*William Hamilton, of Bangor, County Down, fifth son of the Rev Hans Hamilton, married Jane, daughter of Sir John Melville, and dying in 1627, left issue, James Hamilton, of Newcastle, County Down, MP for Bangor, 1627, killed at Blackwater fight, 1646, who wedded Margaret, daughter of Francis Kynaston, and had issue, SIR JAMES HAMILTON MP, of Bangor, who married Sophia, daughter of John, 1st Viscount Avalon, and sister to Charles, Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth, and had issue, JAMES, MP for Bangor, 1692, dsp; CATHERINE, m firstly, Vere Essex, 4th Earl of Ardglass; secondly, Nicholas Price, of Hollymount.
Nicholas Price's son and heir,
HENRY WILLIAM MEREDYTH JP DL (1829-78), who married, in 1862, Harriet Anne, elder daughter of the Rev William Le Poer Trench, and had issue,
About a century later (DAB Dean suggests 1781; Bill Spence, the early 1800s) a new Georgian block was built, most likely adjoining the original house.
There were five bays with a parapet at the low roof, and two prominent chimneys.
The owners were all interrelated through marriage, though as the decades progressed those links became more tenuous.
The Lady Harriet Forde seems to have moved from Hollymount House to DRUMCULLEN HOUSE (further down the main drive) about 1853.
The Kellys, farmers, purchased what remained of the old estate in the 1920s, by which stage the house, uninhabited and neglected, had become dilapidated.
In 1968 Hollymount was sold to the Brownlows (James Christy Brownlow (1922-2006) lived at BALLYDUGAN HOUSE in 1976).
The Northern Ireland forestry service purchased Hollymount in 1975, and the former demesne is now known as Hollymount Forest.
What remains of what was once a fine demesne of great historic value is today abandoned, derelict, and run-down, at the risk of tautology; though it cannot be understated.
EDITED EXTRACT FROM A GENEALOGICAL HISTORY OF THE SAVAGES IN ULSTER (1906)
MAJOR-GENERAL NICHOLAS PRICE (c1665-1734), of Hollymount, MP for Downpatrick, 1692-3, Down, 1695-1714, married Dorcas, fourth daughter of Roger West, of Ballydugan, County Down, and had issue,
James, his heir; ancestor of PRICE OF SAINTFIELD HOUSE;
CROMWELL, of whom we treat;
NICHOLAS;
Sophia; Margaret; Anne.
The second son,
CROMWELL PRICE (c1696-1776), of Hollymount, MP for Downpatrick, 1727-60, espoused firstly, in 1720, Margaret, daughter of George Anderson, of Belfast, and had issue,
Nicholas Tichborne, died young;Catherine; Harriet; Dorcas; Elizabeth.
He married secondly, in 1741, Mary Willoughby-Montgomery, and had further issue,
CROMWELL, his heir;Nicholas (c1753-1847);ANNE, of whom hereafter.
The eldest surviving son,
CROMWELL PRICE (c1752-98), MP for Kinsale, 1783-90, Monaghan Borough, 1791-7, Fore, 1798, died without male issue, when the estates devolved upon his sister,
ANNE PRICE (1753-75), of Hollymount, who wedded, in 1769, Charles Savage, of ARDKEEN, County Down, and had issue, a son,
FRANCIS SAVAGE (1769-1823), of Hollymount and ARDKEEN, MP for County Down, 1801-12, who married firstly, in 1795, Jane, daughter of James Crawford, of CRAWFORDSBURN, County Down, and had issue, one daughter, dvp.
He married secondly, in 1806, the Lady Harriet Butler, daughter of Henry Thomas, 2nd Earl of Carrick.
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| Savage Coat-of-arms |
Mr Savage's second wife,
THE LADY HARRIET SAVAGE (1781-1865), of Hollymount, following her husband's death, espoused secondly, in 1829, COLONEL MATHEW FORDE, of Seaforde, County Down, though the marriage was without issue.
Following the decease of Lady Harriet Forde, in 1865, Hollymount demesne passed to Francis Savage's nephew,
CLAYTON BAYLY, eldest son of Mr Savage's only sister, Mary Anne Savage; who assumed the surname of SAVAGE, in compliance with the will of his uncle.
Mr Bayly Savage, of Norelands, County Kilkenny, married, in 1821, Isabella Jane Octavia (d 1865), daughter of Mathew Forde, of SEAFORDE, though the marriage was without issue.
