Category Archives: Tyrone

Episcopal



After the last post about the former Bishop’s Palace in Clogher, County Tyrone, here is a view of St Macartan’s, the cathedral which justified having an episcopal residence in this small Ulster village. There appear to be no traces of the early Christian cathedral founded here, according to tradition, in 490 on the instructions of St Patrick, nor of its medieval successor which by 1622 was described as ‘altogether ruinous’ and incapable of bearing a roof. Instead, the building dates from 1744 when commissioned by Bishop John Stearne from the little-known architect James Martin (who died the following year). Austerely symmetrical in design, the cruciform building has pedimented gables on the transepts and chancel, also on the west front but this is then topped by a square belfry tower with obelisks finials. Both the entrance door and the windows are round-headed, although a Venetian window can be found at the east end of the building. The surrounding graveyard has some handsome tombstones indicating this has long been used as a burial site.


A Good Showish Figure



The pretty Doric gatelodge which stands at the entrance to what was formerly the Bishop’s Palace in Clogher, County Tyrone. Mrs Delany, who was close friends of the then-Bishop Robert Clayton and his wife, paid a visit to the place in August 1748 when she wrote ‘this house is large and makes a good showish figure; but there is a great loss of room by ill-contrivance within doors.’ Perhaps that is why it was replaced by the building seen today, erected on the site. This was commissioned in the early 19th century by Bishop Lord John George Beresford (although the wings may be survivors of the earlier palace) and designed by Dublin architect David Henry. The facade is of seven bays and three storeys over basement, with a three-bay pediment and a large Doric porch on the ground floor. The land immediately behind the house drops away steeply to give views of what remains of the 18th century landscaped park, which can be seen from a high arcaded terrace (alas, not accessible on a recent visit). Clogher is a tiny village, dominated by the former palace and the small cathedral which sits to its immediate west. Inevitably, in the aftermath of the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the house was sold to a private owner and then, in 1922, bought by the Roman Catholic Church and turned into a convent. Today it is a residential care home.


The Fairest Building I Have Seen


‘Castle-Caulfield owes its erection to Sir Toby Caulfield, afterwards Lord Charlemont – a distinguished English soldier who had fought in Spain and the Low Countries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a company of one hundred and fifty men in Ireland in the war with O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, at the close of her reign. For these services he was rewarded by the Queen with a grant of part of Tyrone’s estate, and other lands in the province of Ulster; and on King James’s accession to the British crown, was honoured with knighthood and made governor of the fort of Charlemont, and of the counties of Tyrone and Armagh. At the plantation of Ulster he received further grants of lands, and among them a thousand acres called Ballydonnelly, or O’Donnelly’s town, in the barony of Dungannon, on which, in 1614, he commenced the erection of the mansion subsequently called Castle-Caulfield. This mansion is described by Pynnar in his Survey of Ulster in 1618-19, in the following words…’





‘…“Sir Toby Caulfield hath one thousand acres called Ballydonnell (recte Ballydonnelly), whereunto is added beside what was certified by Sir Josias Bodley, a fair house or castle, the front whereof is eighty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth from outside to outside, two cross ends fifty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth; the walls are five feet thick at the bottom, and four at the top, very good cellars under ground and all the windows are of hewn stone. Between the two cross ends there goeth a wall, which is eighteen feet high and maketh a small court within the building. This work at this time is but thirteen feet high, and a number of men at work for the sudden finishing of it. There is also a stone bridge over the river, which is of lime and stone, with strong buttresses for the supporting of it. And to this is joined a good water-mill for corn, all built of lime and stone. This is at this time the fairest building I have seen. Near unto this Bawne is built a town, in which there is fifteen English families, who are able to make twenty men with arms.”
The ruins of this celebrated mansion seem to justify the the opinion expressed by Pynnar, that it was the fairest building he had seen, that is, in the counties of the Plantation, for there are no existing remains of any house erected by the English or Scottish undertakers equal to it in architectural style. It received, however, from the second Lord Charlemont, the addition of a large gate-house with towers, and also of a strong keep or donjon…’





