Two 17th-century mansions remain-Viscount Blundell built a manor house, now a ruin, within the lower ward of Dundrum Castle. At Narrow Water the medieval tower house (pictured above) and the tower of Warrenpoint were bought for £1500 by Francis Hall, who built Mount Hall in 1707, which still stands though dwarfed by the 19th century castle.
The most dramatic house of this period has been demolished - this was the second Magennis stronghold at Newcastle built in 1588. By the 1740's the cramped tower house had been extended (pictured above). The famous social diarist Mrs. Delany describes a visit in 1744: 'On Friday we dined at Newcastle at Mr Matthews. It is situated at the foot of a range of mountains so high that they are seldom free of clouds-the main ocean bounds them on one side and is so near that the spray of the sea wets them as they stand at the hall door. There are 13 sons and daughters there is something so extraordinary in the appearance of the family, and the situation of the place that I was extremely entertained with my visit...'
The sale particulars of 1749 describe the buildings: 17 apartments (rooms), beside, Kitchen, scullery, larders, pantry, halls, dairy, brew-house, guile room (live fish store), granary, storeroom, constantly supplied with water ruining through the offices (outbuildings) - cow houses, stables, coach houses, car houses (Cart sheds), large barn, line kiln and granary-coal house.
By 1777 the estate was owned by the Annesleys from Castlewellan who demolished the castle in the 1830's to make way for the Annesley Arms Hotel. Designed by Thomas Duff with all mod cons, including hot and cold baths, it is now the Newcastle Centre and Tourist Information Office.
18th Century
Creation of The Demesnes
The real changes to the landscape took place in the 18th Century with the creations of the large estates by the new gentry. These landlords took pride in their grand houses that were no longer fortified but copied from architectural styles of the day. They leased land to tenants and improved farming practices on their estates by enclosing the fields with stone walls and hedges, as well as planting the great wooded parks or demesnes that are still of such importance to the landscape today.
Mount Panther
Just outside Clough, was one of the most important Georgian houses in Ulster. It had a chequered history and now lies a roofless shell overlooking the remains of its landscape park. Possibly built by the Reverend Matthews, who leased it between 1744-1760 to its most famous inhabitants, Dean and Mrs Delany, In 1770 it was described in the News Letter as: 'The lands of Mount Panther, containing 146 acres... there is an elegant new brick house, remarkably well built, four and five rooms on a floor...large, lofty and well finished.'
It was bought by the Annesleys who remodelled the facades added the ballroom and drawing rooms with their magnificent plasterwork executed by the best Dublin stuccadores (Italian plasterers). The house was eventually vacated in the 1960s. Although the house was once one of the grandest in county Down, it was unusual as it did not have lands attached to it – so there was no rental income to pay for its upkeep. This probably made its tragic decline inevitable.
Castlewellan
Remained a stronghold of the Magennis family until 1741 when it was sold to the Honourable William Annesley. He began to build a house overlooking the lake and the scale of works increased when by 1751 he came into an income of £7000. Mrs Delany commented the Annesleys, "have walled in and planted with oak, 350 acres of ground for a park. Mr Annesley is giving to build a town".
This town was Castlewellan, laid out with two distinctive squares. Although the farm buildings were very impressive, the house itself was described as 'Castlewellan cottage' and was a single storey house of regency appearance. It was demolished to make way for the much grander Scottish Baronial castle we can see today. This was built between 1850-1858 to the designs of William Burn. The estate became a forest park following its sale to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1967.
Tollymore
This is one of the finest 18th Century demesnes in Ireland. Like Castlewellan it was a stronghold of the Magennises and passed from Ellen Magennis to her son James Hamilton in the 17th Century. His son was created Viscount Limerick and later Earl of Clanbrassil. It passed by marriage to the Earl of Roden and remained in the family until it was sold to the Ministry of Agriculture. Already in 1740 Lord Limerick was commended on his "two deer parks, finely wooded, watered and cut into ridings or vistas".
By 1787 the house was described as "though not lofty in itself, it commands a fine prospect it is extensive having four fronts (at 130 feet each) enclosing a square area, each part is different from the rest, it contains many fine rooms but too many long cold passages". The house eventually became too expensive to maintain and was demolished in 1952.
Even more important than the house was the landscaped park created by Lord Limerick. In 1746 he invited Thomas Wright 'The Wizard of Durham' to stay. Wright was a landscape gardener, mathematician, astronomer and architect; well known in England for his romantic garden designs. He was responsible for most of the unusual features in the park. 100 years after its creation it was praised as one of the most magnificently picturesque demesnes within the British dominions.
