Killyfaddy, Clogher, 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. 172. “(Ancketill/IFR) A Georgian house with pillared porch.” 

see https://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2015/07/killyfaddy-manor.html 

THE MAXWELLS OWNED 2,818 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY TYRONE 

 
FITZAMELINE MAXWELL ANKETELL JP (1825-1905), of Killyfaddy, County Tyrone, fourth son of William Ancketell JP DL, of ANKETELL GROVE, County Monaghan, by Sarah his wife, second daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel John C F Waring-Maxwell, of FINNEBROGUE, County Down, married, in 1859, Laura Valetta, second daughter and co-heiress of Henry Ranking, of Eaglehurst, Bathford, Somerset, and had issue, 
 

REGINALD (1861-1937), died unmarried; 
Henry (1803-4); 
Charlemont Fitz-Ameline (1872-1947), died unmarried; 
Maud Mary (1870-82). 

Mr FitzAmeline Maxwell Anketell succeeded to the estate of his maternal uncle, Robert Waring-Maxwell JP, on the death of Mrs Waring-Maxwell in 1877. 
 KILLYFADDY MANOR, near Clogher, County Tyrone, was purchased in the late 18th century by Major-General Edward Maxwell, of Finnebrogue, County Down. 
 
The family of Cairnes were titular Lords of the Manors of Killyfaddy and Cecil in County Tyrone. 
 
The present manor house is was built ca 1827 in Classical-Georgian style for Robert Waring-Maxwell to designs of William Farrell. 
 
It comprises two storeys over a basement, with a portico of four Ionic columns. 
 
The entrance porch has a tripartite window above it;  other fenestration has straight, top sashes. 
 
There are string and band coursed, demarcating floors; and a double hipped, slate roof. 
 
The Northern Ireland Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest states that, 
 

There are outbuildings set in parkland with mature trees. A document of 1833-35 declared that “It is surrounded by recent plantations, which the proprietor is constantly enlarging.“  

The setting is very attractive, with the house set high above a man-made lake and backed by wooded hills.  

The modern garden at the house is well maintained. The walled garden is not kept and is used for stock. One disused gate lodge of three survives, the West Lodge ca 1830. 

Killyfaddy Manor is now privately owned. 
 
First published in July, 2015. 

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

KILLYFADDY MANOR, County Tyrone (AP MID ULSTER 10) T/065 
REGISTERED GRADE B 
Regency-era parkland (176.2 acres/71.2ha) with house of 1822-24 (Listed HB 13/02/005) with 
good outbuildings, 2.1 miles (3.4km) north-west of Clogher and 6.4 miles (10.4km) south-east of 
Fintona. Attractive setting with backdrop of wooded hills, artificial lake and mature parkland 
trees, this place was admired by Atkinson as early as 1833. Much of which we see today was 
created in the early decades of the 19th century, but its origins go back to the early 17th century 
when William Glegge was granted the proportion (2,000 acres) of ‘Derrybard and Killany’ in 1609. 
Glegg sold his holdings to Sir Anthony Cope in 1611, whose son Sir Richard, was re-granted the 
Killany part of this holding in 1630 as the ‘Manor of Killyfaddy’. There is no historic evidence for a 
dwelling here by this time though there is a record that ‘the manor’ was sold in 1640 to brothers 
John (d.c.1675), Robert (d.1669) and David Cairnes (d.c.1675), who were based in Donegal. The 
property here remained in the ownership of various members of the Cairnes family until 1781 
when ‘the Manor and Lands of Killyfaddy and its several sub-denominations’ were put up for sale. 
At some stage subsequent to this John Waring Maxwell (d.1802) of Finnebrogue, Co.. Down 
bought the property, but David Cairnes must have been permitted to stay as he died ‘at his house, 
Killyfaddy’ in August 1819. Killyfaddy had been inherited by J.W. Waring’s second son, Robert 
Warring Maxwell (1790-1855), was resident at Killyfaddy in 1821 when he married Isabella, 
daughter of John Corry Moutray of Favour Royal. Soon after his marriage, possibly the same year, 
a new house at Killyfaddy was commissioned from the Dublin architect William Farrell, possibly 
inspired by the work at Colebrooke (1820-23). The same contractors were engaged, Thomas 
Colbourne of Dublin and Richard Richards of Roscommon, and the two buildings overlapped, as 
the contractors were accused in court of moving materials from one site to the other. The house, 
probably finished by 1824, is a solid three bay, two-storey over basement classical-style house 
with squared rubble walls and a slated hipped roof on dentilled brackets. The three-bay front has 
an Ionic porch, the windows either side being set within shallow full-height recesses, with the 

Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020 
central window over the porch tripartite, with cut-stone mullions with scrolled brackets 
supporting a hood moulding. Originally there was a large return to the north side of the building, 
whilst there was a long narrow late 19th-century range on the immediate north-west of the 
house, cleared away in recent years. The parkland, which was professionally designed, 
incorporated extensive deciduous plantations, which the OS Memoirs in the 1833 stated the 
‘proprietor is constantly enlarging’ and at the time ‘amounted to 83 and a half statute acres, 
namely 35 and a half acres in Killyfaddy, 19 and a half in Aghadrummin, 14 acres 16 perches in 
Carntallmore, 8 acres 16 perches in Mallaberry’. The planting did not take the normal form of 
continuous perimeter belts enclosing parkland, but rather large continuous sinuous woodland 
blocks, mostly interlinked, extending around the park to the road boundaries on the south and 
east and beyond the Aghafad-road to the west where there were extensive blocks, so much so it 
is perhaps surprising Aghafad-road was not closed and incorporated into the park as so often 
happened. Sadly many of these woodland today have now gone. An important feature of the 
park was an irregularly-shaped artificial lake (9.67 acres/3.9ha) to the east of the house; it had a 
circular island at the south end and there was a walk along part of its southern shore.; the north- 
western part of this lake is now just marshy ground. Its construction is referred to in a memoir of 
1833-5 ‘At a great expense and much labour he [Robert Waring Maxwell] has formed an artificial 
sheet of ornamental waters on the east side of the house, covering about 8 acres with a small 
island in the centre which is planted’. A sluice at the east of the artificial lake controls the water. 
The kitchen garden (1.74 acres/0.7ha) lies directly to the west of the house, being an almost 
square, partly-walled garden. It seems that in recent times there was one wall (the north?) and 
hedges on the other 3 sides; it may once all have been walled; its western boundary has been 
removed in recent years. Parallel to the northern perimeter is a double brick hot wall with pegs 
and 3 extant fireplaces. The remains of a garden house are at the north-east corner and close-by 
the remains free-standing glass house. The OS six-inch maps of 1834 and 1858 shows the garden 
divided into 4 equal panels with a central probably decorative circular feature. The area is now 
grazed with the adjacent field to the west. On its north side is a rectangular farm yard, which is 
later than the house, park and walled garden and was built possibly in the 1840s; it has large two- 
storey ranges that now contain a dwelling or dwellings. After Robert Warring Maxwell’s death in 
1855, the property passed to his nephew, Fitz Ameline Maxwell Anketell (1825-1905), who in turn 
left it to his eldest son, Reginald (1861-1937). The property was sold around 1960. Modern rather 
intrusive farm buildings have been built north of the house yard in recent years and an equestrian 
exercise ring beyond. One disused overgrown gate lodge of three survives, the South-West Lodge 
c.1830, opposite the Aghintain-road; the other two lodges have gone. The house is private. SMR: 
TYR 58:16 enclosure and SMR7/TYR58:016, claimed (wrongly) as a crannog.