Mussenden Temple

55°10′04″N 6°48′39″W / 55.167789°N 6.810845°W / 55.167789; -6.810845

Mussenden Temple is a small circular building located on cliffs near Castlerock in County Londonderry, high above the Atlantic Ocean on the north-western coast of Northern Ireland.

Perched on the cliffs overlooking Downhill Strand, it was once possible to drive a carriage around the temple: however, coastal erosion has brought the edge closer to the building. The temple was built in 1785 and forms part of the Downhill Demesne. The demesne was formerly part of the estate of Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, who served as the Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry from 1768 until 1803. It was Lord Bristol – popularly known as "the Earl-Bishop" – who had the "temple" built. Constructed as a library and modelled from the Temple of Vesta in the Forum Romanum in Rome, it is dedicated to the memory of Bishop Lord Bristol's niece Frideswide Mussenden. Its walls were once lined with bookcases. A fire was kept burning constantly in the basement. This and its enclosed flue meant that, even in this very exposed location, the books never got damp.

Over the years the erosion of the cliff face at Downhill has brought Mussenden Temple ever closer to the edge, and in 1997 the National Trust carried out cliff stabilisation work to prevent the loss of the building.

The inscription around the building reads:

 
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.
 

 
Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore
The troubled sailor, and hear the tempests roar.
 

The quotation is from Lucretius, De rerum natura, 2.1–2.