Mourne Park
This is the only demesne within the Kingdom of Mourne. In 1715 Robert Needham who built a house known rather bizarrely as Siberia inherited the estates of the Bagnal family. On the same site the Earl of Kilmorey built Mourne Park after 1806. In 1846 it was described as "a plain square building of cut stone with no very imposing pretensions to elegance or architectural beauty," but it has been extensively remodelled over the years.
Apart from a few smaller estate such as Hilltown Lodge built by the Marquis of Downshire, Burrenwood, Ballyward and Ballywillwill the lands around Slieve Croob were largely owned by gentry who lived outside the AONB boundary: these included the Fordes of Seaforde, the Earl of Moira from Montalto in Ballynahinch, the Clan Williams at Gill Hall near Dromore and the extensive estates of the Downshire of Hillsborough.
19th Century
Industrialists and merchants
During the 19th Century many existing mansions were modernised or extended and the wealthy industrialists built new country residences. The Scottish baronial castle at Castlewellan was built in the 1850s to replace the cottage, Tollymore was extended and the enormous Tudorbethan extension to Narrow Water Castle was constructed to the design of Thomas Duff, keeping the old mansion as servants quarters.
In the early 19th Century sea bathing became popular and the Marquis of Downshire built a harbour and bathing hotel in Dundrum in 1825. Likewise in the 1830s, Lord Annesley invested in Newcastle by extending the harbour, building the Annesley Arms Hotel and his ‘marine residence or bathing villa’ of Donard Lodge. This elegant Villa was designed and altered by John Lynn, Thomas Jackson and Thomas Duff (all notable contemporary architects). It boasted a particularly attractive conservatory but has since been demolished – only its extensive plantations remains.
The success of the bleach works and textile mills of the Murland family in Annesborough enabled them to build several large houses such as Archnabannon and Wood Lodge. Similarly, Rostrevor and Warrenpoint filled with Victorian Villas of the wealthy merchants of Newry and Newcastle became a fashionable seaside resort.
20th Century
Land acts to loss
At the turn of the 20th Century the Irish Land Acts heralded the death of the country house. By these acts all the land outside the demesnes was redistributed amongst the tenantry. At long last the tenants could own land, but it meant that the landlords lost their rental income. The home farms and ornamental demesnes could not maintain the big house and one by one they fell into disrepair.
Some, like Tollymore, Donard and Kilbroney Parks, were bought by the Minister of Agriculture. The houses were demolished and the lands became popular forest parks. Mount Panther had no estates to begin with and is now a ruin: Burrenwood and Hilltown Lodge are derelict. Other still remain in family ownership such as Narrow Water Castle. However one grand house, Ballyedmond Castle near Rostrevor has recently been rebuilt from the burnt-out shell of the 18th Century house.
The heyday of the big private house has gone forever but the legacy of these estates remains in the forests, fields, towns and villages of Mourne and the very shape of the countryside.
Traditional Houses of Mourne
5000 BC - 1000 AD Mesolithic/Neolithic/Bronze Age/Iron Age
Man arrived in Mourne about 7000 years ago, but from the Mesolithic (5000 BC) to the Bronze Age (500 BC) there is little evidence of how people lived although they were able to build incredible monuments to their dead such as the Legannany Dolmen on Slieve Croob or Dunnaman Court Grave near Kilkeel.
The early hunter-gatherers probably lived in temporary shelters but as land began to be cultivated, crops grown and animals domesticated, round huts of wattle and daub with thatch roofs were the most likely type of house.
The Iron Age (500 BC – 1000 AD) yields much more information from the many hundreds of ring forts that remain – either raths with a ditch kept unwelcome visitors out and livestock in. Archaeological evidence shows that many of these enclosures were round huts with large timbers supporting thatched roofs. Lakes were also good defensive places and the two crannogs or lake dwellings on Lough Island Reavy, (now only visible in very dry weather) possibly date to the Iron Age.
The local 'strong farmers' probably lived in the ring forts, while the poorer labourers possibly lived in undefended house clusters or clachans where land was farmed communally.
Cattle and corn were the basis of the economy and many farmers took their cattle to the high mountain pastures over the summer months and lived in temporary shelters – a custom known as booleying or creaghting. It is strange that in this area where stone is abundant there is little evidence of stone houses, although stone churches were built from the 5th century onwards. It is also puzzling that most of the excavated house sites found are round. So where did the stone rectangular house of Mourne come from?
9th-12th Century
The Vikings
Perhaps the Vikings are the answer. From the 9th Century the Vikings raided, then traded and settled on the shores of County Down. The Vikings built large rectangular communal halls, mostly of timber but also of stone, perhaps influencing the locals!
The Normans to Plantations
By the 12th Century the Magennises were overlords of most of the area comprising the Baronies of upper Iveagh and Mourne. The Normans needed to control this troublesome corner of Ulster and built the two impressive stone castles at Dundrum and Greencastle described above.
