Loughgall Manor, County 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. 193.  “(Cope/LGI1912) A two storey, mildly Tudor-Revival house of ca 1840, with many gables, some of them with bargeboards. Windows with simple wooden mullions; hood-mouldings over ground floor windows of main block. Lower service wing at one side, also many gables, with pointed windows in upper storeys.” 

http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2015/03/loughgall-manor.html

THE COPES WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY ARMAGH, WITH 9,367 ACRES 

 
ANTHONY COPE, of Portadown, County Armagh, younger brother of Walter Cope, of Drumilly, and grandson of Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet, of Hanwell, wedded Jane, daughter of the Rt Rev Thomas Moigne, Lord Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, by whom he had an only son, 
 
THE VERY REV ANTHONY COPE (1639-1705), Dean of Elphin, who wedded his second cousin, Elizabeth, daughter and eventual heiress of Henry Cope, of Loughgall, and granddaughter of Anthony Cope, of Armagh, who was second son of Sir Anthony Cope, 1st Baronet, of Bramshill. 
 
The Dean left, with other issue, a son and heir, 
 
ROBERT COPE (1679-1753), of Loughgall, MP for Armagh County, 1713-14 and 1727-53, who espoused firstly, in 1701, Letitia, daughter of Arthur Brownlow, of Lurgan, who dsp; and secondly, in 1707, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Fownes Bt, of Woodstock, by whom he had, with other issue, 

Anthony (Very Rev), Dean of Armagh; 

ARTHUR, of whom hereafter. 

Mr Cope’s younger son, 
 
ARTHUR COPE, of Loughgall, wedded, in 1761, Ellen Osborne, and had issue, 

ROBERT CAMDEN, his heir; 

Kendrick, lieutenant-colonel, died unmarried 1827; 

Emma; Elizabeth; 

Mary, m Col R Doolan, and had 2 sons: RWC Doolan (cope); KH Doolan. 

The elder son, 
 
ROBERT CAMDEN COPE (c1771-1818), of Loughgall, MP for County Armagh, 1801-2, Lieutenant-Colonel, Armagh Militia, married Mary, daughter of Samuel Elliott, Governor of Antigua, and had an only son, 
 
ARTHUR COPE (1814-44), of Loughgall; who dsp, and bequeathed his estates to his cousin, 
 
ROBERT WRIGHT COPE DOOLAN JP DL (1810-58), of Loughgall Manor, who assumed the surname and additional arms of COPE in 1844. 
 
He espoused, in 1848, Cecilia Philippa, daughter of Captain Shawe Taylor, of County Galway, and had issue, 

FRANCIS ROBERT, DL (1853-) his heir; 
Albinia Elizabeth; Emma Sophia; Helen Gertrude. 

*****  

 
In 1610, the Plantation of Ulster came into effect under the auspices of JAMES I. 

The manors of Loughgall and Carrowbrack in County Armagh were granted to Lord Saye and Sele. 
 
In 1611 he sold these lands to Sir Anthony Cope Bt, of which 3,000 acres were represented by the manor of Loughgall. 
 
The manor of Loughgall was divided between two branches of the Cope family, being known as The Manor House and Drummilly. 

THE MANOR, LOUGHGALL, County Armagh, is a two-storey, mildly Tudor-Revival house of ca 1840 with numerous gables, some of which have barge-boards. 

 
The windows have simple wooden mullions; and there are also hood-mouldings over ground-floor windows of the main block. 
 
A lower service wing is at one side, gabled, with pointed windows in the upper storey. 

 
The gabled entrance porch, in Gothic-Revival style, looks like a work of the 1850-70s and may be a later addition. 
 
While the tree-lined avenue leading from the main street of the village was indicated on a map of 1834, the gateway and lodges, and the main house were not; nor was the house referred to by Lewis in 1837. 
 
The main gates were manufactured in 1842, according to their inscription, which accords with that of the manor-house, although there is no architectural similarity between the gateway and lodges and the main house. 

 
The Yew Walk, to the north of the Manor House, also seemsto be indicated on a map of 1835. 
 
One branch of the family subsequently lived in Drumilly House, situated to the east of the lough, which was demolished in 1965, while the other lived in the Manor House. 
 
