Favour Royal, Aughnacloy, 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. 124. “(Moutray/LGI1912) A somewhat austere Tudor-Gothic house of 1825, said to be by an architect named William Warren; built for John Corry Moutray to replace a house of 1670 destroyed by fire 1823. Two storey with attic of rather low-pitched gables in front; three storey at the back. The front of the house has large rectangular windows with elaborate Gothic tracery and hood mouldings over them. Now owned by the Forestry Commisson.”
see https://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2014/05/favour-royal.html
THE MOUTRAYS OWNED 6,545 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY TYRONE
ROBERT MOUTRAY, of Roscobie, Fife, 9th Laird of Seafield (descended from Robert Multrare, who had a Royal Charter, 1443, confirming to him the lands of Seafield and Markinch), married Anne, only daughter of Sir James Erskine, of Favour Royal, County Tyrone (to whom that estate was granted by JAMES I), grandson of John Erskine, Earl of Mar, and had a son,
JOHN MOUTRAY, of Aghamoyles, alias Favour Royal, County Tyrone, who wedded his cousin Anne, daughter of the Rev Archibald Erskine (son of Sir James Erskine), through whom the Moutray family acquired Favour Royal, and had a son,
JAMES MOUTRAY (c1661-1719), of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1682, MP for Augher, 1692-1703, who espoused Deborah, daughter of Henry Mervyn MP, of Trillick, son of Sir Audley Mervyn MP, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir;
Anketell;
Anne, m George Gledstanes, of Daisy Hill;
Sarah, m Charles Stewart, of Baillieborough.
Mr Moutray was succeeded by his eldest son,
JAMES MOUTRAY, of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1695, who married, in 1698, Rebecca, eldest daughter of Colonel James Corry, of Castlecoole, County Fermanagh (ancestor of the Earls of Belmore), and was father of
JOHN MOUTRAY, of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1721, who married, in 1720, Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Montgomery, of Ballyleck, County Monaghan, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir;
ANKETELL, succeeded his brother;
Leslie, of Killibrick;
John;
Mary; Rebecca; Catherine; Sarah; Elizabeth.
The eldest son,
JAMES MOUTRAY (1722-77), of Favour Royal and Killibrick, MP for Augher, 1761-69, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1762, married Hester, daughter of Thomas Knox, MP for Dungannon, and sister to Thomas, 1st Viscount Northland, but had no issue.
His younger brother,
THE REV ANKETELL MOUTRAY (1730-1801), of Favour Royal, married, in 1768, Catherine, eldest daughter of Thomas Singleton, of Fort Singleton, County Monaghan, by his first wife, daughter of Oliver Anketell, of Anketell’s Grove.
He died ca 1801, having had one son, JOHN CORRY, and six daughters, all of whom died unmarried, except the third, Isabella, who espoused Whitney Upton Gledstanes, of Fardross.
The only son and heir,
JOHN CORRY MOUTRAY JP DL (1771-1859), of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1794, married, in 1793, Mary Anne Catherine, second daughter of Major Ambrose Upton, of Hermitage, County Dublin, by his wife Margaret, sister and co-heir of Thomas Gledstanes, of Fardross, and had issue,
ANKETELL, his heir;
JOHN JAMES, of Favour Royal;
WHITNEY, of Fort Singleton;
Thomas (Rev), 1806-43;
William (Rev), 1811-82;
Henry, of Killymoon Castle;
Catherine; Margaret; Sophia; Cecilia; Marion; Mary.
Mr Moutray was succeeded by his eldest son,
ANKETELL MOUTRAY (1797-1869), of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1855, who dsp and was succeeded by his brother,
THE REV JOHN JAMES MOUTRAY (1802-86), of Favour Royal, Rector of Errigal-Keerogue, who married, in 1836, Maria Dorothea, second daughter of the Rev William Perceval, of Kilmore Hill, County Waterford, and had issue,
JOHN MAXWELL, his heir;
Robert Perceval, Captain RN (1840-96);
William Henry, b 1842;
ANKETELL, of Favour Royal;
Charles Frederick, b 1846;
Anna Maria Sophia; Mary Elizabeth; Caroline Helena.
This clergyman’s eldest son,
THE REV JOHN MAXWELL MOUTRAY, Rector of Ballinasaggart, did not, however, succeed to the family estates, which, under the will of his uncle, Anketell Moutray, of Favour Royal, passed to his younger brother,
ANKETELL MOUTRAY JP DL (1844-1927), of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of County Tyrone, 1877, County Monaghan, 1903, who married, in 1877, Gertrude Madelina, third surviving daughter of Matthew John Anketell, of Anketell Grove, County Monaghan (by his wife Catherine Anne Frances, daughter of D Ker, of Montalto, County Down), and had issue,
John Corry (1878-79);
ANKETELL GERALD, JP, of Favour Royal, High Sheriff of Co Tyrone, 1935 (1882-1952?);
Anne Gwendoline Stella Eliza (1875-1902).