Subsequently, the Hollymount and Ardkeen estates passed to Clayton Bayly-Savage's sister,
MARY ANNE BAYLY (d 1855), who married Sir Henry Meredyth, 4th Baronet (1802-89), and had issue, a son,
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| Armorial Bearings of the Meredyth Baronets |
HENRY WILLIAM MEREDYTH JP DL (1829-78), who married, in 1862, Harriet Anne, elder daughter of the Rev William Le Poer Trench, and had issue,
HENRY BAYLY;William Clayton (b 1865).
Mr Meredyth pre-deceased his father, the fourth baronet, in 1878, and the title passed to his elder son,
SIR HENRY BAYLY MEREDYTH, 5th Baronet (1863-1923), of Norelands, Lieutenant, 4th Brigade, North Irish Division, Royal Artillery, who dvp, when the baronetcy expired.
*****
EVER since I discovered the hidden, lost demesne of Hollymount it has captivated me.
The entire townland, which includes Ballydugan with its lake, mill, and country pub, is utterly bewitching.
Parking is generally limited to roadside verges.
Ballydugan and Hollymount, close to the river Quoile, are about two miles west of Downpatrick, county town of Down.
I've read that the lands here once belonged to Down Cathedral, presumably before dissolution.
The old County Down railway line used to skirt Hollymount and, I gather, Noel Killen, local landowner and business man, restored part of its structure close to the entrance to the former demesne.
Three centuries ago the land here was like a flood plain: tidal, and certainly navigable by boat at high tide.
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| The first Hollymount House: A Drawing by Mrs Delany, 1745 |
EDWARD, 3RD BARON CROMWELL (1559-1607), great-grandson of THOMAS CROMWELL, chief minister to HENRY VIII, purchased the lands in County Down from CHARLES BLOUNT, 8th Baron Mountjoy and 1st Earl of Devonshire.
The Down Estate passed eventually to Lord Cromwell's great-granddaughter, the Lady Elizabeth Cromwell, suo jure Baroness Cromwell, wife of the Rt Hon Edward Southwell MP.
In 1695, Lady Cromwell leased the lands at Hollymount and the adjacent townland of Woodgrange, comprising 1,895 acres, and the townland of Lisdalgan (473 acres), later to become Saintfield, to her half-brother, Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) Nicholas Price, for £30 per annum (about £6,400 in 2020).
The original Hollymount House, quite a modest dwelling, commanded a superb prospect of the water at high tide.
This high square building, built in the early 1700s, had a handsome entrance-hall, broad staircase, and lofty rooms; and stood (and still stands) on elevated ground.
It was approached from the high-road by a very long and sweeping avenue.
The demesne was of considerable extent, and was well-wooded, and it contained a natural lake of considerable size.
Hollymount was unoccupied when the Delanys rented or borrowed it in 1744 for a number of years.
Mary Delany's husband, the Very Rev Patrick Delany, had been appointed to the deanery of Down, so Hollymount would have been most convenient to the cathedral and town of Downpatrick.
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| Hollymount House ( Image:Vivian Shepherd) |
About a century later (DAB Dean suggests 1781; Bill Spence, the early 1800s) a new Georgian block was built, most likely adjoining the original house.
The new block was built either by General Price's grandson, Cromwell Price (c1752-98) or his granddaughter Anne's son, Francis Savage (1769-1823).
It was neat and plain, two storeys above (it's thought) a basement, judging by the ruinous remains today.
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| Hollymount: Porch (Image: Vivian Shepherd) |
There were five bays with a parapet at the low roof, and two prominent chimneys.
The door-case and porch seemed to be the most striking feature of the house, with four small Ionic columns supporting a pediment with fluted column.
Hollymount changed hands many times during its existence.
The owners were all interrelated through marriage, though as the decades progressed those links became more tenuous.
The last member of the Prices to live there might have been Cromwell Price, who died in 1798.
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| Hollymount Demesne ca 1830 |
The Lady Harriet Forde seems to have moved from Hollymount House to DRUMCULLEN HOUSE (further down the main drive) about 1853.
When Lady Harriet died in 1865, the estate passed to her first husband's nephew, Mr Clayton Bayly; thence to his sister, Mary Anne, who had married Sir Henry Meredyth, 4th Baronet.
It's thought that the Baylys and Meredyths never inhabited Hollymount and were, most likely, absentee landlords.
