Ha-ha, Rosemount House, Greyabbey, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2QA

Ha-ha, Rosemount House, Greyabbey

A ha-ha or sunken fence forming an important part of the 18th century landscape setting of Rosemount House. It comprises a stone revetment to one side and a grassy earthen bank to the other side of a sunken driveway, designed to allow an uninterrupted view of the parkland from the main house.

The structure runs along the north-east side of Rosemount House, between the lawn adjacent to the house and the parkland beyond. The stone retaining wall maintains the lawn level whilst the grassy bank sits on the parkland side. The stone revetments and grassy bank extend in a straight run from a footbridge spanning the sunken driveway to a point level with the south-east end of the house. Within this section, views from house to parkland remain largely uninterrupted except where trees or shrubs have been cultivated. Part of the stone revetment has been replaced by concrete blockwork at a point where the main lawn begins, just south of the footbridge, but the masonry immediately in front of the main house remains intact.

North-west of the footbridge, the stone retaining wall continues towards the outbuildings and is paired with a rendered wall on the opposite side of the sunken driveway. South-east of the main ha-ha, the stone retaining wall continues until reaching a gateway roughly level with the sundial in the garden. Some of the stone walling has collapsed in this area. The surface of the sunken drive is soft and muddy in parts and hard and grassy in others. Beyond the gateway, the sunken driveway continues at normal ground level with wire fences to each side, except for a rubble stone boundary wall at its eastern extremity.

The ha-ha was built for the Montgomery family of Rosemount (Grey Abbey House). The precise date is unknown, but it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and was probably constructed in the mid-to-late 18th century as part of the garden setting for Rosemount House, which was rebuilt from the 1760s onwards. The structure was deliberately intended to allow an uninterrupted view from the main house to the parkland or pasture-land beyond the lawn. Between the first Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and the second of 1858, a masonry footbridge was erected to link the lawn with the parkland, spanning the sunken driveway and incorporated within the ha-ha. An early 19th century watercolour drawing of the ruins of Grey Abbey as viewed from Rosemount House, held in the collection of the Ulster Museum, shows a path on the edge of a lawn, though it remains uncertain whether the line of the ha-ha is depicted.

The ha-ha lies within the demesne of Rosemount House between a well-kept garden and extensive parkland or pasture-land, forming an integral element of the garden layout and group value within the landscape setting of the house.