‘…That Ballydonnelly was truly, as we have stated, the ancient name of the place, and that it was the patrimonial residence of the chief of that ancient family, previously to the plantation of Ulster, must be sufficiently indicated by the authorities we have already adduced; but if any doubt on this fact could exist, it would be removed by the following passage in an unpublished Irish MS. Journal of the Rebellion of 1641 in our own possession, from which it appears that, as usual with the representatives of the dispossessed Irish families on the breaking out of that unhappy conflict, the chief of the O’Donnellys seized upon the Castle-Caufield mansion as of right his own:-
“October 1641. Lord Caulfield’s castle in Ballydonnelly (Baile I Donghoile) was taken by Patrick Moder (the gloomy) O’Donnelly.”
The Lord Charlemont, with his family, was at that time absent from his home in command of the garrison of Charlemont, and it was not his fate ever to see it afterwards; he was treacherously captured in his fortress about the same period by the cruel Sir Phelim O’Neill, and was barbarously murdered while under his protection, if not, as seems the fact, by his direction, on the 1st of March following. Nor was this costly and fairest house of its kind in “the north” ever after inhabited by any of his family: it was burned in those unhappy “troubles” and left the melancholy, though picturesque memorial of sad events which we now see it.’  

Extracts from The Irish Penny Journal, Saturday, January 9, 1841, Number 28, Volume 1

 

Barefoot but Battling


Eighteen years ago, Lissan, County Tyrone featured in a BBC television series called Restoration, in which historic properties were pitted against each other, with one of them receiving a large grant towards ensuring its survival: think of it as a kind of genteel gladiatorial fight. Alas, Lissan was not the winner, but the publicity generated by the house’s appearance helped bring the building – and its somewhat perilous condition – to attention. Until the death of its last occupant, Hazel Radclyffe Dolling, in 2006, the property had been owned by the same family for almost 400 years. Her forebear, Thomas Staples, had moved from outside Bristol to this country in the early part of the 17th century and in 1622 married an heiress called Charity Jones, and six years later he was created a baronet, this hereditary title being inherited by successive generations until the death of the 17th baronet in 2013 when it became extinct. Along the way, there were some eccentric holders, the best-known being Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples who in the late 19th and early 20th century gained a reputation as a fine painter, first exhibiting in the Royal Academy in 1875. As a young man, he was part of the Marlborough House set that gathered around the future Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, but was also associated with London’s influential Grosvenor Gallery, established by a cousin, Sir Coutts Lindsay. Among Sir Robert’s more idiosyncratic traits was his disinclination to wear shoes, believing that these blocked out natural electricity from the earth that was essential for good health. As a result, he became known as the barefoot baronet.





Presumably with the help of his heiress wife’s money, Thomas Staples was able to build the core of what is today’s house at Lissan, although there was already an even older building on the site and much of what we see now dates from later in the century, thanks to the fourth baronet. During the Confederate Wars of the 1640s, Lisan was taken by the O’Quinns, with Lady Staples and her children being held captive first at Moneymore Castle and then at Castlecaulfield where they were kept for two years before being released. The second and third baronets died without children, so eventually it was Sir Thomas’s youngest son Robert who inherited Lissan and became fourth baronet: as though to make up for his elder siblings’ lack of offspring, he and his wife, Mary Vesey, another heiress, had ten children. As mentioned, he was responsible for further embellishing the property so that in 1703 Thomas Ashe could describe it as an ‘extraordinary good stone house; the rooms are very noble, lofty and large.’ At some point in the 18th century the architect Davis Ducart may have been involved in reworking the building (a bridge in the grounds is attributed to him) but subsequent generations of the family left a more decisive mark on the place, not least Sir Nathaniel Staples, tenth baronet who in the 1880s added a rather distended porte-cochère to the entrance front (its outermost section contained a small waiting room for coachmen) and also the bulbous clock tower onto the western side of the house. Seemingly the clock, dating from 1820 and previously gracing the market house in Magherafelt, had been destined for a church until it was instead bought by Sir Nathaniel and installed at Lissan. In 1865 Sir Nathaniel had inherited the house and land from his uncle the ninth baronet, but not the rest of the family property (including the largest house in Dublin’s Merrion Square, now home to the Irish Architectural Archive), thereby leaving the family in somewhat straitened circumstances. Problems grew worse following the tenth baronet’s death in 1899, his heir, Sir John Staples being pronounced insane and spending his life in a number of asylums. Responsibility for the estate passed to the second son, James Head Staples who, to make ends meet, took in boarders while his wife taught cookery and lace-making to women in the area. Responsibility in turn passed to the next brother, the aforementioned barefoot baronet who likewise struggled to keep the place going. 





