The N bridge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This single span bridge carries the N driveway from the house over the Blackwater River. It is similar in style but much larger than the W bridge.

Bridge has a single segmental span in coursed rubble stone with dressed voussoirs. Its parapet has a battlemented rubble coping.

Favor Royal demesne has a number of features of interest. Main entrance to Favor Royal Road has a single storey lodge on NW side of the Favour Royal Road, and on SE side are the main gates (both HB13/03/005), the West bridge (HB13/03/026), the main house and yards (HB13/03/004), outer yard (HB13/03/027), a garden cottage (HB13/03/008), a walled garden (HB13/03/012), a pigsty and a weigh house (HB13/03/025).

Demesne is bounded to the N by the river Blackwater, to the E by the Derrymeen Road, to the S by the border with Co Monaghan, and to the W by the church of St. Mary’s Portclare, and to the NW by the Favour Royal Road. The main house itself is a middle sized Tudor Manorial Style building house built 1825.

Historical information

The 1834 OS map shows the demesne and most of its features as they are today. However this drive and bridge only appear on the 2nd edition OS map (1856).

Favor Royal House - James I granted Sir Thomas Ridgeway 740 acres of land, in 1613. Sir James Erskine later purchased the Augher estates from Sir Thomas Ridgeway. Charles II confirmed the Manor of Portclare (under the name of Favor Royal) to the Erskine family in 1665. Eventually his estate was divided between his two grand-daughters, one half became Spur Royal (Augher Castle) and the other Favor Royal.

One of Erskine's granddaughters married John Moutray; they built the first house and created the demesne in 1670. This house continued as the family home until it was destroyed by accidental fire in 1823. Captain John Corry Moutray, the occupant at the time, commissioned architect John Hargrave to design the new house.

Favor Royal was occupied in 1858 by Mr Whitney Moutray, in 1870 by Rev. John James Moutray, and during the first half of the 20thC by Major Anketell Gerald Moutray. House and its contents were sold in 1976 and in 1979 the occupier was a Mr Craig. Johnston states that the Moutrays were the largest landowners in the valley and held the rental of 36 townlands, and a staff of 80 people at one time.

Although not consulted in detail, the Moutray family papers in PRONI are a wide and interesting range of documents from land leases to personal diaries.

Primary Sources:
1. J. Hargrave “Design for Favor Royal mansion by John Hargrave”, c1823, PRONI D/2023/14/1.
2. House contents sale catalogue dated 27-28/09/1976.
3. 1st edition 6” OS map Tyrone sheet 59 (1834).
4. 2nd edition 6” OS map Tyrone sheet 59 (1854).

Secondary Sources:
1. A. Rowan “North West Ulster” Penguin 1979, p292.
2. J.A.K. Dean “The Gate lodges of Ulster” (Belfast, 1994), p143.
3. D.Chart (ed) “Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of N.I.” 1940, p255.
4. “The Journal of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland”, 1883-4, p133 (Fivemiletown public library).
5. Moutray family papers PRONI D/2023.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This well constructed stone bridge has group value with the other listed structures in the Favor Royal Demesne.