The manor-house was purchased from Field-Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, a relation of the original owners, by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1947. 
 
The Ministry began general farming operations in 1949, and in 1951 established a horticultural centre on the estate. 
 
In 1952, the Northern Ireland Plant Breeding Station, which had been founded by the Northern Ireland Government in 1922, was transferred to Loughgall. 
 
In 1987, the Horticultural Centre and Plant Breeding Station were amalgamated to form the Northern Ireland Horticultural and Plant Breeding Station; and in 1995 the station became part of the NI Department of Agriculture’sApplied Plant Science Division.  

***** 

 
THE VILLAGE of Loughgall developed slowly under the benign guidance of the Cope family, assuming a distinctly English appearance. 
 
During the 18th and early part of the 19th century, a number of houses were built in the elegant Georgian style of architecture. 

The two Cope families, of Loughgall Manor and Drumillyrespectively, did not take a very active part in politics; however, as residential landlords, they pursued a policy of agricultural development on their own estates and greatly encouraged the improvement and fertility of their tenants’ farms. 

Apple-growing over the past two centuries has become a major factor in the economic development of County Armagh, with  Loughgall at the heart of this important industry. 
 
To this day there is no public house in Loughgall. 
 
The Copes, at some stage in the past, actively discouraged the sale and consumption of alcohol by buying several public houses in the village and closing them down. 
 
In their place they established a coffee-house and reading-room. 
 
The Cope Baronets are now extinct in the male line. 
 
The last generation of both the Loughgall Manor and Drumilly families had daughters only. 
 
Of the Manor House family, a Miss Cope married a clergyman, the Rev Canon Sowter; while Ralph Cope, of Drumilly, had two daughters, one of whom, Diana, married Robin Cowdy of the local  Greenhall linen bleaching family at Summer Island. 
 
Both the Manor House and Drumilly estates were purchased by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture and now play a prominent part in testing and development in the horticultural field. 
 
Both estates remain intact and have not been developed for housing or industry; they form part of Loughgall Country Park. 
 
With considerable areas of mature woodland interspersed with orchards and cultivated fields, this area must surely be one of the most pleasant stretches of countryside in County Armagh. 
 
First published in August, 2010. 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/01/10/loughgall/

Loughgall, County Armagh is an exceptionally handsome and well-preserved village, laid out in the 18th century by the Cope family, who were resident landlords. It comprises one long street lined on either side with residences other than at one point where an extraordinary set of gates and gate houses announce entry to the Cope estate. The family had come to this part of the country in 1611, after land here was either granted by the crown or purchased by Sir Anthony Cope of Oxfordshire. He passed the property onto one of his younger sons, also called Anthony but the latter then sold part of the estate called Drumilly to a brother, Richard Cope, so that there were two branches of the same family living adjacent to each other. Drumilly was an exceptionally long house, its facade running to 228 feet, and comprised a central, two storey-over-basement block linked to similarly scaled pavilions by lower, six-bay wings; when Maria Edgeworth visited in 1844, she thought it ‘one of the most beautiful places I think I ever saw.’ Not long afterwards, a vast conservatory with curved front was added to the entrance. In the middle of the last century, the house and land came into the ownership of the Ministry of Agriculture and Drumilly was used as a grain store, with the result that it fell into disrepair. A contents auction was held in 1960 and six years later, the building was demolished; the Belfast MP Roy Bradford described this as ‘a Philistine Act of the most heinous irresponsibility embarking on a reckless course of artistic nihilism.’ Today nothing remains of the place, meaning only Loughgall survives to represent the former presence of the Copes in the area.  …

