Castlewellan

EDITED EXTRACTS FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY GAZETTEER OF IRELAND, PUBLISHED IN 1846

CASTLEWELLAN, a small market and post town in the parish of Kilmegan, barony of Upper Iveagh, County Down.

It stands on the road from Newry to Downpatrick.

The beauty, symmetry, and pretending bulk of this village, with its market-house and spire [the spire was removed ca 1846]; the stirring and prosperous aspect of two bleaching establishments in an adjacent valley on the north-west; the richly planted hills which close up the environs in the direction of Clough.

Prospect from The Square, Castlewellan (Image: William Alfred Green)

The superb grounds of CASTLEWELLAN DEMESNE, in the opposite direction, with its profuse plantations, and the spheric cone of its beautiful Gothic temple*; and the melting of this demesne into the instant and grand perspective of the Mourne mountains; render the village and its environs one of the most magnificent and imposing scenes in the county.

The mills of the two bleach-yards are turned by a stream which issues from a lake in Castlewellan demesne; and about twenty years ago, they annually finished 7,000 or 8,000 pieces of linen.

A weekly market is held for the sale of linen yarn and agricultural produce; and fairs are held on February 1st, May 1st, June 1st, September 1st, November 13th, and the Tuesday before Christmas.

Click on image to enlarge

Castlewellan mansion is the seat of the EARL ANNESLEY; its appendages are a lodge, a Gothic temple, and a farmyard; its demesne comprehend 400 or 500 acres of hill and dale, and so richly combine artificial ornament, practical utility, and natural landscape, as to present to tourists uniqueness in blending with power and beauty.

Its views, especially from the vantage ground on which the temple stands, are such, says Mr Atkinson, as "can only be tasted with rapture by that eye through which the majesty of Nature communicates itself a silent eloquence to the imagination."

The ancestor of the Earl Annesley was created Baron Annesley, of Castlewellan, in 1758.

The Temple, Castlewellan demesne, ca 1855 (Image: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society)

*THE TEMPLE, formerly on the site of the present mansion house, was demolished in 1855. Its demeanour was perhaps akin to similar buildings in Tollymore Park and Hillsborough. The late Peter Rankin, who wrote Historic Buildings in the Mourne Area of South Down for the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1975, dates it to ca 1820.

First published in December, 2021.