The entrance hall in Lissan, County Tyrone is dominated by a vast oak staircase ascending the full height of the building. Dating from the 1880s, this is one of the alterations made to the house by Sir Nathaniel Staples, who, having ejected his wife, was living there with a mistress, Mary Potter, daughter of his land agent. Forced to act after rooms directly above the original entrance hall had collapsed, Sir Nathaniel recycled some of the previous staircase’s timber, notably for the balustrades, wood for the rest coming from the estate’s grounds. Once described as having the character ‘of a vast adventure playground’, the result is distinctly odd. Presumably designed by Sir Nathaniel (would any architect wish to claim credit for it?) the staircase takes no account of the space in which it sits, cutting across windows, jutting out in a variety of directions, and sometimes leading to dead ends. It certainly leaves an indelible impression on visitors. 





At some date after 1820 Sir Thomas Staples, ninth baronet, added a single storey ballroom to the east side of Lissan, County Tyrone, its full-length windows offering views to the gardens below; a conservatory, since gone, was erected to the immediate front of the room. A successful lawyer married to an heiress, Sir Thomas could afford to spend money on this extension, which was provided with a sprung floor and an early form of central heating. The walls were covered with Chinese paper which may originally have been purchased for Kilkenny Castle by Sir Thomas’s sister Grace who was married to the Marquess of Ormonde. Only portions of the paper survive, and as can be seen, these have been ‘improved’ with additions by later owners. Having fallen into a dangerous state of disrepair, the house was rescued by a charitable organisation, the Friends of Lissan House Trust, which has already undertaken trojan work ensuring the restoration and survival of this important property. Although much remains to be done, since 2012 the house has been open to the public and acts as a venue for a wide variety of events. 

A Hollow Drum


When writing about Ireland’s ruined country houses, the reason given for their destruction can sometimes be official indifference but rarely official action. However, the fate of Drum Manor, County Tyrone demonstrates that sometimes the latter happens. The origins of the property lie with Alexander Richardson, member of a family of Edinburgh burgesses who in 1617 bought the land on which it stands and constructed a house called Manor Richardson. His descendants remained there for the next two centuries and then in 1829 Drum Manor underwent a complete transformation. 





In 1829 Major William Stewart Richardson-Brady remodelled Drum Manor to the designs of an unknown architect, and given the new name of Oaklands. The house became a two-storey, three-bay villa dressed up with Tudor-Revival dressings, such as crenellations along the roofline, along with buttresses on the facade, a gabled single-storey entrance porch flanked by projecting bays with mullioned windows. The major’s only child, Augusta Le Vicomte, first married another Major, Hugh Massy, but following his death less than two years later, she married Henry James Stuart-Richardson, future fifth Earl Castle Stewart of Stuart Castle, elsewhere in County Tyrone (also since lost).




In 1869 Augusta and Henry James Stuart-Richardson aggrandised Oaklands, which now became Drum Manor, at the cost of some £10,000. The architect in this instance was William Hastings of Belfast, most of whose commissions were in neighbouring County Antrim. He was responsible for giving the house its most dominant features, not least a four-storey square tower with castellated and machiolated parapet. Inside, the building’s principal reception rooms radiated off a double-height central hall with a gallery running around the first floor. Elaborate works were also undertaken in the surrounding demesne, much of which survives in better condition than the main building. This survived until 1964 when the estate was acquired by the Northern Ireland Forestry Service; just over a decade later, that organisation demolished much of Drum Manor, seemingly in order to avoid incurring further rates liability. Today, just the shell survives. 