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

LOUGHGALL MANOR HOUSE, County Armagh (AP ARMAGH, BANBRIDGE & CRAIGAVON 03) 
A/025 
REGISTERED GRADE A 
The present Tudor-Revival county house (Listed HB 15/2/16) was built in 1874 on high ground 
above Lough Gall (35acres/14ha), its associated demesne (registered area 264acres/107ha) is 
essentially 18th-century in layout with 17th-century origins. The park lies on the east side of the 
village of the same name, 6.35 miles (10.2km) west of Portadown and is approached down an 
impressive lime avenue that leads up hill to the house, where there has been a house since 
around 1610 when Sir Anthony Cope (1548-1614) of Oxfordshire acquired through purchase these 
lands and built for his sons, Arthur and Walter, a ‘bawn of stone and lyme, a hundred and eighty 
foot square, and fourteen feet high, with four flankers and in three of them…very good 
lodgings…three storeys high…’. At some point before the 1650s the demesne had been split 
between Arthur and Walter Cope family, with Drumilly house (now lost) being established as 
Water’s branch of the family on the west side of the lake. The Loughgall Manor house, probably 
destroyed in the 1641 Rebellion, was evidently enlarged and re-built on several occasions, but 
unfortunately there is very poor documentation for the Copes in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 
the late 17th century the property belonged to the Rev. Anthony Cope (1639-1705), but as the 
Dean of Elphin he was most likely not resident very much; his eldest son Robert Cope (1679-1753) 
was a resident; furthermore, his mother was an heiress and he himself married well twice in the 
first decade of the century. Consequently, we can be reasonably certain that the formal 
landscape around the house was created by him in the first two decades of the 18th-century. This 
included the lime avenue, which extends with north-west south-east axis from the village to the 

house site, 1295ft (395m). At right angles to this was a an another avenue of yew trees, 
extending 855ft (260m) north-east south-west to the old Portadown-road and possibly aligned on 
the side of the house (this is not clear). The yew avenue ceased to be an approach in the early 
19th century, but still exists as a walk and comprises three ranks of trees each side. It is now 
known as ”Dean Swift’s Walk’, this being reflection on the fact that the famous dean stayed with 
Robert Cope, initially for a brief in 1717 and then for a month in 1722. At the time Robert was an 
anti-Whig, having served as MP in the reign of Anne but put under arrest by Parliament in 1715 
after her death, where Swift visited him. It was said that Cope at Loughgall ‘entertained that 
covetous lampooning dean much better than he deserved’. The house he would have stayed in 
seems from the Rocque’s County Armagh map of 1760 to have been an L-shaped block standing 
about 65-70ft (20m) further downslope closer to the junction between the two avenues. 
Rocque’s map also shows that the main line avenue (not clearly shown) was extended on the 
same axis to the south-east of the house for around 500m. Such a layout was entirely typical of 
the period; the surrounding demesne would have been geometrically divided up with tree-lined 
boundaries and around the house would have been a network of enclosures, walled or hedged, 
containing gardens and yards. Following Robert Cope’s death in 1753, the property was inherited 
by his son Arthur (d.1795) who was responsible for transforming Loughgall into a landscape park; 
the date is unknown but probably dates to the late 1760s or 1770s. It involved planting narrow 
shelter belts along the outside of the park to the Lissheffield-road and to the demesne wall west of a small stream from the lake that then separated Drumilly which belonged to the other branch 
of the Copes. Six small irregular woodland blocks were planted in the west sector of the park and 
a circuit drive; isolated trees were probably added later in the century. As an attraction on the 
drive a stone hermitage (Listed HB 15/22/027) was constructed on the west side of one of the 
woodland clumps close to the Drumilly boundary (but it was never part of Drumilly); it comprises 
a rubble structure built in characteristic rustic or grotesque manner into the side of a mound with 
a narrow arch entrance leading into a short passage (width 2ft 7in/79cm) that led in a roughly 
circular chamber (10ft/3m diameter) with a little window on one side; (frames were still in situ in 
the 1980s), a small fireplace facing the passage, which looks like a later insertion, and a domed 
brick roof with hexagonal opening and earth covering the dome; the structure a typical of the 
1760s and 1770s era and a rare survival in Ulster. Another feature from this phase of the park is 
the ice house (Listed HB 15/02/016C) which stood concealed in the park under a mound on the 
edge of another woodland block north-west of the house; it has a brick and rubble vaulted oblong 
chamber with short vaulted brick-lined passage with eastern facing rubble stone segmental arched opening. The location of the original kitchen garden for the Loughgall Manor in the later- 
18th century is not yet established; it may be added that the park in the adjoining demesne of 
Drumilly, port of which is now part of Loughgall Manor, was laid out in much the same time, 
possibly with same landscape designer. He carefully planted the edge of the lake so that tree 
screens allowed views across the water from Drumilly House and its approach drives towards the …