Tanderagee Castle. Tanderagee, Co Armagh
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 270. “(Montagu, Manchester, D?PB) A rather restrained C19 Baronial castle, built ca 1837 by 6th Duke of Manchester, as Viscount Mandeville, on the site of an ancient castle of the O’Hanlons. At one end, a sturdy machicolated tower; at the other, a gabled block rather reminiscent of a Tudor manor house; with a strange corbelled lookout turret at one corner. Now a potato-crisp factory.”
THE DUKES OF MANCHESTER WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY ARMAGH, WITH 12,298 ACRES
The house of Montacute is of an antiquity at least contemporary with the Norman conquest.
In the reign of EDWARD III, Sir William Montagu, alias de Montacute, was created Earl of Salisbury, which title continued in his descendants until HENRY VI, when the fourth and last Earl was slain at the siege of Orléans in France.
From a younger branch of this family was lineally descended
CHARLES, 4TH EARL OF MANCHESTER (c1662-1722), who married, in 1690, Doddington, daughter and co-heir of Robert Greville, 4th Baron Brooke, by whom he had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor;
ROBERT, succeeded his brother as 3rd Duke;
Doddington; Charlotte.
This nobleman opposing the measures of JAMES II, was one of the first who espoused the cause of the Prince of Orange, and he took an active part in the campaign in Ireland, being present at the battle of the Boyne, and the subsequently unsuccessful siege of Limerick.
In 1696, his lordship was appointed Ambassador to the Republic of Venice; in 1699, accredited Ambassador to the court of France; in 1701, he was constituted Secretary of State for the Southern Department.
Upon the accession of GEORGE I, his lordship was constituted in the Lord-Lieutenancy of Huntingdonshire, sworn of the Privy Council, appointed one of the Lords of His Majesty’s Bedchamber; and, finally, in 1719, created DUKE OF MANCHESTER.
His Grace was succeeded by his elder son,
WILLIAM, 2nd Duke (1700-39), KB, who espoused, in 1723, Isabella, daughter of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu, but had no issue.
His Grace died in 1739, when the honours devolved upon his brother,
ROBERT, 3rd Duke (c1710-62), who married, in 1735, Harriet, daughter and co-heir of Edmund Dunch, of Little Wittenham, Berkshire, and had issue,
GEORGE, his successor;
Charles Greville;
Caroline; Louisa.
His Grace was succeeded by his elder son,
GEORGE, 4th Duke (1737-88), Master of the Horse, 1780, who wedded, in 1762, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir James Dashwood Bt, of Kirtlington Park, and had issue,
George, Viscount Mandeville (1763-72);
WILLIAM, his successor;
Frederick;
Caroline Maria; Anna Maria; Emily.
His Grace was succeeded by his elder son,
WILLIAM, 5th Duke (1771-1843), who wedded, in 1793, the Lady Susan Gordon, third daughter of Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, and had issue,
GEORGE, his successor;
William Francis;
Jane; Georgiana Frederica; Elizabeth; Susan; Caroline Catherine; Emily.
His Grace, who filled the offices of Governor of Jamaica, Collector of the Customs for the Port of London, and Lord-Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire, 1793-1841, was succeeded by his elder son,
GEORGE, 6TH DUKE (1799-1855), of Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, who married firstly, in 1822, Millicent, daughter of Brigadier-General Robert Bernard Sparrow, of Brampton Park, Huntingdonshire, by his wife, the Lady Olivia Acheson, eldest daughter of Arthur, 1st Earl of Gosford, of Gosford Castle, County Armagh, by which lady he had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor;
Robert, of Cromore House, m Ellen Cromie;
Frederick;
Olivia.
His Grace espoused secondly, in 1850, Harriet Sydney, daughter of Conway Richard Dobbs, of Castle Dobbs, County Antrim, and had further issue,
Sydney Charlotte;
George Francis.
The site of Tandragee Castle in County Armagh – formerly spelt Tanderagee - once belonged to the O’Hanlon Clan, one of the most powerful clans in the history of Ulster.
A more detailed account of the O’Hanlon lineage is provided on their website.
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| (Image: GreyHobbit) |
THE CASTLE, Tandragee, County Armagh, was rebuilt by the 6th Duke of Manchester in the Baronial style about 1837.
At one end of the Castle stands a solid machicolated tower; while the opposite end has a gabled block somewhat similar to a Tudor manor-house.
A notable, corbelled “look-out” turret is at another corner.
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| Image: Roy Vogan ( http://www.royspics.com ) |
In the interior, the entrance hall had a grand marble fireplace with Italian woodwork; while the ceiling panels displayed coats-of-arms of families formerly connected with the Castle.
