Owden of Brooklands

JOHN OWDEN (1764-1811), of Talbot House, Cuckfield, and Brighton, Sussex (son of Richard Owden, Royal Navy, of London), married, in 1796, Anne, daughter of Thomas Scambler, of London (lineal descendant of the Rt Rev Dr Edmund Scambler, Lord Bishop of Peterborough).

His son,

JOHN OWDEN (1799-1867), of Brooklands, Belfast, and SEA PARK, near Carrickfergus, County Antrim, wedded Jane, daughter of John Greer, of Bernagh, County Tyrone, by Margaret his wife, daughter of Thomas Sinton, of Moyallon, County Down.

His only child,

MARGARET OWDEN (1842-1917), of Brooklands, wedded, in 1864, Thomas Greer JP, of Sea Park, near Carrickfergus, and Grove House, Regent's Park, London, High Sheriff of Carrickfergus, 1870, County Tyrone, 1876, MP for Carrickfergus, 1880-85 (and last representative at Westminster for that ancient borough), and had issue,

Thomas MacGregor (1869-1941); sold Sea Park & leased Tullylagan from his cousin Frederick;
Helena MacGregor (1865-1948);
Georgina Beatrice (1872-1956);
Eva Mildred (1874-1951).

BROOKLANDS, Belfast, was a stuccoed Neo-Classical Georgian house of two storeys, built ca 1840 by John Owden on the site of an old farm.

It had a three-bay front, prolonged at one end by a two-bay single-storey wing, and a five-bay side; with a pilastered porch and a single-storey, partly-bowed projection on the side elevation.

The roof was eaved on a bracket cornice.

The original farm fronted the present Malone Road, though it was broken up by the new Lisburn Road in 1819.

The new railway line traversed the estate twenty years later.

Click to Enlarge

It was located approximately where Brookland Street is today, at 481 Lisburn Road.

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GROVE HOUSE, Regent's Park, London (initially called Grove Lodge) was designed by Decimus Burton and built in 1823-24 for George Bellas Greenough (the first president of the Geological Society and President of the Royal Geographical Society 1830-40), who had obtained a building lease from the Crown Estate.

On the death of Greenough in 1855, Grove House passed to Francis Smedley (High Bailiff of Westminster) and then to his son the author Francis Edward (Frank) Smedley.

Following his death Mrs Smedley continued to occupy the house until 1877.

The family connection was maintained by Thomas Greer who occupied the house from Christmas 1878 until death in 1905.

When the Greer family returned to Ulster in 1907, Grove House was purchased at auction by the artist Sigismund Goetze.

First published in October, 2013.