Blessingbourne, Fivemiletown, County Tyrone – open for tours, self catering accommodation on the grounds

https://www.blessingbourne.com/experience-blessingbourne/

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. 44. “(Montgomery/IFR) There was originally no house at Blessingbourne, an estate which came to the Montgomerys through marriage early in C18; the family seat being Derrygonnelly Castle in County Fermanagh, which was burnt later in C18 and not rebuilt. the family lived for some years at Castle Hume, which they rented; then, at the beginning of C19, a romantic thatched cottage was built by the side of the lough at Blessingbourne by Hugh Montgomery (known as Colonel Eclipse) as a bachelor retreat for himself after he had been crossed in love. His bachelorhood ended in 1821, when he married a Spanish girl; but during the next 50 years the family lived mainly abroad, so that his cottage was all they needed for their occasional visits to County Tyrone. The present Victorian Elizabethan house was built by his grandson, Hugh de Fellenberg Montgomery, between 1870 and 1874, to the design of F. Pepys Cockerell. Pepys Cockerell, son of the better-known C.R. Cockerell, as an artist as much as an architect; his patron and his patron’s wife were also people of tate; so that Blessingbourne is an unusually attractive and successful example of it style and period. The grey stone elevations are not overloaded with ornament; such as there is had restraint: caps on the chimneys, small finials on the gables, curved and scrolled pediments over some of the mullioned windows. The interior of the house is comfortable, with great character. The hall has a staircase incorporated in a screen of tapering wooden piers. Through glazed arches one looks across an inner hall to the lough and mountains. The principal rooms have chimneypieces of carved sone in a Tudor design, flanked by niches for logs: some of them being decorated with William de Morgan tiles. The dining room still keeps its original William Morris wallpaper of blue and green grapes and foliage; while there is another original Morris paper in the library. The late owner, Capt P. S. Montgomery, former President of th Northern Ireland Arts Council, stylishly redecorated much of the interior, which houses his collection of modern Irish art. Blessingbourne has passed to his nephew, Captain R.H.Lowry.” 

see https://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2014/10/blessingbourne.html

THE MONTGOMERYS OWNED 7,996 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTIES FERMANAGH AND TYRONE 

 
 
HUGH MONTGOMERY was settled at Derrybrusk, County Fermanagh, by his kinsman, the Rt Rev Dr George Montgomery, Lord Bishop of Clogher, about 1618, and was father of 
 
THE REV NICHOLAS MONTGOMERY (c1615-c1705), of Derrybrusk, Laureate of Glasgow University, 1634, Lieutenant in Sir James Montgomery’s Regiment, and afterwards Rector of Carrickmacross, County Monaghan. 
 
He left issue, with two younger sons (Robert, of Derrybrusk, Captain in the army, and Andrew, who succeeded his father as Rector of Carrickmacross), and a daughter, Catherine, who married Captain Alexander Acheson, an elder son, 
 
HUGH MONTGOMERY JP (1651-1723), of Derrygonnelly, Captain of Horse under WILLIAM III, who married Katherine, daughter and heir of Richard Dunbar, of Derrygonnelly (by his wife, Anna Catherina, daughter of Lars Grubbe Stjernfelt, a cousin of King Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, and widow of Ludovic Hamilton, Baron of Dalserf, in Sweden), and great-granddaughter of Sir John Dunbar, Knight, of the same place, and had issue, 

NICHOLAS; 
HUGH, of whom we treat; 
Richard, of Monea, Co Fermanagh; 
Sarah; Anne; Jane; Margaret; Sidney. 

Mr Montgomery’s eldest son, 

COLONEL NICHOLAS MONTGOMERY (1690-1763), of Derrygonnelly, married firstly, Angel, daughter and heir of William Archdall, of Castle Archdale, County Fermanagh, and assumed the surname of ARCHDALL. 
 
By his first wife he had issue, an only son, Mervyn, MP, of Castle Archdale. 
 
Colonel Montgomery wedded secondly, Sarah, daughter of ______ Spurling, of London, and had further issue, 

Robert; 
Richard; 
Nicholas; 
Edward; 
Catherine; Sarah; Augusta; Elizabeth. 

Hugh Montgomery’s second son, 
 
HUGH MONTGOMERY, of Derrygonnelly, wedded Elizabeth, daughter of the Ven William Armar, Archdeacon of Connor (by Martha his wife, daughter of Captain William Leslie, of Prospect), and sister of Colonel Margetson Armar (1700-73), of Castle Coole, County Fermanagh, and was father of Hugh Montgomery, of Castle Hume. 
 