In Demand



Born in Killough, County Down, during the first half of the 19th century Charles Shiel became a highly successful merchant based in Liverpool until he retired to Ireland ten years before his death in 1861. He and his wife had no children, so he established a charity to provide accommodation in almshouses, specifying that ‘the inmates are, from time to time as vacancies occur, to be chosen without reference to religious creed from among the most deserving of such applicants.’ There are five groups of Shiels’ Almshouses around the country, with 126 of them in total, all still serving their original purpose. Those shown here are in Dungannon, County Tyrone. designed in 1867 in a loosely Gothic idiom by the firm of Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon, constructed of local sandstone rubble with red sandstone for detailing, and green slate bands. Very well maintained, each of the houses is two storey and has a small yard to the rear, with the whole group set in landscaped grounds. Understandably, there is high demand for these residences.  


Without Any Debt


Like so many others, the Burges (originally Burches) family appear to have arrived in this country in the mid-17th century, having for several previous generations been clergymen in England. And again, as was frequently the case, judicious connections through marriage aided their rise to wealth. Two brothers, David and Joseph, the elder of which was Rector of St Mark’s church in Dublin, moved to Armagh and in 1716 the younger married Elizabeth Lloyd whose father Ynyr was Deputy Secretary of the East India Company and owned land in East Ham, now a suburb of London. One of their sons, another Ynyr, also held an important post in the East India Company as Secretary & Paymaster of Seamen’s Wages, further improving their fortune. The family history in the 18th and early 19th century is complex as various lines failed to produce a male heir and therefore property was inherited by nephews or cousins who sometimes had to change their surnames as a condition of succeeding to estates. However, by the mid-19th century John Ynyr Burges, married to Lady Caroline Clements, a daughter of the second Earl of Leitrim, is listed in gentry directories as being of East Ham and Thorpe Hall, both in Essex, and of Parkanaur, County Tyrone. The land on which the last of these stands was originally held by the O’Donnelly family until they were displaced in the early 1600s and the property granted by James I to Sir Toby Caulfeild. His family remained in possession, until the Parkanaur estate was sold in 1771 by James Caulfeild, first Earl of Charlemont by Ynyr Burges. He appears to have rarely visited the place but some time after his death in 1793 a two-storey gabled cottage called Edenfield was built on the land for use as an occasional residence for the family. 





The  architect Thomas Duff has been discussed here before with regard to Narrow Water Castle, County Down (Narrow Water Castle « The Irish Aesthete). Born in Newry in 1792, we know little of his background and education but 21 years later he is mentioned as executant architect of St Mary’s church in his hometown. In 1822 he advertised in the Belfast press to advise ‘such gentlemen as intend building, that he purposes to furnish plans of every description, in the Grecian, Roman and Gothic styles of architecture, with estimates and such written instructions as are requisite for the execution of each design.’ He also reassured readers that he would superintend the work. Soon enough commissions followed, beginning with Belfast’s Fisherwick Presbyterian church, a large classical building dominated by its Ionic portico. Duff was soon in demand among other denominations, and in 1825 he designed the Roman Catholic cathedral in Newry, described in 1841 by Thackeray (otherwise highly dismissive of the ‘Papist’ faith) as a fine building which did the architect credit: the cathedral, incidentally, is in the Perpendicular Gothic manner, reflecting Duff’s versatility and his ability to adapt to the wishes of clients. This was demonstrated in 1830 when, together with his then-partner Thomas Jackson, he designed the first museum built in Ireland by voluntary subscription for the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in the Greek Revival style, with a portico exactly copied from the octagon tower of Adronicus in Athens. A few years later, he was responsible for designing the Tudoresque Narrow Water Castle. And so it went on with a huge amount of work for religious, domestic and commercial properties right up to the time of his death in 1848 at the relatively young age of 56. However, during the previous decade he had been employed by John Ynyr Burges to transform Edenfield, the cottage at Parkanaur, into a substantial mansion. 





