The walled garden

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Description at January 2006
As below, except the dressed sandstone doorcase and dated keystone to the W access, and the cut stone surround to the door on the E wall, referred to in para. 4 below are no longer in place.

Description at July 1999
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), there are also bridges (HB13/03/007 and HB13/03/026), main house and yards (HB13/03/004), outer yard (HB13/03/027), a garden cottage (HB13/03/008), pigsty and weigh house (HB13/03/025).

The 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.

The walled garden lies to the extreme E of the group, on the S side of the driveway. It slopes to varying degrees from NW-SE and encloses a rectangular area, consisting of an inner walled garden flanked on W, S and E by three slip gardens. These are bordered mainly by hedge plantings with trees outside; however, at S there is a ditch boundary, and at N the wall extends along the edge of the W slip to include part of a pleasure garden walk. Walls are red sandstone, lined with red brick.

There is a main access gate in the N wall, via a wide segmental headed archway. This leads onto one of several pathways that are still traceable within the garden. In addition, three other access points are located on the W, S and E sides. The W access forms part of the pleasure ground walk, and consists of two doorways, the outer having an architrave of finely dressed sandstone in a Neo-Classical fashion and a moulded ashlar keystone inscribed 1720. A path, bordered by the remains of hedges, leads across the slip from this doorway into the inner walled garden. A similar, though less ornate doorway with moulded and cut stone surround, provides access through the east wall of the garden, to the eastern slip - the cold-frame or ‘working area’ for the garden. This contains the former gardener’s house, a single storey vernacular dwelling with a pitched natural slate roof and rendered masonry walls. Its main access is on its E elevation contained within a large porch.

The pathways that can be traced in the garden show a grid pattern of layout that is typical of 18th and 19th century walled gardens. Some of these paths are still lined with the remains of box hedges. The planting has long been unmanaged, though a mature L-shaped ornamental beech hedge is situated in the western interior. Ornamental planted trees include two monkey puzzles, and unmanaged orchard trees, which include apple and walnut, can also be found within the walled garden itself and in the associated slips. The remains of two glasshouses stand in the NW while at S there is an oval shaped pond like feature, with steps leading into it; this once served as a focal point in the layout.

This garden is one of only a small number of walled gardens that survive in Northern Ireland dating to this early period.

Historical information

The 1834 OS map shows the demesne and most of its features as they are today, including this walled garden and the gardener’s cottage.

Favor Royal House - James I granted Sir Thomas Ridgeway 740 acres of land, covering this area, in 1613; although a George Ridgeway had began building a nearby bawn in 1611; its remains are 2.5km to NE of the present demesne. 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, employed architect John Hargrave to design the new house, which was completed in 1825. Johnston states that the Moutrays were the largest landowners in the valley and held the rental of 36 townlands 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. 1st edition 6” OS map Tyrone sheet 59 (1834).

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.
5, J. Johnston “In the Days of the Clougher Valley: Photographs of the Clougher Valley Railway 1887-1942” (Belfast) 1987, pp80,81.
6. Moutray family papers PRONI D/2023.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

This garden is one of only a small number of walled gardens that survive in Northern Ireland dating to this early period, it also has group value with the other listed structures in the the Favor Royal demesne. The former gardener's house contributes to the character and completeness of the walled garden.