Mr Montgomery died before 1760, leaving a son, 
 
HUGH MONTGOMERY (1739-97), of Castle Hume, who espoused, in 1778, Mary, daughter of Sir Archibald Acheson (afterwards 1st Viscount Gosford), and had issue, 

HUGH, his heir; 
Archibald Armar; 
Mary Millicent. 

Mr Montgomery was succeeded by his eldest son, 
 
HUGH MONTGOMERY (1779-1838), of Blessingbourne, Captain, 18th Dragoons, Lieutenant-Colonel, Fermanagh Militia, who married, in 1821, Maria Dolores Plink, of Malaga, Spain, and had an only son, 
 
HUGH RALPH SEVERIN MONTGOMERY (1821-44), of Blessingbourne, who wedded, in 1843, Maria, daughter of Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg, of Hofwyl, Switzerland, sometime Landmann of the Republic of Bern, and had issue, a son and heir,  
 
THE RT HON HUGH DE FELLENBERG MONTGOMERY JP DL (1844-1924), of Blessingbourne, High Sheriff of County Fermanagh, 1871, Tyrone, 1888, Captain, Fermanagh Militia, who espoused, in 1870, Mary Sophia Juliana, youngest daughter of the Hon and Rev John Charles Maude, Rector of Enniskillen, and had issue, 

HUGH MAUDE DE FELLENBERG, his heir; 

Archibald Armar (Sir), GCB etc, Field-Marshal; 

Geoffrey Cornwallis; 

Francis Trevilian; 

(Charles) Hubert (Sir), KCMG etc; 

Maurice William de Fellenberg; 

Walter Ashley; 

Ralph Noel Vernon; 

Mary Millicent. 

Mr Montgomery was succeeded by his eldest son, 

MAJOR-GENERAL HUGH MAUDE DE FELLENBERG MONTGOMERY CB CMG (1870-1954), of Blessingbourne, who married, in 1894, Mary, second daughter of Edmund Langton, and Mrs Massingberd, of Gunby, Lincolnshire, and had issue, 

Hugh Edmund Langton (1895-1971); 
PETER STEPHEN, of whom hereafter; 
Mary Langton; Elizabeth; Anne. 

The younger son, 
 
PETER STEPHEN MONTGOMERY JP DL (1909-88), of Blessingbourne, Vice Lord-Lieutenant of County Tyrone, died unmarried. 

BLESSINGBOURNE HOUSE, near Fivemiletown, County Tyrone, is an Elizabethan-Revival style manor housebuilt between 1870-74. 
 
It comprises two storeys and an attic storey. 
 
The windows are multi-gabled and mullioned, with carved, round chimney stacks.   
 
Located just north of Fivemiletown in County Tyrone, much of the estate was in the neighbouring county of Fermanagh.  

Blessingbourne passed to the Montgomery family through marriage to the Armor family early in the 18th century. 
 
This is a Regency period demesne, created for a modest dwelling of 1810, referred to as, ‘a romantic thatched cottage’ built as a bachelor pad for Hugh Montgomery.  
 
When the family left County Fermanagh their former seat was Derrygonnelly Castle, which was burnt in the late 18thcentury.  
 
Hugh Montgomery, known as ‘Colonel Eclipse’, married in 1821 and travelled abroad, needing the cottage only for very occasional visits. 
 
The present house is considerably more substantial. 
 
It is a large restrained Elizabethan style manor-house designed by F Pepys Cockerell and built between 1870-74 for Hugh de Fellenberg Montgomery, grandson of Hugh. 

Its grey stone elevations overlook a natural lough, Lough Faddaand is surrounded by a present-day garden around former sunken lawns, Fastigate yews and a gravel terrace, vestiges of the garden made for the present house. 

A planted area and lawns on the south east side, which leads to the lough, is now a grazing field. 
 
Views were opened up in the 1960s. 
 
There is also a late 19th century rhododendron walk. 
 
There are fine mature woodland and parkland trees. 
 
A walk through the woods goes round the lake; a lake walk, via a rockery.  
 
There is public access in the woods and the Ulster Wildlife Trust undertakes some management here.  
 
This wood dates from the time of the present house. 
 
The boat house and summer house have gone. 
 
The part-walled garden is partly cultivated and dates from the time of the first dwelling.  
 
The Gardener’s House was replaced by a bungalow in the 1970s. 

There is a delightful little Tudor-style gate lodge, built ca 1845 by Hugh Ralph Severin Montgomery after he succeeded to the property in 1838. 
 
Major-General Hugh Montgomery’s brother was Field-Marshal Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd. 
 
Peter Montgomery, former president of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, stylishly redecorated much of the interior at Blessingbourne. 
 
