Snowhill, Lisbellaw, Co Fermanagh

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. 304. “A gable-ended mid-C18 house of two storeys over a basement. Five bay front with Venetian window over Gibbsean doorcase; quoins, string courses, entablatures over windows. staircase of fine entablatures over windows. Staircase of fine joinery with curved ornament. Shouldered door architraves. In 1783 a seat of the Young family.” 

http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2024/04/snow-hill.html

www.nihgt.org/resources/pdf/Register_of_Parks_Gardens_Demesnes-NOV20.pdf

SNOWHILL, County Fermanagh (AP FERMANAGH AND OMAGH 07) – F/048 
REGISTERED GRADE A 
Small but notably attractive late Georgian landscape park (86 acres/35ha) enclosing a handsome 
and dignified mid-18th century house (Listed HB 12/07/104). It lies in undulating drumlin 
landscape, 2.5 miles (4.5km) north-west of Maguiresbridge and 1.1 miles (1.8km) north-east of 
Lisbellaw, flanking the Millwood Road on the west and the Snowhill Road on the north, both mid- 
19th century replacements for earlier roads that passed through the present parkland. The 
house, which is located on a hill summit facing south-east across the parkland, is a gabled-ended 
double-pile two-storey over basement block of c.1740-50, with lugged architrave window 
surrounds and a pedimented front door with Gibbs surround. Snowhill, which had belonged to the 
Crawfords from at least 1712, was built either by William Crawford, or his son Ralph who 
inherited in 1749. The mansion formerly boasted a formal geometrically laid out landscape, more 
typical of the 1730-40 era, with a tree-lined avenue, 550 feet (168m) long aligned on the south- 
east front of the house, relics of which were still present in the 1830s complete with a circular 
feature (?folly) at the south-east end. The stable and farm ranges to the north-east have all been 
replaced by modern outbuildings for a dairy farm, save for only for a south section of a mid/late 
19th century rectangular yard. The naturalised parkland was evidently created sometime around 
1800 by James Johnston (1738-1808) who acquired the property in the 1780s. This landscape 
survives largely intact and comprises about 23 acres (9ha) of woodland and a series of open 
meadows, the largest being the ‘lawn’ south and east of the house, dotted with clumps and fine 
parkland specimen trees, including holm oaks, beech, chestnuts and maples. Woodlands, mostly 
beech flank the house and around the perimeter of the prominent hill of Snowhill (332ft/101m 
high) west of the house. Just outside the park boundary to the south-east and north-east are a 
series of tree rings planted with beech (diameters 25-47m/90-156ft) with enclosing ditch and 
outer banks, all of 18th century date (see SMR-FERM 212:069); there are further woodland blocks 
and a meadow north-west of the house. Following the closure of roads on the west and north perimeter around 1850, further modification to the park were undertaken by Samuel Yeates 
Johnson (1815-95), a grandson of James. The old approach carriage-drive which approached the 
house from the south-west was replaced by a new drive from the north-west; its construction 
involved raising the carriage-way on embankments and building a viaduct over a laneway. In the 
late 1850s the entrance was given a decorative iron gate screen (Listed HB12/07/047) with 
shallow S-curve sweeps, while on the opposite side of the road a single-storey attractive gate 
lodge was built c.1858 in picturesque Tudoresque style (Listed HB 12/07/048). The productive 
kitchen garden lay 400ft (123m) south-west of the house across the parkland from which it was 
screened by trees; it occupied a trapezoidal area (1.2 acres/0.5ha) and was enclosed not by a wall 
but by a beech hedge, the south section of which survived into the 1970s. The garden has now 
been cleared away completely and forms part of the parkland meadow; this includes an old 
orchard west of the productive garden which survived until about 1960. The rere of the house 
have the relics of a small modern garden which used to have a swimming poor at its north-east 
end. The house and park were sold by the Johnson family in 1921, Subsequent owners included 
the Eadie family and John Judd. the latter who sold it in 1985. SMR FERM 212: 021; FERM 212: 
069; FERM 212: 070; FERM 230: 020. Priv