The Plantation of Ulster
16th-17th Centuries
There is more evidence of how people lived from the accounts of the English settlers in the 16th Century. Magennises still lived in the lake dwelling or crannog at Loughbrickland. The English settlers were suspicious of crannogs and saw them as hotspots of rebellion: 'None of the Irish do build any houses on Loughs, but be enjoined to build castles upon firm land, and those houses that are now built on Loughs to be defaced'
It appears that most of the Irish were semi-nomads, following their cattle, living in creaghts as an account from Newry in 1693 described: 'Some call them creaghts, from the little huts they live in, which they build so conveniently with hurdles and long turf, that they can remove them in summer towards the mountains and bring them down to the valleys in the winter.'
In 1692 Sir William Petty wrote '6 of 8 of all the Irish live in brutish nasty conditions as in cabins with neither chimneys, door, stair nor window.'
Poverty
In 1780 Arthur Young Wrote in A Tour of Ireland. 'The cottage of the Irish, which are called cabins, are the most miserable looking hovels that can be well conceived: they generally consist of one room...and have only a door which lets in light instead of a window, and should let smoke out instead of a chimney...but the smoke is injurious to the complexions of the women, who in the cabins, have a near resemblance to that of a smoked ham. The bad repair (of the cabins) gives them the appearance of a dunghill.'
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s give a wealth of information. Near Kilkeel: 'The villages are built of stone, thatched, 2 or 3 small windows, mostly 2 rooms. Cleanliness is attended to by some but not many.' Dromara was much poorer 'in the mountainous part the house are commonly built with sods or loose stones and have a most wretched appearance.'
The Great Famine An Gorta Mor 1845
In 1845 a blight destroyed the potato crop and following the subsequent famine the population dropped from 8.5 million to 4 million. In that same period 47% of the population of upper Iveagh (the area round Slieve Croob) either died or emigrated leaving hundreds of derelict houses. In the terrible winter of 1846 the workhouses in Downpatrick, Kilkeel, Newry and Banbridge filled up and many died of dysentery, fever and starvation.
'The Miseries and Beauties of Ireland'
Written in 1837 paints a terrible picture of conditions in the Mournes: "the most wretched hovels inhabited by a sallow, squalid and miserable population subsisting on bad food and surrounded by filth...the cabins are in general from 15-18 feet long from 10-12 feet wide composed of stone and mud...in many cases they consist of but one room but in some a small portion is screened off for a sleeping apartment. In all cabins the floors are formed of clay...in the most part are uneven and full of holes, containing dirty water, through which the pigs and ducks walk...In many cases they are lower than the ground outside and admit the rain in wet weather. Most of the cabins have low chimneys, composed of mud and sticks, the usual size of the windows is one foot square, some are grazed others filled with old rays."
Landlords and Agents
The Rev J R Moore was land agent for the Annesley estate at Castlewellan and his correspondence paints a chilling picture of the subdivision of the land into tiny plots, the precarious life of the tenant and labourer, of evictions and demolitions.
June 1843 - pressed by tenants to reduce the rents
July 1843 - farm of 12 acres from which the tenant has been ejected for non-payment of rent and on which £154 is due
May 1844 - farm at ballymagreehan recently subdivided divided into plots of 1 half acres, 1 half acres and 5 acres the cottier house is to be pulled down
August 1847 - Hobb's lands are out of lease as regard his cottiers. I would try by all means to get down his long row of cabins
Landlords and Enclosure
18th – 19th Centuries
The biggest revolution to affect the countryside was the enclosure of the land by a handful of powerful landlords. The regular field with stonewalls or hedges were needed for the new farming ideas. The landlords leased their land to tenants – strong farmers rented, moderate sized farms, cottiers a few acres and at the bottom were the landless labourers.
The traditional rectangular Mourne cottage dates from this period as older cabins were swept away by the enclosures. The basic small farmhouse was a single storey, stone-built cottage. The cottages were one room deep as roofing timber was very expensive.
In the 18th Century there was a window and a hearth tax, so most of the light came from the half door, kept open to keep children in, animals out and to regulate the fire. Originally all the houses were thatched: those facing the sea often had the thatch attached with straw ropes. Inland the straw thatch was pegged with twisted hazel scallops, but later slates became more common. Many did not have chimneys, the smoke finding its way out through the thatch. Stone and brick chimneys were added later. The larger cottages often had a central kitchen with bedrooms at either end.
1850s-1960s
Bigger, better houses were built after the famine due to the exports of granite and seed potatoes. This prosperity resulted in the great 'raising of the roof' when a second storey was added to many cottages, windows were enlarged, brick chimneys replaced stone and thatched roofs give way to slates. At the end of the 19th Century councils began building labourers' cottages and social housing became common through the 20th century with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive providing cottages and houses. |
Tower Houses