Subsequent tenants were numerous: The first tenant is believed to have been ROBERT FRANCIS GORDON; followed by Andrew McCammon; then John Greenlaw Napier and his family, who possibly purchased the estate from the Merethyths.
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| Ionic Columns at Porch (Image: Vivian Shepherd) |
The Kellys, farmers, purchased what remained of the old estate in the 1920s, by which stage the house, uninhabited and neglected, had become dilapidated.
After the 2nd World War the Kellys stripped Hollymount of its roof, selling the lead and slates.
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| Shooting Party at Hollymount (Image: Vivian Shepherd) |
In 1968 Hollymount was sold to the Brownlows (James Christy Brownlow (1922-2006) lived at BALLYDUGAN HOUSE in 1976).
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| Hollymount House (Timothy Ferres, 2021) |
The Northern Ireland forestry service purchased Hollymount in 1975, and the former demesne is now known as Hollymount Forest.
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| Hollymount House (Timothy Ferres, 2021) |
What remains of what was once a fine demesne of great historic value is today abandoned, derelict, and run-down, at the risk of tautology; though it cannot be understated.
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| Hollymount House (Timothy Ferres, 2021) |
EDITED EXTRACT FROM A GENEALOGICAL HISTORY OF THE SAVAGES IN ULSTER (1906)
The demesne of Hollymount is situated a short distance from Downpatrick,
in the barony of Lecale, the old territory of the Savage family.
It is interesting
as having been the temporary residence [the first house] of the celebrated Mrs Mary Delany (the friend
of Dean Swift), whose husband, when Dean of Down, rented it from the family of Price.
It is described in some of her letters, written there and preserved in the work
known as The Life and Correspondence of Mrs Delany.
Writing from Hollymount to Mrs Dewes, in June, 1745 (twenty-four years before
the birth of Francis Savage), Mrs Delany thus speaks of it:-
This is really a sweet place, the house ordinary, but is well enough for a summer house.
Two rooms below, that is a small parlour and drawing-room, and within the drawing- room a little room in which there is a bed, but the Dean makes it his closet.
Above stairs four pretty good bed-chambers and a great many conveniences for the servants.
I have a closet to my bed-chamber, the window of which looks upon a fine lake inhabited by swans, beyond it and on each side are pretty hills, some covered with wood and others with cattle.
On the side of one of the hills is a gentleman's house with a pigeon-house belonging to it, that embellishes the prospect very much.
About half-a-mile off is a pretty wood which formerly was enriched with very fine oaks and several other forest trees (it covers a hill of about twenty acres); it is now only a thicket of the young shoots from their venerable stocks, but it is very thick, and has the finest carpeting of violets, primroses, and meadow-sweet, with innumerable inferior shrubs and weeds, which make such a mass of colouring as is delightful.
But thorny and dangerous are the paths, for with these sweets are interwoven treacherous nettles and outrageous brambles!
But the Dean has undertaken to clear away those usurpers, and has already made some progress; it is called Wood Island, though it is no more than a peninsula; the large lake that almost surrounds it is often covered with three-score couple of swans at a time.
On the other side of the lake are various slopes, and on the side of one of them the town of Downpatrick.
The ruins of the old cathedral are on an eminence just opposite to Wood Island, from whence I have taken a drawing.
DD [Dr Delany, Dean of Down] is making a path round the wood large enough to drive a coach; in some places it is so thick as to make it gloomy in the brightest day; in other places a view of the lake opens, and most of the trees are embroidered with woodbine and the "flaunting eglantine!
Four extraordinary seats are already made, one in an oak, the other three in ash-trees.
This afternoon we proposed spending some hours there, but the rain drove us back again ; on the beach of the lake are a great many pretty cockle shells,' which will not be neglected when the weather will permit me to go to it.
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| Hollymount: Main Entrance (Gate Lodges of Ulster, Page 79, DAB Dean) |
THE main drive to Hollymount had a grand entrance, measuring about seventy feet in total width.
A pair of stately little gate-lodges or pavilions guarded the entrance, with railed screen between them.
The gates themselves were supported by a a pair of rusticated ashlar pillars with ball finials.
*****
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dean, DAB, Plight of the Big House in Northern Ireland, 2021, and Gate Lodges of Ulster, 1994; Bill Spence, Lecale Review, Number 16, Page 31, 2018.
I wish to express my gratitude to D A B Dean, Bill Spence, Vivian Shepherd, Denese Carberry, and Margaret Ferguson for their support in compiling this article.
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