Downhill is a landscape park with a late 18th-century house now in ruins on a clifftop site. Entered via two ornamental gates, the site retains many ornamental features including the Mussenden Temple, a mausoleum, a lodge and a belvedere. There is a walled kitchen garden (not in use) with a combined dovecote and ice house, and a gardener's cottage. Much of the park is a treeless, sheep-grazed field overlooking the sea, but there is a wooded valley on the eastern side of the site.
The house was built in the 1770s for the Earl-Bishop of Bristol and Derry to the design of Michael Shanahan, who may also have advised on the layout of the park. The entrances, Mausoleum and Mussenden Temple were built during the 1780s. The kitchen garden was laid out in 1778 and extended in 1783, with the combined dovecote and ice house built within it in 1786. The house suffered a serious fire in 1851. It was remodelled in the early 1870s to the design of John Lanyon. The house stood empty and decaying for many years. It was reduced to a shell in 1950. The National Trust has increased its ownership of the estate since acquiring the temple in 1949. A significant garden attached to one of the lodges has been maintained and developed since the late 19th century.

Opening Hours:
All year, daily dawn to dusk.

Location:
Castlerock, Co Londonderry.