The 7th Duke was appointed a Knight of St Patrick (KP) in 1877. As Prime Minister, Benjamin Disaeli appointed six Conservative peers to the Order: The Duke of Manchester; The Marquesses of Waterford and Londonderry; and the Earls of Erne, Mayo and Portarlington.
The site of Tandragee Castle in County Armagh – formerly spelt Tanderagee – once belonged to the O’Hanlon Clan, one of the most powerful clans in the history of Ulster.
A more detailed account of the O’Hanlon lineage is provided on their website.
*****
Two villagers, Samuel (Tucker) Croft and Edward Kelly, decided to start a football team in an organised league and approached the Duke of Manchester for a playing field.
The Duke, along with various other businessmen from the town decided to back them and both Samuel and Edward were invited to the Castle to discuss the question of a playing field.
Level fields were few and far between, and the right to use the old pitch on the Scarva Road was finally granted as long as it was required for a football team.
Tandragee Rovers was established in August 1909 and the pitch, secured from the Duke, was duly named Manchester Park.
The newly formed team also decided to adopt the coat-of-arms of the Duke of Manchester as their club badge.
The motto ”Disponendo me, non mutando me” dates back to the time of HENRY VIII, and is the most ancient of all the Montagu mottos.
It is said to have originated with Sir Edward Montagu, the executor of the King’s will.
The arms are still used as the Club’s badge.
In 1911, the 9th Duke brought John Stone, an eminent Scottish professional from Sandy Lodge Golf Club, London, to lay out a private golf course on his estate at Tandragee. In those days, there was no clubhouse and Mr. Stone, his wife and their two daughters collected fees at the Gate Lodge where they had set up residence.
The Duchess of Manchester, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, even designed some of the original bunkers which were laid out in the shape of the Great Lakes and these remain to this day. The golf club received notice to quit the Duke’s estate, to take effect from 12th November, 1949.
Tandragee Castle remained a seat of the Dukes of Manchester until 1939.
In 1943 it became home to a garrison of the US Army.
The Montagu connection with Tandragee and Northern Ireland ended in 1955, when the 10th Duke sold the Castle to the founder of Tayto Crisps, Thomas Hutchinson.
Tandragee Castle is now a well-known potato crisp factory.
First published in November, 2009.
http://www.nihgt.org/resources/pdf/Register_of_Parks_Gardens_Demesnes-NOV20.pdf
TANDRAGEE CASTLE, County Armagh (AP ARMAGH, BANBRIDGE and CRAIGAVON 03) A/034
REGISTERED GRADE B
Multi-phased demesne (158 acres/64ha) adjoining the west side of the village of Tandragree and
lying 5 miles (8km) south-east of Portadown. The site is dominated by a hilltop with a little valley
below on its south side; there has been a fortified residence on this hilltop from at least the 16th
century. In 1610 ‘Tonregie’, or Ballymore, was granted to Sir Oliver St. John (d.c.1630), Viscount
Grandison, who by 1619 had built a new ‘strong and commodious dwelling’ set within a ‘bawne of
lyme and stone’, as well as a church, and new houses within the town’s ‘fair large street’. He also
created a deer park, which the 1621 Inquisition referred to as a ‘park enclosed with a pale 8 foote
in height, containing 300 acres of land’, which was ‘paled round about three miles compasse’.
