cemetery enclosed with a high stone wall in Belvoir park, in which is a small mausoleum built by Arthur Hill-Trevor’ (Lewis).

The contemporary first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1834) supports Lewis’ description; the map depicts no buildings or structures (including the Mausoleum which cannot be seen), but does outline the ‘burial ground’ enclosed by a wall. The later editions of the Ordnance Survey map alternatively described the walled area as a ‘graveyard’ and ‘site of church;’ the layout of this enclosure dates from the period of Breda Church, the current perimeter wall contains portions of the original medieval walls (Simon).

Ben Simon records that Belvoir Demesne was originally established in the mid-18th century; Arthur Hill-Trevor was made Viscount Dungannon in 1765 and constructed Belvoir House shortly after conferral of the title. The Belvoir Estate consisted of over 6,000 acres of land on the eastern side of the Lagan and included the site of the former Breda Church and graveyard. Despite the loss of the original Breda Church, the graveyard continued to be used for burials. Arthur Hill-Trevor had the mausoleum constructed between 1765 and his death on 30th January 1771 as he was the first member of his family to be buried within it. The mausoleum continued to be used as the main burial site for the Hill-Trevor family until Belvoir House and its land was sold to Robert Bateson in 1811.

In the early decades of the 20th century the future of the Belvoir Estate became increasingly uncertain; the southerly expansion of Belfast raised fears that the forested park and demesne would be incorporated into the city’s residential suburbs and built over. Development of the site seemed inevitable, for example, in the aftermath of Partition, Belvoir Forest Park was put forward as a possible site for the Northern Ireland Parliament; throughout this period of indecision the estate was poorly managed. Despite this uncertainty, Simon states that burials continued to occur at Breda graveyard until as late as the 1920s, however it is unlikely that any new burials had been interred at the Hill-Trevor family mausoleum since 1811.

During this period, Breda graveyard fell into a state of neglect and became the target of vandals. Simon states that between 1925 and c. 1935 all of the standing headstones in the graveyard were removed (field inspection of the site has found that some traces of broken headstones remain); the mausoleum was the sole burial to remain undisturbed. In the 1950s the vault was broken into and the lead coffins belonging to the Hill-Trevor were stolen. Photographs of the mausoleum from c. 1925 show that the vault originally possessed a large pediment and urns; Simon records that these features had been removed, along with the original door, by the 1970s (Simon, pp 17-34).

There appears to have been little subsequent change to the mausoleum since the 1970s; the mausoleum is now mostly covered by overgrowth.

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/3/9/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/9/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/9/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1901-02
4. PRONI OS/6/3/9/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1920-21
5. PRONI OS/6/3/9/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1920-31
6. PRONI OS/6/3/9/6 – Sixth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1938
7. Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland 1837
8. Listing Query File – HB25/LQ025
Secondary Sources
1. Simon, B., ‘A treasured landscape: The heritage of Belvoir Park’ Belfast: The Forest of Belfast, 2005.

Online Resources
1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography website - http://www.oxforddnb.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
U. Historic Associations
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

The remains of a late eighteenth century mausoleum, erected c.1780 in the Neoclassical style by Viscount Dungannon of Belvoir Park, as the final resting place for himself and his wife. Despite the loss of some architectural detailing to the frontispiece and the removal of headstones from the graveyard this is a relatively rare example of an eighteenth century mausoleum built by an important local family and it is of local significance.