Publications | Down Survey | 2000 Issue Contents

Down Cathedral ruins - a newly discovered painting
J Frederick Rankin

In the 1997 edition of Down Survey, I contributed a short paper entitled 'The round tower of Down.'¹ This was largely a brief report on the Channel 4 Television 'Time Team' visit to Down Cathedral in order to locate the precise location of the Round Tower which was known to have existed at the west end of the cathedral. In that article I reviewed all the variants of the illustrations of the eighteenth century ruins of the cathedral which I had found whilst researching the history of the building for my book on the cathedral.² There were eight in all recognisable as Down Cathedral but each differing in some small degree. I offered the opinion that they all stemmed from the one purported to be by Charles Lilley, who was the builder/architect in charge of the restoration during the last decade of the eighteenth century.

As very often happens when one thinks a task complete, another variant of extraordinary interest has come to light. A large oil painting of the ruins (700mm high by 1500mm wide) has receritly arrived at Down County Museum from a donor in Cork. It appears that it belonged to the Bell family, who lived for many years in Saul Street, Downpatrick, and who were associated with a well-known legal practice in the town. When the last member of the family died this painting, along with much else, went to a distant relative in Cork. And now the wheel has turned full circle and the painting has returned home, for which the museum is extremely grateful.

The museum will have the painting professionally restored in due course and. When that is achieved, much more may be revealed. For now, the following can only be taken as an interim report as many of the features are overlaid with grime and outlines are quite blurred.

Two prominent features, however, immediately set this variant apart from the rest. Firstly there is an expanse of Quoile water to be seen in the middle distance to the right of the painting, together with a brilliant sunset over the hills in the distance. Secondly there is a high cross in front of the round tower on the left. The sketch by 'Beta' in the Irish Penny Journal of 1833, previously noticed, depicts a small cross in this position. Harris, writing in 1744, refers to a cross lying in pieces near the Court House, of which the base was about 5 feet high, the shaft 5 feet and the cross 4 feet.³ It is a moot point whether this is the cross here illustrated or is indeed the present cross at the east end of the cathedral. Reeves, quoting Harns, further suggests that this may be the cross of Saint Monina, one of the markers of the terntory in the original grant to the Benedictine Monastery by John de Courcy.⁴

There are presently fragments of at least two crosses in the porch of the cathedral, apart from the cross standing outside the east end, which was fairly certainly at the foot of English Street before its reputed taking down in the early years of the eighteenth century. This opens up the possibility that this painting reveals the original position of one of these.

There are two broad steps leading up to the cross, on the lower of which is a kneeling figure in black with a white bonnet. The cross must therefore have been a place of devotion and reverence and, if the painting can be taken as in any degree accurate, this would approximate the position of the early memorial stone which commemorated Patrick, along with Bridgit and Columba. Also in front of the cross, a few feet behind the kneeling figure, are two more figures, one adult and one child, with what at first glance might be taken to be a hoop, but seems more likely to be a fallen gravestone.

As the eye pauses along the forefront of the painting to the right, one finds another group of figures which, at first, looks as if two people are carrying a shrouded corpse. Closer inspection, however, shows two other figures beyond shown only from the waist up. It is my present opinion that the four figures are carrying a small boat. This would be plausible when one remembers how close the sea inlet used to come to the Hill of Down, but this interpretation may have to be revised when the painting is cleaned.

The round tower is in much the same position as in all the other variants and, behind the tree in full leaf beyond it, there is nothing of significance here to be noticed.

The ruins shown here of the 'old abbey', as it was known during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are broadly similar to the variants described in my previous article. The walls are intact up to roof level (including the clerestory windows) and the east window is nearest in shape to that shown in the Beta sketch; ie, the outline of an earlier window is clearly visible, larger than the actual opening. There is no south aisle, which conforms with the Beta sketch, but all the others show the eastern wall of the aisle. The buttresses on the east wall appear to be of the 'flying' type; ie, they are free-standing and only joined to the wall at a high level. This detail may resolve itself when the painting is cleaned, as a flying buttress could not possibly contain the medieval stair which is still there and was uncovered during the 1986/7 restoration. Of the niches for the three saints high on the east wall, on this painting a small figure appears in the right hand niche, whereas the Moore painting, previously illustrated, shows a figure in the central niche.

I am still of the opinion that each of these variants owe something to Lilley, who depicted the simplest version of the scene, showing the ruins and virtually nothing else. All the others add something extra. The newly discovered painting is the closest version in detail to the Beta sketch published in 1833. Indeed, it is probably the original from which 'Beta' made his sketch and could have been made shortly after restoration commenced in 1791, which would have necessitated some demolition, including that of the aisle walls.

I am grateful to Dr Brian Turner for bringing this painting to my attention, and also to Ms Lesley Simpson for facilitating a close study. I look forward eagerly to a further study after its cleaning and restoration.

Fred Rankin is the historian of Down Cathedral and Chairman of the executive committee of the Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland; former Chairman of the Lecale Historical Society.

1.	J Frederick Rankin, 'The round tower of Down', in Down Survey 1997, 23-28
2.	J Frederick Rankin, Down Cathedral: The Church of Saint Patrick of Down (Belfast 1997)
3.	Harris, Walter, The Antient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin 1744)
4.	Reeves, William, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor and Dromore (Dublin 1847)