Walled Gardens

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

FLOWER GARDEN
This area lies to immediate E of the house. It is enclosed to E, S and W by a rubble stone wall, to E by a steep fall in the ground level, and to N by a hedge. Hedge separates the flower garden from the vegetable garden (see later). Its boundary to house has an ornate wrought iron gate with cast details hung on plain masonry piers. Gate has plain dog bars and a frieze of quatrefoils. Above these rise the main bars, half as many as the dog bars, with spearhead finials and spearheads between each bar. Its top rail ramps up to each end where there are wrought clasping bars. Garden is laid out in beds with gravel paths. In centre of flower garden is a sundial. It has a plain stone shaft and bronze face and scrolled gnomon. It is inscribed ‘Dublin’.

VEGETABLE GARDEN
This is enclosed to W and N by a stone wall, to the E by the steep fall in ground level and to the S by the hedge of the flower garden. Its boundary wall to N is in a state of collapse and has a number of very ruinous abutting buildings. To E of its centre is a small derelict garden house. It is single storey and two bay, roughly square in plan and roofless (it presumably had a hipped roof as there are no gables). It is in rubble stone with brick dressings and overhanging dresses stone eaves. Its E elevation has a doorway to left and a 6/6 sash window (no glass) to right. Its N wall is blank. W wall is blank. S elevation has two 6/6 sash windows.

Historical information

Monea castle is a plantation structure dating from 1619 and one of the most intact of its type in Ulster. The castle, its garden and tree lined avenue are scheduled monuments (SM FER 191-61). Monea Cottage was erected to replace it after it burnt down in 1750, on the site of the current house.

The Manor of Monea was purchased in 1790 by Mr. J. Brien of Stralongford Co. Tyrone, who had a number of estates in the Province. On his death in 1811 it passed to his fourth son, Captain John Brien (born 1776). It may be that Captain Brien was already resident on the estate as the old school house was erected in 1802 by ‘Lieutenant J. Brien’ (datestone of this building is in domestic yard). Captain John Brien married Charlotte Dawson in 1814 and their son John Dawson Brien was born in 1815 and inherited the estate in 1856. It was he who built two gate lodges c1860, one to W and one to N. In 1869 he became High Sheriff / Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Fermanagh and it is then that he built the current main house. He died in 1881 and his wife Francis (nee Smith) had the local C of I Church (St. Molaise HB12/11/004) rebuilt in his memory. A plaque in the church states, ‘To the Glory of God/ and in affectionate memory of/ John Dawson Brien/ Castletown/ This church was erected/ by his widow/ and his two surviving sisters/ 1890’. Mrs Brien lived on in the house until her death in 1917.

The estate was due to pass to John Henry Loftus Reade, but he had died in Flanders in 1914. It passed onto the Brien family, their two eldest sons had also dies in WW1 the house was inherited by one of their sisters. She lived in the house until her death c1974 when it passed to the present owner. The demesne has not been sold since purchase in 1790.

The 1st edition OS map shows the current demesne, with lodge and main driveway to N. There is no W lodge but a schoolhouse is marked to the N of the driveway. There is no driveway running S to the original Castle. The house here is marked ‘Monea Cottage’ and is cruciform in plan with a range of T planned outbuildings to its N. The flower and vegetable gardens and their buildings are shown to immediate E of the complex.

The 2nd edition OS map shows the W lodge and the main driveway being the W one, the former schoolhouse is no longer labelled, and a national school is shown outside the demesne to the NW. The demesne now has the tree lined driveway to the old castle. The outbuildings to N of house are more numerous and the farm yard more defined.

The current OS map (surveyed 1963) shows the N lodge (now gone) to have been rectangular with a small return on its N end.

Dean states that both lodges were built c1860 and shows plans of the single storey W lodge that has a hipped L-planned roof and gable to return. Small segmental headed windows and a door on its N elevation. This building was much altered and extended c1979.

Following the erection of the main house, its rear returns (part of Monea Cottage) are L planned suggesting that the E and S wings of the cruxiform cottage were demolished for the erection of the present house c1870. The pieces of masonry frieze and cornice which cope the wall of the W drive and the wall of the flower garden may have been removed from the demolished parts of Monea Cottage.

Primary Sources:
1. OS Map 1st Edition 1834, Co Fermanagh, sheet 15.
2. OS Map 2nd Edition 1857, Co Fermanagh, sheet 15.
3. OS Map Sheet 191-12, revised 1968

Secondary Sources:
1. M. Bence-Jones, ‘Country Houses of Ireland’ (London 1978), p.104.
2. A. Rowan, ‘North West Ulster’ (Penguin 1979), p.422.
3. J.A.K. Dean, ‘The Gate lodges of Ulster’ (Belfast. 1994), p.104.
4. Rev. J.B, Leslie ‘Clougher Clergy and Parishes’ (Enniskillen 1929).
5. G. Elliott, ‘Parishes of Devenish and Boho’ (Belfast 1990), p.119.
6. A. Day, ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of Co. Fermanagh II 1834/5 Vol.14 (QUB 1992), p.49.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

The walled gardens, sundial, gates and general landscaping are all attractive features and contribute to the character of the main house and other listed estate buildings and structures.