In December, 2007, the Daily Telegraph published an obituary of Hugh (Montgomery) Massingberd:  
 

“. . . He was born Hugh John Montgomery at Cookham Dean, in Berkshire, on December 30, 1946. His father was in the Colonial Service and later worked for the BBC; his mother was a “Leftward-leaning schoolmistress”.  
 
His remoter background, however, was distinctly grand, even if it promised a great deal more than it delivered.The Montgomerys, seated at Blessingbourne in Co Tyrone, were a Protestant Ascendancy family, albeit exceptionally conscious of the need to right the wrongs suffered by Roman Catholics.  
 
In his youth Hugh stayed at the Montgomerys’ pseudo-Elizabethan (actually 1870) pile in the full expectation that one day it would be his. There was a strong military tradition in the family. Hugh’s paternal grandfather was Major-General Hugh Montgomery, while his great-uncle, the major-general’s younger brother, ended his career as Field Marshal Sir Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, Chief of the Imperial General Staff from 1933 to 1936   
 
. . As a teenager, Hugh seemed to add substance to his dreams when he went to stay with his Uncle Peter at Blessingbourne. Peter Montgomery was something of a figure in Ulster, to such a degree that his homosexuality, at that date unknown to Hugh, did not prevent him from becoming Vice-Lord Lieutenant of Tyrone 
 
… It was, therefore, a shattering blow to be told in his mid-teens that a cousin who intended to be a farmer would inherit Blessingbourne. This youth, it was judged, would be better qualified than Hugh to return the estate to order after years of benign neglect under Peter Montgomery”. 

 
The estate was eventually inherited by Captain Robert Lowry, a great-great grandson of Colonel Hugh Montgomery.  
 
I recall Captain Lowry voluntarily “skippering” the Duke of Westminster’s motor yacht, Trasna, on loan to the National Trust ca 1988 at Crom estate: 

The Grosvenors, Dukes of Westminster,  had a beautiful, classic, wooden motor yacht which they used to keep at Ely Lodge. It was called Trasna; it was the finest vessel I’d ever seen on Lough Erne. It was about fifty feet in length and held sixteen persons in comfort. Trasnasported a magnificent kind of figurehead on her bow: a golden sheaf, or bundle, of wheat (or corn). The vessel was acquired by the National Trust for a short period before acquisition by the Duke of Abercorn for Belle Isle.  

Colleen and Nicholas Lowry today operate self-catering apartments on the estate. 
 
First published in December, 2009. 

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

BLESSINGBOURNE (ANNAGH), County Tyrone (AP MID ULSTER 10) T/007 
REGISTERED GRADE A 
Regency park in the Picturesque-tradition (219 acres/88.8ha) created around 1800-3 for a 
gentlemen’s seat in the thatched cottage orné style, later built around 1810, on the north-east side 
of Fivemiletown and 5.85 miles (9.4km) south-west of Clogher. Also known as ‘Annagh 
Demesne’, the Regency cottage was subsequently replaced in 1874 on a de novo location by the 
present large Elizabethian-style mansion (Listed HB 13/01/003A). The original house, referred to 
as, ‘a romantic thatched cottage’ was in a central location in the park looking south over a natural 
lake, Lough Fadda (18.8 acres/7.6ha). Both it and the park created as an occasional residence for 
Col. Hugh Montgomery (1779-1838), known as ‘Colonel Eclipse’ – a widely travelled man, who 
lived a carefree bachelor until 1821. He inherited the property from his father in 1797, Hugh 
Montgomery (1739-97) of Castle Hume, whose uncle, Col. Margetson Armar (d.1773), had 
purchased the Fivemiletown estate in 1731. Col. Armar left the property to his nephew, who went 
on to develop Fivemiletown itself, but never actually lived there. The cottage, of 1810, described 

Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020 
in the 1830s OS Memoirs as ‘a very neat building built in the cottage style’, had an L-plan, with the 
main house being 1½-storey rectangular three-bay building with bowed ends, steep thatched 
roof, large reception rooms with large windows that extended close to the ground. A projecting 
bay with three windows served as the entrance in the centre and the attic floor was lit, not by 
dormers but by windows in the bowed gable ends. As was often typical of Regency gentleman’s 
‘cottages’ (for example at Castlewellan), there rere service wing was a full two storey range; this 
was linked to the slated stables and offices to the rere, part of which survives within the present 
stable yard (Listed HB 13/01/003B). The present large rectilinear partly walled garden (1.76 
acres/0.71ha), which lies around 120m north-east of the cottage, appears to have been built at 
the same time as the cottage. The ground slopes steeply up to the north-west and it is walled on 
the north. It is sheltered and gets the sun all day. Maps do not show any buildings associated 
with the garden until the 1870s when lean-to glasshouses are built onto the south-west facing 
wall with ranges of potting sheds to the rere. The head gardener’s house was close to these 
glasshouses, replaced in 1970s by a modern bungalow. During World War 2 the walled garden 
was intensively farmed; prior to this it had a notable extensive flower garden with bedding at the 
south-west on either side of the path and rose pergolas apart from a large fruit and vegetable 
garden. The gardens are mentioned in Robinson’s Garden Annual & Almanac of 1908, p 236. 
Today the garden is largely under grass; one glasshouses survives with the bases of other visible, 
while in this immediate area are beds with some flowers and fruit. The garden is still approached 
from the house by a rhododendron walk. A feature of the Regency park was a belt of trees 
screening and protecting the southern flank of the garden; this important belt survives, though 
broken in more recent years by a poorly sited tennis court. This screen still extends down to the 
lake, where it formerly met with the eastern demesne perimeter screen, now submerged into 
forestry plantations. The most substantial woodlands in the original park,. which largely survives, 
was border the west and north-west side of the lake and extending as perimeter planting 
alongside the Aghingow-road northwards. This enclosed the ‘lawn’ between the cottage and the 
lake, planted, as was the Regency fashion, with isolated parkland trees. The planting of the park, 
which was begun in 1800-02 some time before the cottage, from the outset extended beyond the 
Aghinglow-road to the Murley-road; it was almost certainly the intention at the time to close the 
Aghinglow-road, but this never happened. After Col. Hugh Montgomery’s death in 1838, the 
property passed to his son Hugh Ralph Severin Montgomery (1821-44), following whose untimely 
demise it was left to his infant son Hugh De Fellenberg Montgomery (1844-1924). In his short 
tenure Hugh Ralph Severin, did have time to built a pretty Tudor style gate lodge (Listed HB 
13/01/006) at the main entrance along Aghinglow-road (recently renovated). He came of age in 
1865 and married in 1870 (Mary S.J. Maude) and that same year commissioned his friend the 
architect Frederick Pepys Cockerell (1833-78) to design a new much grander seat on a height to 
the south of the original dwelling. The style chosen, described at the time as ‘Elizabethian’, is a 
two and a half-storey mansion with an irregular plan with a roughly rectangular main block and a 
relatively large single-storey section to the north-east. AS finished in 1874, it has squared stone 
walls, ashlar dressings, various gabled bays, parapets, finely-cut finials and an array of large 
mullioned and transomed windows. The de-facto front faces north-west with a memorable 
doorway whose concave pediment has an armorial fist with dagger as a finial and ‘spandrel’ 
panels with hounds in relief. A wide gravel terrace, edged by urns flanks the house and at south- 
west end ther is a large flat terrace, probably designed as a croquet-lawn, but later adapted as a 
tennis-court. From the south-east facade and leading downhill from the terrace towards Lough 
Fadda is a straight, formal path, also contemporary with the house. On either side there were 
once lawns with shrubs in groups. About 1964 evergreens and rhododendrons were removed to 
allow a clear view. There are also fine chestnut and lime trees in the area south-west of the 
house. South of the house, on the south shore of Lough Fadda there was a rockery with 2 small 
ponds, ornamental footbridges and a summer house; one of the bridges has been replaced by 
planks. The rockery’s large rocks remain and there is a path through them. At the gate lodge, 

Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest (NI) – November 2020 
which has its own garden with clipped hedges and topiary, including a topiary chair, an attractive, 
partly-clipped, mature weeping beech tree with a seat underneath it and, near the ‘Cottage,’ a 
weeping ash. At the east of Lough Fadda, where there is now woodland, may have been the 
position of the wild garden or wilderness, which had become overgrown before World War 2. 
There are also some fine, older, mature trees here. Hugh De Fellenberg Montgomery, who 
became a prominent Unionist and sat as a senator in the Stormont Parliament from 1922, died in 
1924. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Major-General Hugh Maude De Fellenberg 
Montgomery (1870-1954). During the WW2 the demesne was occupied by the American Army’s 
8th Field Artillery Regiment – commemorated today by a recent oak sapling. In 1954 the property 
passed to the younger son, Peter Stephen Montgomery (1909-1988) and then to a cousin Capt. 
Robert Lowry, with whose descendants it remains. The property now serves as a venue for 
weddings, with the former outbuildings converted to self-catering accommodation and business 
use, as well as a small carriage and costume museum. There is also a mountain bike trail within 
the grounds. Two enclosures, probably raths, on the site SMR: TYR 64:27 and 28. Privately 
owned.