Woburn House

THE DUNBARS OWNED 787 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY DOWN

JAMES DUNBAR, a cadet of the family of DUNBAR, of Hempriggs, Caithness-shire, had a son,

GEORGE DUNBAR, of Belfast, and afterwards of Dungannon, County Tyrone, who left issue,

JOHN, of whom presently;
A daughter, m Henry Joy;
Eleanor.

The only son,  

JOHN DUNBAR, of Dungannon, County Tyrone, married Wilfrida, daughter of John Gilmore, of Boghead, County Antrim, and had issue,

John Gilmore, of Woburn; m Mary, dau. of J Cunningham; dsp;
George, dsp;
SARAH, of whom we treat;
Eleanor.

Mr Dunbar's elder daughter,

SARAH DUNBAR, wedded Alexander Orr, of Landmore, County Londonderry, and had issue,

James Alexander Orr;
GEORGE DUNBAR, of whom presently;
Elizabeth; Anna.

Mr Dunbar's grandson,

GEORGE DUNBAR DUNBAR DL (1800-75), formerly ORR, of Woburn, County Down, Barrister, MP for Belfast, 1835-41, Mayor of Belfast, 1842-3, married, in 1844, Harriet Susan Isabella, only daughter of Lord George Beresford, and had issue,

John George Henry William (1848-84), of Woburn;
GEORGINA ANNE ELIZABETH, of whom hereafter.

Mr Dunbar assumed, in 1833, the name and arms of DUNBAR in lieu of his patronymic ORR.

Lineage of Buller

JOHN BULLER (1721-86), of East Looe and Bake, Cornwall, MP for East Looe, 1747-86, Lord of the Admiralty,  third son of John Francis Buller MP, of Morval, and Rebecca his wife, daughter and co-heir of the Rt Rev Sir Jonathan Trelawny Bt, Lord Bishop of Winchester, married firstly, in 1760, Mary (d 1767), daughter of Sir John St Aubyn Bt, MP, and had issue,

John, MP; dsp 1807;
Edward (Sir), 1st Baronet.

Mr Buller wedded secondly, in 1768, Elizabeth Caroline (d 1798), daughter of John Hunter, and had further issue,

FREDERICK WILLIAM, of whom presently;
Caroline.

The only son by the second marriage,

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL FREDERICK WILLIAM BULLER (1773-1855), of Pelynt and Lanreath, Cornwall, MP for East Looe, 1798-1802, espoused, in 1795, Charlotte, daughter of George Tomkyns, and had issue,

Frederick Thomas, Maj-Gen; m Lady Agnes Percy; dsp;
WILLIAM, of whom presently;
George (Sir), GCB, General;
John, Royal Navy;
Charlotte; Caroline; Agnes; Georgiana Amelia.

The second son,

THE REV WILLIAM BULLER (1799-1862), of Pelynt and Lanreath, Rector of Hemington, Somerset, married, in 1835, Leonora Sophia (dsp 1836), daughter of John Bond, of Grange, Dorset; and secondly, 1845, Eleanor, daughter of the Rev William Coney, of Cookham, Berkshire, and had issue,

CHARLES WILLIAM, his heir;
Frederick George (Rev), Rector of Birch, Manchester;
Warwick Augustus;
Ellen Georgina; Alice Lucy; Caroline; Sophia Leonora.

The eldest son,

CHARLES WILLIAM DUNBAR-BULLER JP DL (1847-1924), of Woburn, County Down, and Toft Monks, Norfolk, High Sheriff of County Down, 1894, wedded, in 1890, GEORGIANA ANNE ELIZABETH, only surviving child of George Dunbar DL, of Woburn House, MP for Belfast.

He assumed the additional name and arms of DUNBAR, 1891.

Mr Dunbar-Buller died without issue, and Woburn House passed to his wife's cousin,

Reynell James Pack-Beresford JP DL (1872-1949), of Woburn House, who married, in 1899, Florence, daughter of Frederick William Leith, and had issue,

ARTHUR REYNELL;
Joyce Annette.

Mr Pack-Beresford, Vice-President of the Ulster Agricultural Society, Ulster Farmers Union, a breeder of pedigree livestock, served on the Local Government Board in Ireland till 1922.

He was succeeded by his son and heir,


Arthur Reynell Pack-Beresford (1906-78), of Woburn Lodge,

Solicitor, 1937; fought in 2nd World War, with 4th Regiment, Maritime Royal Artillery; breeder of pedigree livestock; member of various educational and agricultural committees; lived at Woburn Lodge (a house of about 1962 in a late 19th-century arboretum, part of the grounds of Woburn House; features include a bothy and an important rhododendron collection) and formerly at the House which became a borstal in 1976.

Mr Pack-Beresford wedded, in 1957, Catherine Euphemia Cochrane, and had issue, an only child,

SUSAN ELIZABETH PACK-BERESFORD (1959-), of Woburn Cottage, who married, in 1981, Charles MacGregor Maddin, son of Lieutenant-Commander Robert Irwin Maddin Scott RN, and had issue,

Patrick Charles Beresford, b 1985;
Alexandra Elizabeth Clare, b 1987;
Louia Harriet Isabella, b 1990.

WOBURN HOUSE, near Millisle, County Down, is a large and imposing two-storey Italianate mansion. 

The entrance front has a curved bow at one end; a projecting wing at the other; and a central, three-storey tower incorporating a porte-cochére.

There are superimposed Ionic and Corinthian corner-pilasters on the tower above rusticated Doric piers; with entablatures on console brackets over the ground-floor windows.

The roof has a balustraded parapet and an adjoining symmetrical seven-bay garden-front prolonged by a single-storey wing ending in a pedimented pavilion.

The present house was built in ca 1865, to designs by John McCurdy of Dublin, for the then owner of the Woburn estate, George Orr Dunbar.

His uncle, John Gilmore Dunbar, had built a substantial residence on this site (which he named Woburn) for use as a summer residence.

This site had formerly been occupied by two small farm houses.

The original house is shown on a map of 1834 as a long rectangular building with wings to the rear and further structures (probably stables) to the north-west.

Woburn House, Millisle (Photograph: Mark Thompson)

An undated water-colour shows the house with a hipped roof, large end bays, smaller centre bay and castellated parapet.

George Dunbar MP used his fortune to rebuild Woburn House as an Italianate mansion in the 1860s.

Mr Dunbar died in 1875 and upon the death of his daughter, Georgiana Dunbar-Buller, and her husband, Charles, in the early 1920s, Woburn passed to a distant cousin of Georgiana's (through her mother's family), Reynell James Pack-Beresford.

The house remained with the Pack-Beresfords until the 1950s, when the burden of death duties forced Reynell James's son, Arthur Reynell Pack-Beresford, to put the property up for sale.

In 1956, Woburn House was bought by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance and converted to a boys' borstal.

In more recent times the property has become a training centre for prison officers.

During both of these recent incarnations the house has been progressively extended, modernized, and adapted to serve its new functions.

The immediate grounds around it have been developed also and they now contain many modern dwellings and other more functional looking structures.

Former seat ~ Trerissome, Flushing, Cornwall.  
Former London residence ~ 15 Upper Grosvenor Street.

Images courtesy of NIPS; first published in February, 2011.