This deer park, by then walled, still existed in 1750, as shown on a map of that date, with its
extensive woodland typically cut through with long vistas or lawns to facilitate hunting. This map
Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020
also showed the elaborate formal designed landscape that had by then been created ay
Tandragee, both around and below the house. This was most undertaken by Sir Oliver St. John
who inherited when his father Henry (1628-79) had been killed in 1679 by adherents of the local
rebel Redmond O’Hanlon. By 1703 he had castellated the house, itself a replacement for the
original house of 1618 and in the early decades of the 18th-century terraced the slopes south of
the house, down to a pair of large canals formed out of a stream below. Relics of the lower or
eastern canal are still present today in a much reduced and naturalised form (300ft/100m) long
and 85ft (25m) wide; originally is lower or east canal, which lay immediately below the house and
terraces, was 580ft (177m) long and about 90ft (27m) wide with straight side. Adjoining and on
alignment with this was the much larger eastern or upper canal, 740ft (225m) long and 130ft
(40m) wide. As was the fashion of the day, both would have had clean straight edges with a fringe
of lawn and a footpaths al the way around, possibly also flanking some topiary. The terraces, now
covered with trees and later adapted into pleasure grounds in the Victorian era, would originally
also have been open with crisp paths, statuary, topiary, balustrades and so forth. Formal parterres
would have also flanked the north side of the house with the kitchen garden here too. Oliver died
in or before 1743 and was succeeded by Sir Francis St. John, who around 1745 built a new house,
with it and its predecessor shown in some detail on a map of 1750; the former a largely one and a
half-storey building with crow-stepped half-dormers and a (seemingly) two and a half-storey
crow-stepped central entrance bay, the latter a typically mid-Georgian two-storey seven bay
residence with a symmetrical frontage with Gibbsian entrance. As Sir Francis had no male heirs,
the estate passed to his daughter Mary (c.1715-93) and to her husband Sir John Bernard (c.1695-
1766) and then to his grandson, Brigadier-General Robert Bernard Sparrow (1773-1805). It must
have been Bernard Sparrow who late the century transformed the deer park into a typical
‘naturalised’ landscape park, making full use of what was by then well established old woodland in
the old deer park; this involved leaving the woods on the west perimeter (where the old deer park
wall became the demesne park boundary) and opening up large meadows to the west and south
west of the old upper canal, which itself was drained, while the lower canal was naturalised. The
large wood on the west side of the park (40 acres/16ha), which borders the Armagh Road,
remarkably still survives intact as deciduous woodland and has been continuously under
woodland since at least the 17th century. Sadly the other major block of woodland in the park
(aside from the wood south of the castle), was destroyed to make way for the golf course.
Sparrow’s daughter, Millicent (1798-1848), married George Montagu (1799-1845), 6th Duke of
Manchester and it was they who demolished the 1740s house and built much of the present
castle (Listed HB 15/05/007). Believed to be the work of architect Isaac Farrell of Dublin, this
Victorian Baronial castle was largely constructed from 1830-38 for Viscount Mandeville (later the
6th Duke of Manchester). It was extended in the early 1850s by William Montagu (1823-90), 7th
Duke, with a large tall five-stage tower-house like block to the south-east complete with
corbelled castellations and square bartizan, with a larger but lower two and a half-storey over
high basement manor house-like section stretching westwards. Close-by a recessed central bay
originally having a conservatory. Also added in 1852 was the main gate to the east of the
castle, which opens into The Square; the ‘Dark Walk’ lime avenue from the house to Town
Gate may predate the 1850s however. North of the castle is a large rectangular court (now partly
built over) surrounded by two-storey service ranges with the castle itself enclosing the southern
side. The yard is entered from the east via a large two-storey gate house with octagonal corner
buttresses rising to tall pinnacles with an octagonal turret rising from the north-western corner.
To the south and east of the castle the 6th Duke made a balustraded terrace, with the corbelled
stone balustrade now partly overgrown; this was part of the transformation of the terraces below
into pleasure grounds with inter-linking flights of steps. The walled garden north of the castle was
rebuilt in its present form around 1850 by the 7th Duke; it is a rectangular (2.68 acres/1.08ha)
with stone walls lined internally with brick, and a slip garden on the north side that was formerly
used as the frame yard; this walled garden sits on the site of a larger 18th-century kitchen garden
Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020
(5.57 acres/2.25ha) which is shown on the 1st OS map edition to have had a ‘hot house’ in the
centre. Today the walls of the walled garden survive, but since the 1990s the area has been
largely covered with an assortment of buildings. William (1823-90), 7th Duke was succeeded by
his son, George (1853-92), 8th Duke, and then by his son, William (1877-1947), 9th Duke, who laid
out a golf course within the parkland to the south in 1911. The Manchesters sold the contents of
the castle in 1925 and vacated the building 1928. It lay empty until WWII when it was occupied
by Allied troops, notably the American 6th Cavalry Mechanised Division from September 1943 to
May 1944, who were visited there by General George Patton, who was guest of honour at a ball in
the castle. By the end of the war, however, it was in a state of disrepair. It and part of the
grounds were sold by Alexander (1902-77), 10th Duke in 1955 to three local businessmen who
converted a section of the castle to a factory producing fruit juice, later changing to the
production of potato crisps, initially within the castle courtyard with a purpose-built factory
subsequently constructed to the north. The castle itself was damaged by fire in 1983 and is now
largely a shell, although the courtyard buildings to the north remain in use. The southern portion
of the demesne remains a golf course, with Tandragee Golf Club securing a lease of the course
land in 1949 and buying it outright in 1975. Two 19th century gate lodges remain and the
Markethill Road Lodge, is now the entrance to the golf club (Listed HB 15/5/025). SMR ARM
14:13 the castle. Private
Irish Historic Houses 