FAVOUR ROYAL, near Augher, County Tyrone, was built in 1825.
This is quite an austere, Tudor-Gothic mansion consisting of two storeys with an attic of low-pitched gables in front and three storeys at the rear.
The front of the house has big rectangular windows with elaborate Gothic tracery and hood mouldings over them.
*****
JAMES I granted Sir Thomas Ridgeway 740 acres of land in 1613.
Sir James Erskine later purchased the Augher estates from Sir Thomas.
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 granddaughters: one half became Spur Royal (Augher Castle); and the other, Favor Royal.
One of Erskine’s granddaughters married John Moutray, and they built the first house, creating 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, commissioned the architect John Hargrave to design the new house, built in 1824-5, with an 1825 date-stone on its left elevation.
The earlier 1670 date-stone, also built into the left elevation, is presumably from the first house that was burnt down.
The fireproof vaulted brick floor construction to upper floor landings and the stone staircases are possibly precautionary, to ensure that the new house was not also destroyed by fire.
The painted transom in the book-room of a cavalry officer with white charger may be a depiction of Captain John Corry Moutray.
Captain Moutray also built the parish church of St Mary’s Portclare in 1830 as a private chapel.
It cost £1,000 and its designer may be John Hargrave who had died in a yachting accident only the previous year.
An 1834 map shows the demesne and most of its features as they are today; however, the drive to the north of the main house, its bridge over the river Blackwater, and the later (1856) elements of the outer farmyard are not shown.
The map shows the north drive and the Blackwater Bridge.
A 1903 map shows a boathouse (now gone) on the north side of the lake.
Favour Royal was occupied in 1858 by Whitney Moutray; in 1870 by the Rev John James Moutray; and during the first half of the 20th century by Major Anketell Gerald Moutray.
The house and its contents were sold in 1976.
In 1979 the occupier was a Mr Craig.
It has been said that the Moutrays were the largest landowners in the valley and held the rental of 36 townlands, with a staff of no fewer than 80 at one time.
Sundials (marked on a 1977 map), one to the front and one to the right of the house, and a large collection of medieval carved stones in the rockery (opposite the front porch) were for sale with the house contents in September, 1976, and were presumably sold and removed at that time.
Following the sale of the contents, the house remained occupied until the early 1990s.
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.
*****
HYPERLINK “http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_paskin/sets/72157604205430381/”Stephen Paskin has taken 182 photographs of Favour Royal, including notable pictures of its interior features.
The demesne dates from the 17th century.
It lies in a valley, with the River Blackwater flowing on the north-eastern side.
Though no longer a fully functioning demesne, disused stabling and farm buildings remain.
There was a deer park and woodland with, ‘… a few fine old trees’ (Young, 1909).
At the present time there is a small area of lawn at the house and one or two mature notable trees.
The walled garden has a date stone on the entrance gate of 1720.
It is not maintained but was once a fine garden.
Most of the area is heavily planted with forest trees.
The gate lodge of ca 1825, gardener’s cottage and bridges are listed.
There is a man-made ornamental lake with an island.
Planning permission had been obtained to turn Favour Royal into a hotel and golf resort.
Arsonists badly damaged the house in April, 2011.
The estate was for sale in May, 2014.
*****
SIR THOMAS RIDGEWAY, Earl of Londonderry, was one of hundreds of English and Scottish noblemen who were granted land during the plantation of Ulster.
In Ridgeway’s case, he was treasurer of wars in Ireland.
In 1610, JAMES I granted him 4,300 acres in the Clogher valley area of County Tyrone.
In 1613, he built a castle in Augher and then sold his entire estate to Sir James Erskine in 1622.
In 1630, a defect was discovered in the original grant of lands to Ridgeway and CHARLES I made a re-grant of the lands to Erskine.
This royal favour was acknowledged by naming the estate Favour Royal.
Sir James Erskine’s son, Archibald, was the only member of the family to carry on the family name having two daughters, Mary and Ann, between whom the estate was divided.
Mary married William Richardson and took up living in Augher castle.
Later, as Sir William Richardson, he gained notoriety as the magistrate who kept a supply of Shillelaghs for the settlements of legal disputes.
The other daughter, Ann, married John Moutray and moved into the house at Favour Royal in 1670.
