Outer farm yard

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

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 two bridges (HB13/03/007 and HB13/03/026), the main house and yards (HB13/03/004), 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.

To NW of the weigh house, across the main drive are two ranges of outbuildings, first is N facing and the second, which abuts the E gable of the first, is NW facing. There is a large overgrown yard to front. All are derelict and roofless, constructed in rubble stone and plain, with undressed coach ways, doors and windows openings. Part of the N facing block has collapsed and part of NW facing block has a datestone with raised letters ‘1856’.

Historical information

The 1834 OS map shows the demesne and most of its features as they are today, including some of these outbuildings, all are in place by 1854.

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 diarys.

Primary Sources:
1. 1st edition 6” OS map Tyrone sheet 59 (1834).
2. 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.
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

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This range of derelict farm buildings, although of some interest within the estate group, are partially collapsed and have few features of architectural interest.