Drumcairn, Stewartstown, County Tyrone 

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. 112. “(Caulfeid, Charlemont, V/PB) A late-Georgian house with a magnificent view across Lough Neagh to the Mourne Mountains. Two storey, three bay front with wide windows; single-storey Doric portico with coupled columns; eavedroof.” 

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

DRUMCAIRNE HOUSE, County Tyrone (AP MID ULSTER 10) T/017 
REGISTERED GRADE A 
Early Victorian demesne (277 acres/112ha) with house of 1834-5 (Listed HB 09/08/007), notable 
for its remarkable terraced walled garden, lies 1.50 miles (2.4km) east of Stewartstown and 3.35 
miles (5.4km) north-east Coalisland. The de novo house was built by Edward Houston Caulfield 
(1807-83), son of Colonel James Caulfield (1782-1833) of Mullantain, a descendant of Rev. Charles 
Caulfield (1686-1768), Rector of Arboe and Donaghenry, a younger son of William, 2nd Viscount 
Charlemont. The site was clearly chosen to take advantage of the wonderful, extensive views of 
Lough Neagh and Coney Island to the east and of the Mountains of Mourne beyond. It was newly 
built in 1835 and is an east facing two-storey three-bay house with eaved roof, large square 
windows, ground floor French windows and a Tuscan portico with coupled columns. At the rere 
of the south end there is an extension comprising a narrow lower return which links to a larger 
hipped-roof block of similar height to the west. Northwards there is also a mid-20th century 
extension. Immediately north-west there is a square courtyard for offices flanked on two sides by 
rectangular two-storey gable-ended ranges; it is enclosed to the north by a roughcast wall with an 
unusual parapet with triangular (ziggurat-like) crenellations. Around his new house and 
outbuildings, Edward Caulfield created a large demesne over the next couple of decades, clearing 

Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020 
away a road and some houses to the north of the house, carrying out an extensive planting 
scheme and creating the terraced ‘Italian-style’ walled garden lying 345m north-west of the 
house. This comprises a roughly square walled enclosure (2.65 acres/1.07ha) divided into three 
steep terraces with a diagonal path with north-west south-east axis running down the centre, 
with flights of steps giving access to each terrace. There are also corresponding steps and paths 
at each end of the garden. Early 20th century post-cards and a water colour dated 1914 by K. A. 
Caulfeild, now in the Ulster Museum, MAGNI, show how it looked in its heyday. Fastigiate Irish 
yew trees extended across a level lawn, at the west of which rose a steep, terraced slope, 
ascended by steps in 4 sets, flanked by urns filled with flowering plants on plinths. The terraces 
were flanked by rhododendrons and trees, mostly deciduous, and there was a statue of Diana on 
the top terrace, backed by deciduous woodland (This area is now owned by FS who removed the 
statue for safety.) The area around the terraced garden down to the house was planted up with 
woodland, part of very extensive tree planting in the demesne that was to continue in stages until 
the close of the century. The perimeter of the demesne was enclose in a more or less continuous 
shelter belt, parts of which, mainly deciduous woods, survive, including the ‘Far Drumcairne 
Wood,’ on the northern perimeter; Kilcoony Wood to the north of the house; part of ‘Old Wood,’ 
north-east of the house. Other woods include ‘Ballynagowan Wood,’ ‘Fern Wood,’ west of the 
house, and ‘The Solitude’ north of the house. Today, apart from the north-east and the south- 
east, the demesne is almost entirely forested with a mixture of broad leaved and conifer trees; 
the tops of some exotic species, including a line of sequoia, protrude above the forest planting. 
Within the woods Caulfield created a series of gardens , garden buildings and ponds. At the south- 
east of the house there was a Japanese garden and the stream close to the entrance and 
perimeter had been harnessed to form a long lake or pond (0.86 acres/0.35ha) with two islands. 
At the east end of a wood called ‘The Solitude’ in the northern sector of the park was a summer 
house with a western opening. It is inside the remains of a sub-rectangular undressed stone 
structure, which also has an opening at the west, called ‘Coney’s Cell’, essentially a garden grotto. 
Outside the walled terraced garden to the south-east on the path back to the house was a small 
oval lake/pond (0.3 acres/0.12ha) with a small island (there are now two ponds). South-east of 
the house itself the garden is terraced and grassed and surrounded with mature rhododendrons, 
azaleas and trees. There were fine shrubs around this terrace and daffodils in spring, while o the 
east side there were several different kinds of mature oak trees and, just north of the carriage 
drive, a chestnut tree which provides very early autumn colour. The demesne had two gate lodges 
one to the south along Ballygittle Road, and the other to the north-east along Drumkern Road. 
The southern lodge, one of the most memorable of its kind in the country, was a one and a half- 
storey picturesque dwelling with steeply-pitched gable-ended thatched roof with decorative 
pierced bargeboards and tall, diamond-plan chimneystacks – a photograph of which was used to 
illustrate the cover of Dean’s The Gate Lodges of Ulster. It probably dated from the 1840s; it was 
demolished at some point between 1906 and 1935. The north-eastern lodge was a smaller, 
single-storey structure of c.1860. It was of the same similar picturesque style as its southern 
counterpart, but plainer and less memorable, having a slate roof of lesser pitch, central gabled 
porch and windows with lattice panes. This lodge appears to have stood until c.1990, but had 
been demolished by 1994. Both lodges had their own gardens with the lodges being covered with 
creeper, as were the main house and the summer house. In 1883, Drumcairne was inherited by 
Edward’s son, James Alfred Caulfield (1830-1913), who became the 7th Viscount Charlemont in 
1892, after the death of his distant cousin, the 3rd Earl of Charlemont. It later passed to his 
nephew, James Edward Geale Caulfield (b.1880), after whose death in 1949 most of the demesne 
(about 70ha) was sold to the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture; it currently belongs to 
Forest Service NI and is open to the public. The house continued to be occupied by the Caulfield 
family until c.1946, after which it appears to have been let to Captain James Huey Hamill Pollock, 
who served as High Sheriff of County Tyrone in 1963. It was he who built a new walled kitchen 
garden in the open parkland east of the house near the Drumkern Road. It is rectangular with 

Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020 
brick walls, a bothy at the north-east corner on the outside and two glasshouses The house was 
still in Caulfield ownership in 1978, but was sold in the following decade to a Mr Rushe and was 
put up for sale again in 1993. Today a lodge is used for a forestry worker. SMR: TYR 39:3 Coney’s 
Cell, 51 and 52 enclosures TYR 47:12 tree ring. The house is private. Part of the grounds are 
administered by DAERA (Forest Service), with public access, but no facilities other than a car park.