*****
The Moutray family continued to live there until the death of Mrs Anketell Moutray on New Year’s Day, 1975.
The house and what remained of the demesne was sold in 1976.
A major part of the estate was acquired by the Forest service. The total area is ca 1,200 acres.
First published in October, 2010.
www.nihgt.org/resources/pdf/Register_of_Parks_Gardens_Demesnes-NOV20.pdf
FAVOUR ROYAL, County Tyrone (AP MID ULSTER 10) T/018
REGISTERED GRADE B
Demesne with 17th-century origins (235 acres/95ha) with ruins of large mansion of 1824-5 (Listed
HB 13/03/004) located in a valley with the River Blackwater on the north-side, lying 3,24 miles
(5.24km) east of Augher and 3 miles (4.9km) west of Aughnacloy, straddling the border with
Monaghan. No dwelling is recorded here until 1670, but the townland of Aghamoyles (Favour or
Favor Royal) was part of a 1610 Plantation grant of ‘Portclare and Ballykillgirie’ to Sir Thomas
Ridgeway, who sold it in 1622 to Sir James Erskine (d.1636). On his death, Erskine’s estate was
divided between his two granddaughters: the one who married William Richardson got Augher
(Spur Royal) and the other who married John Mountray received Favour Royal. Shortly before or
shortly after their marriage in 1670, the Moutrays built a house on the present site whose date-
stone with its inscription ‘Welcom to come in as welcom to go by 1670’, has been incorporated in
the walls of the present ruined mansion of 1825. Confusingly, perhaps, the name they adopted for
the new seat, ‘Favour Royal’, was originally applied to a plantation house and bawn built by
Ridgeway to the north in the townland of Lismore. We have no descriptions or illustrations of the
1670 house and none of the yard ranges to the east of the house, now in a poor condition, appear
to be earlier than the 1820s mansion, so there are few clues on this question. From the 1670s the
property was to long remain in the same family, passing from one generation to the next,
beginning with James Moutray I (d.1718-19), who was MP for Augher 1692-1703. He was
succeeded by his son John II (1701-79); his eldest son, James III Moutray (1722-1777), MP for
Augher in 1761 and 1768, built a house in the north-western corner of the demesne ‘Killybrick’ or
‘Fort Pleasant’. Just as we are short of evidence as the former appearance of the house, we know
very little of the early landscape as there are few obvious residual features of any early formal
landscape surviving. The earliest demesne feature we can date is the walled garden (Listed HB
13/03/012), to the east of the house, which had (now removed) a keystone over the garden
entrance on the west with the date 1720; this entrance had a dressed early Georgian surround.
The garden is rectangular in plan (2.4 acres/0.96ha) with slip gardens on the west. south and east,
giving the garden a total acreage of 5.34 acres (2.16 acres). The garden is enclosed by tall walls
are constructed in roughly squared rubble stone and lined in brick with the segmental-headed
main access to the north and other entrances to the west, south and east. As with the western
entrance, the doorway to the eastern wall has also lost its cut stone surround. There are ruinous
remains of glasshouse to the north-western corner. In the eastern slip, which served as the
forcing yard, there is the, now abandoned, gardener’s house, a single / one and a half-storey
(seemingly hearth-lobby) vernacular dwelling with gabled ends and a large gabled porch. The
outer slips, used for growing surplus garden produce, were enclosed with hedges, now grown into
trees; those on the west side have been removed recently. The garden must have been built by
John II Moutray, after he inherited in 1719 and married in 1720 Elizabeth daughter of Alexander
Montgomery of Ballyleck, County Monaghan. It’s likely the garden was part of a larger geometric
landscape layout, but nothing seems to have survived of this. One of the apprentice garden boys
employed in an around 1816 was a local boy called John Hughes, would go on to become the
Catholic Archbishop of New York in 1842. As James III Moutray died without issue in 1777, the
property passed to his brother Rev. Anketell I (1730-1801), who appears to have been responsible
for transforming the demesne into the present landscape park. This involved removing the early
formal features and agricultural field boundaries and in their place putting down sinuous woods,
woodland clumps and wide open meadow expanses. In the middle ground west of the house the
river was dammed to create a lake with island (3.5 acres/1.4ha), now drained, adjacent to which is
a bridge (Listed HB 13/03/026), carrying the new parkland main drive over a stream flowing from
the Blackwater River in the north, to the lake; It is a small rubble-built structure with a single
segmental arch with dressed voussoirs and a parapet with rubble battlements. The landscaping of
the new parkscape involved laying down a network if sinuous carriage drives, all no doubt
planned to take advantage of the views. The drives facilitated five entrance into the demesne,
Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020
two lie on the Favour Royal Road (where the demesne is walled), both originally with gate lodges.
