The Reid Baronetcy

ALEXANDER REID, of Ballymacashen, near Killinchy, County Down, died in 1884 and was father of

JOSEPH REID JP (1836-1928), of 22 Elmwood Avenue (built ca 1870), Belfast (now The Hub, Belfast), Managing Director, Forster Green and Company, who married and had an only son,

22 Elmwood Avenue (Image: Timothy Ferres. 2021)

DAVID DOUGLAS REID JP (1872-1939), of Rademon, County Down, a barrister, MP for East Down, 1918-22, County Down, 1922-39, High Sheriff of County Down, 1936.

22 Elmwood Avenue (Image: Timothy Ferres, 2021)

Mr Reid was created a baronet in 1936, designated of Rademon, County Down.

He died at Brown's Hotel, Mayfair, London, in 1939, where he had been unwell for a fortnight.

Lady Reid was with him when he died.

Sir David is buried at Kilmore parish church.

When he died the title became extinct.

Rademon House today

RADEMON HOUSE, near Crossgar, County Down, was originally a five-bay house of ca 1667, comprising three storeys over a basement, with single-storey wings.

It was built by the Johnston family, whose heiress married James Crawford, of Crawfordsburn, later in the 18th century.

Arthur Johnston (1721-1814) was MP for Killyleagh, 1769-76.

Rademon was enlarged and embellished in the mid-19th century.

The house was gutted by fire in the 1950s, though was rebuilt successfully to designs of the Hon Claud (later 4th Baron) Phillimore, who lowered the centre block by one storey and added a storey to the wings, thus creating a two-storey, nine-bay front.

The Victorian Rademon House features in J A K Dean's Plight of the Big House in Northern Ireland, page 93.

The demesne comprised 544 acres.

There are fine mature trees in undulating parkland and on the north side of the avenue.

Mature woodland is managed.

Rademon House is on sloping ground and has been terraced.

Lawns descend to ornamental planting and a pond.

There is a part-walled garden, which lies in a sheltered spot.

It is partly cultivated with a glass-house.

Photo Credit:@ShortcrossDavid

A SANDSTONE obelisk monument of ca 1864 was erected as a memorial to William Sharman-Crawford MP  "by a grateful and attached tenantry."

The monument is set on a rise within the Rademon Estate.

It is in ashlar sandstone and consists of a tall obelisk and plinth set on top of a broad, stepped sunken base surrounded by a ha-ha-like ditch.

The obelisk is tapered and has a pyramidal top and a short base with rope moulding.

William Sharman-Crawford MP (Image: Ulster Museum)

The plinth has a corbelled cornice course with pediments, a stepped and chamfered base course, and is topped with urns to the corners.

There are square panels to each face of the plinth.

The north panel contains a bronze relief plaque with two classical style female figures flanking a draped oval containing profile portrait of Sharman-Crawford.

The plaque is inscribed "S[amuel] F[erres] Lynn" and dated 1864.

The panel to the east side of the plinth contains an inscription referring to the subscription for the monument raised by the tenantry.

To the south side is Crawford's coat-of-arms; and to the west is a further inscription containing some information of his life and career.

The large base to the monument is topped with a shallow chamfer with which merges into steps and squat, pyramidal headed corner piers.

Beyond this, the base is grass covered and gently slopes down to granite coped edging, around which is the ditch or ha-ha.

William Sharman-Crawford(1781-1861) was the local landlord and owner of the Rademon House estate on which the monument stands, an estate which, through marriage, passed to his family in 1814. Sharman (who added his wife's surname Crawford to his own, in 1805, and also held lands in north County Down and County Cork) was a radical MP for Dundalk, 1835-37, and for Rochdale, 1841-52. He retired from public life in 1852 after defeat in the County Down election.

The original farm buildings remain, as does an old bridge.

There is a fine corn mill, house and outbuildings.

The gate lodge of ca 1820 is gone.

Rademon estate was eventually purchased by Lieutenant-Commander James Osborne King DSC DL RN, whose family lived there until ca 1999.

Shortcross Gin is distilled at the Rademon Estate by David and Fiona Boyd-Armstrong. 

First published in May, 2010.