Around 1820 Edenfield cottage was enlarged thanks to the addition of a new wing. However, it was only in the following decade that the house assumed its present appearance and proportions, following the employment of Thomas Duff: the original three-bay, two-storey building can still be detected behind the entrance porch. But the entire structure was refronted by Duff, also responsible for designing a very substantial west wing which holds many of the main reception rooms, as well as two neighbouring yards behind the main block. The architect was given a strict budget of £5,000 and a plaque located above the archway leading to the stableyard declared ‘This house and offices were built by John Ynyr and Lady Caroline Burges without placing any debt upon the property A.D. 1870.’ Renamed Parkanaur, the building’s make-over made it look to be an Elizabethan manor house, one that would not be out of place in the Cotswolds. There are further gabled bays, their corners delineated by slender polygonal towers, an abundance of stone finials, tall chimneys, hood mouldings over the windows, as well as the obligatory Oriel window. Inside the decorative flourishes continue, not least in the Great Hall which is lit by three large Perpendicular windows and has a minstrel’s gallery above an arched screen. Elsewhere, other than in the ceiling decoration, the Tudor borrowings are less explicit, and both the gallery and inner hall contain exceedingly fine Jacobean carved chimneypieces, presumably brought here from some house in England; that in the gallery is dated 1641. Parkanaur remained in the possession of the same family until 1955 when sold by Major Ynyr Alfred Burges, after which the house stood empty for three years until bought by Thomas Doran. Originally from this part of Ireland, as a young man he had emigrated to the United States and there worked as a truck driver until unable to do so owing to ill-health. He subsequently started a business, the Cheerful Greetings Card Company, which involved people throughout America selling its products door to door: this was so successful that it made Doran a multi-millionaire (he eventually sold the company in 1966 for in the region of UD$10 million). Doran was a friend of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev Gerry Eakins who wished to establish a residential centre for disabled young adults, and so he bought Parkanaur and presented it to be used for this purpose. Opened in 1960 as the Thomas Doran Training Centre and now called Parkanaur College, the buildings continue to be used for this purpose.  

Making an Statement


The great porte-cochère makes quite a statement at the entrance to Killymoon Castle, County Tyrone. Set above the Ballinderry river, the Norman-style building dates from 1802 when designed by John Nash (his first Irish commission) for Colonel James Stewart whose forebears had arrived from Scotland in the second quarter of the 17th century and settled in this part of the country; the original house on the site had been destroyed by fire in 1802. Some time after being completed, the castle was described by Irish Penny Journal as ‘one of the most aristocratic residences in the province of Ulster.’ But the enterprise was expensive (it was reputed to have cost £80,000) and the Stewarts were extravagant, so the estate had to be sold in the mid-19th century after which it passed through a number of hands before passing into the family of the present owners almost 100 years ago.

On a Ridge



What remains of the old church in Dromore (from the Irish for a high ridge), County Tyrone. Perched above the village, the ruins may incorporate a medieval place of worship, which was reportedly burnt in 1641 during the Confederate Wars. The church was then rebuilt in 1694 and remained in use until the early 1840s when a new one was erected on another site. The surviving outer walls are surrounded by old gravestones.


The Gable End

The remaining wall of a Jacobean fortified manor in Newtownstewart, County Tyrone built around 1619 with fashionable stepped gables. The town’s name derives from that of Sir William Stewart, a Scottish settler who married one of the daughters of Sir Robert Newcomen, believed to be responsible for starting work on the building. It endured considerable damage during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s, especially after being captured by Sir Phelim O’Neill and was then further damaged in 1689 on the instructions of James II who ordered that both house and town be set alight. The property has stood a ruin ever since.