The main entrance is west of the house near the Favour Royal Bridge over the Blackwater; its
1820s gate lodge (Listed HB 13/03/005), probably by Hargrave, lies on the opposite side of the
road; it is a small Tudoresque single-storey (with attic) gable-ended dwelling with squared rubble
walls and an overhanging roof with bracketed eaves. There is a gate screen on the opposite side
of the road with quadrant walls; from here the carriage drive runs southwards to the lake, over
the bridge and onto the house. Much of the woodland planting was to the south and south-west
of the house along a tributary of the Blackwater that now forms the county and international
Border. A striking feature of the western area of the parkland landscape was a church added in
1834 (Listed HB 13/03/001). Known as St. Mary’s Church, it is the (C of I) parish church of St.
Mary’s Portclare and is a small single-storey cruciform structure with two-stage square tower with
slender pinnacles, and an overall with Scottish feel. It has its own entrance from the Favour Royal
Road and its gateway (Listed HB13/03/011) has a pair of square cut-stone piers with outsized ball
finials and a later wrought-iron carriage gate. Another feature of the park was added earlier,
perhaps around 1810; this is the Garden Cottage (Listed HB 13/03/008) south-east of the house
on gently sloping ground in partly wooded surroundings. Now sadly abandoned and in disrepair, it
is a small picturesque dwelling in the cottage orné tradition – a popular feature of Regency era
parklands in Ireland. It has a central one and a half-storey section flanked by single-storey wings
of differing sizes, all with gabled ends, overhanging roofs, later slated but probably originally
thatched. The walls are rendered with brick chimneystacks and a circular two-stage tower to the
centre of the rere, formerly graced with a conical roof, possibly also originally thatched. The
building incorporated a canted bay covered by the roof, which oversails to the this side and is
supported on two battered stone columns. The entrance was on the south and the cottage was
placed on the south edge of what appears to have been an ornamental grove of shrubs traversed
by paths. The builder of the cottage was no doubt the Rev. Anketell’s only son and heir, John
Corry Moutray (1771-1859), who also built the present house in 1824-25 after the old mansion
was destroyed in an accidental fire in 1823. Seriously damaged by a fire in 2011 and now
abandoned, the later house was commissioned in 1824 from the Dublin-based architect John
Hargrave, and completed in 1825 with freestone quarried nearby (original plans of the house
survive). It is a square two-and-a-half to three-storey roughly square triple-pile main block, north
facing, in an austere Tudor Gothic style that extended to its interior. Extending eastwards from
the south-east corner is long and much lower two-storey L-shaped service wing and a much
smaller single-storey projection to the north-east. The large label-moulded windows display
Perpendicular Gothic tracery, its entrance elevation is three bay with a central castellated porte-
cochère; the garden front is five bays, where the drawing room has a central single-storey
crenellated canted bay window. The house has a long attached stable range with yard to the east,
also built at the same time as the house and subsequently unaltered, though both now lie
abandoned and on the Heritage at Risk Register. Further east is the weigh house and pigsty (HB
13/03/025) and beyond that lies the farm yard (HB 13/03/027) – a relatively large, irregular-
shaped yard with the south-west side skewed formed of ranges of rubble buildings of various
dates incorporating various elliptical and segmental-headed carriage arches and doorways, all
now abandoned, roofless and partly overgrown. Following John Corry’s death in 1859, the
demesne passed to his son, Anketell II (1797-1869), after whose death Favour Royal was inherited
by his brother, Rev. John James Moutray (1802-86), who left it to his fourth son, Anketell III (1844-
1927), who had the misfortune of being attacked and kidnapped at Favour Royal during the
troubles of 1922. His son, Anketell Gerald Moutray (b.1882) died in 19[?], but his widow
continued to reside in the house until her death at the beginning of 1975. To that date the house,
outbuildings, walled garden and park all survived remarkably intact. The park was noted for its
deciduous woodland and parkland trees; Robert Young in 1909 mentioned the presence then of
‘fine old trees still standing of two hundred years’ growth’. South of the house still stands a large
ash tree and near it an unusual variegated ash. In 1976 the house and grounds were sold, with
Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020
the Department of Agriculture (Forestry Service) acquiring most of the land, and Mr. Herbert Craig
acquiring the house and a smaller area of ground. The house was put up for sale again in 1994,
but has remained vacant and was damaged in a malicious fire in April 2011. Much of the demesne
was heavily planted by DAERA (Forest Service) with forest trees. SMR: TYR 59:63 rath and 64, an
enclosure.
Irish Historic Houses 