Ballyedmond Castle

THE LORD BALLYEDMOND, OBE, AND THREE OTHERS PERISHED IN A HELICOPTER CRASH ON THURSDAY, 13TH MARCH, 2014, CLOSE TO HIS NORFOLK RESIDENCE, GILLINGHAM HALL. 

Ballyedmond Castle, near Rostrevor, is the County Down residence of the Lady Ballyedmond.

The demesne lies within the Mourne Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

An earlier house is shown on the site on Taylor and Skinner’s map of 1777.

This house was built by a Mr Pollock and was owned in 1806 by Mrs Hamilton when her niece, Maria Edgeworth, visited it.

It was described in an 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoir as a “good plain two storey house with additions and in good order,” the residence of Alexander Stewart.

Ballyedmond Castle Hotel

It is believed by Major Reside that this house was demolished in 1848 and that Stewart built the current house the following year.

The architect was reputedly Sir Charles Lanyon, although no documentary evidence has been found to substantiate this claim.

However some of the details, e.g. tower, turret, corbel heads and window openings, are very similar to those of the Lanyon building at Queen’s University, Belfast, which is contemporary.

It is shown in its present form (without ballroom wing) on an 1859 map.

Ballyedmond House was sold to Mr Kelly Patterson ca 1880, who subsequently sold it to a Mr Douglas.

It was raided in the 1920s by Irish republicans searching for concealed UVF guns.

It is said that the garden terraces were constructed with compensation money the family was awarded for damage incurred to floors during the IRA raid.

The house was occupied during the 2nd World War by the United States Air Force, who constructed a camp (now gone) in the demesne.

In 1966 it was sold to Harris Hotels Ltd and converted into a ten-bedroom hotel at a cost of about £100,000 (£1.6 million in today's money).

The hotel was fire-bombed in a terrorist attack in 1979.

It remained a gutted shell until it was purchased by Dr Edward Haughey in the mid-80s.

Dr Haughey was created a life peer in 2004, as BARON BALLYEDMOND, of Mourne, County Down.

Restoration on the present mansion began about 1987.

In the past (before the construction of the present Killowen Road), the demesne extended further north than it does today and was bounded by the Killowen Old Road.

The original drive still remains between the Killowen Road (opposite the present front gates) and the Killowen Old Road entrance.

No architect was employed in the 1987 refurbishment; the most recent plans were executed by local craftsmen.

The grand staircase from Robinson & Cleaver’s Belfast department store dates from 1886-8 and was built by Robinson & Son of York Street, Belfast, to designs by Young and Mackenzie.

The original house (above) was a ca 1855 Victorian Tudor-Baronial mansion, with pointed gables, mullioned windows; a battlemented tower and conical-roofed turret.

Two gate lodges, since demolished, pre-dated the house and were built for Alexander Stewart.

In the 1870s the demesne extended to 347 acres.

One advertisement boasted of the former hotel as being

"Set amid acres of private parkland and terraced gardens with magnificent views over Carlingford Lough ... is one of the most luxurious in Northern Ireland; beautifully appointed apartments all with private bathroom, telephone, television and radio offer a high standard of comfort to the most discerning guest. Finest cuisine and wines."

The much altered mid-19th century mansion was in a splendid position between the Mourne Mountains and Carlingford Lough.

An even earlier house, Fort Hamilton, was visited and commented on by Maria Edgeworth in 1806.

According to the report in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1836, the garden was "neat."

The surrounding 200 acre demesne had mature deciduous shelter and parkland trees and later conifer additions, included when the park was extended to the west.

The site is exposed to winds coming across the lough but otherwise the climate is mild.

The gardens today have undergone extensive landscaping since 1988, on a 19th century framework.

Terraces on the south side of the house are linked by steps that lead to features at a lower level, where the lay-out is arranged in compartments on a circular theme.

The Lord and Lady Ballyedmond at Ballyedmond Castle

The north side of the present residence has balustrading at the carriage drive and ornamental planting since the 1980s.

The three-sided walled garden is cultivated, with a glasshouse.

The two aforesaid pre-1834 gate lodges, which belonged to the earlier house, have gone.

First published in July, 2011.