Stewart of Rockhill

THE STEWARTS, OF ARDS, OWNED 39,306 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY DONEGAL

ALEXANDER STEWART (1746-1831), second son of Alexander Stewart MP, of MOUNT STEWART, County Down, and younger brother of Robert, 1st Marquess of Londonderry, purchased the estate of ARDS from the Wray family, and settled there in 1782.

Mr Stewart, High Sheriff of County Donegal, 1791, espoused, in 1791, the Lady Mary Moore, younger daughter of Charles, 1st Marquess of Drogheda, by the Lady Anne Seymour his wife, daughter of Francis, 1st Marquess of Hertford, and had issue (with other children, who died young),

Alexander Robert, of Ards, his heir;
Charles Moore (Rev);
JOHN VANDELEUR, of whom we treat;
Maria Frances; Gertrude Elizabeth.

The youngest son,

JOHN VANDELEUR STEWART DL (1802-72), of Rock Hill, near Letterkenny, County Donegal, High Sheriff of County Donegal, 1838, wedded, in 1837, the Lady Helen Graham-Toler, daughter of Hector John, 2nd Earl of Norbury, and had issue,

ALEXANDER CHARLES HECTOR, his heir;

Hector Brabazon (Rear-Admiral);

Robert Seymour;

CHARLES JOHN, of whom hereafter;

Elizabeth Georgina.

Mr Stewart was succeeded by his eldest son,

ALEXANDER CHARLES HECTOR STEWART (1838-1917), of Rock Hill, a major-general in the army, High Sheriff of County Donegal, 1881, who married, in 1872, Gertrude Mary, daughter of Eric Carrington Smith, and had issue, an only child,

Kathleen, b 1875; m, 1904, Captain P A MacGregor DSO.

John Vandeleur Stewart's youngest son,

SIR CHARLES JOHN STEWART KBE (1851-1932), of Rockhill, espoused, in 1884, the Lady Mary Catherine Graham-Toler, daughter of Hector John, 3rd Earl of Norbury, and had issue,

Gerald Charles (1888-1915), killed in action;

John Maurice (1895-1915), killed in action;

Helen Margaret; Eirene Mary; Marjorie Alice.

Rockhill House (Rockill House website, 2021)

ROCK HILL HOUSE, near Letterkenny, County Donegal, was originally a three-storey Georgian house of ca 1760, with basement, comprising three bays on either side of a central curved bow.

Its new owner, John Vandeleur Stewart, built a two-storey, five-bay addition to the original house about 1853.

The Victorian building was the same height as the Georgian one.

The present mansion appears to have replaced an earlier Plantation dwelling of the early 1600s, associated with the Pratt family of CABRA, County Cavan.

Captain Thomas Chambers acquired the lands in 1660, and the Chambers remained there until 1832, when Daniel Chambers sold the house and its 237 acre estate to John Vandeleur Stewart for £900 (equivalent to about £70,000 in 2021).

Rockhill House (Robert French/Lawrence Collection/NLI)

J V Stewart proceeded to build a large two-storey block, attached to the original Georgian house, ca 1853. 

His son,  Major-General Alexander Charles Hector Stewart, used Rockhill occasionally; as did his son, Sir Charles John Stewart, KBE, a barrister based in London.

Sir Charles and Lady Stewart were bereft by the deaths, in 1915, of their two sons, both killed in action during the 1st World War, and Rockhill was abandoned in 1927.

Many of the house contents were shipped to the Stewarts' new home in Scotland, and they authorized the sale of the estate.

Rockhill House: Georgian block (Rockhill House website, 2021)

With nobody occupying the estate, Rockhill was taken over by Anti-Treaty IRA forces upon the outbreak of Civil War in Ireland in 1922.

In 1927-30 Rockhill became a Preparatory College for student teachers; the estate, however, thereafter fell into decline and, in 1937, was sold in various lots to the Irish Commissioners of Public Works.

The Irish Department of Defence occupied 29 acres of grounds from the 1940s, and accommodated the Irish Army on a permanent basis from 1969 until 2009, when it closed due to government cutbacks.

Rockhill House has recently been extensively renovated and re-opened as a country house hotel.

First published in May, 2022.