Walled Garden, Crom Castle Estate, Newtownbutler, Co. Fermanagh, BT92 8AP

Walled Garden, Crom Castle Estate

A massive walled garden of approximately 7.5 hectares, no longer in use but retaining its original scale and form. Built between 1820 and 1839, it was laid out by John Crichton, third Earl of Erne in 1832, around the same time as the castle itself was being constructed. The garden is set at the western shore of Inisherk Island on the Crom Castle Estate and accessed from the mainland by White Bridge. Walled gardens of this type are now comparatively rare in Northern Ireland.

The garden is completely enclosed by a high wall with curved corners. All walls are constructed of brick, with those to the north and west faced with limestone rubble. The southern wall has been mostly reconstructed. A ha-ha runs along the southern and eastern sides. The perimeter wall features notably decorative cast-iron entrance gates. The eastern face is of hand-made brick (now badly weathered) with external pilasters and a central entrance flanked by two square-section piers with pyramidal caps, the gate itself being a highly decorative cast-iron scroll and leaf design. The southern face is similarly detailed with a highly decorative wrought-iron gate of scrolling design radiating from a central axis, with a wider entrance towards the western end lacking gates. The western face is faced with rubble limestone masonry brought to courses and has no openings, with oversailing brick coping throughout.

Three lean-to outbuildings abut the northern face, formerly potting sheds added in 1833-34. Each comprises multiple bays with monopitched natural slate roofs sloping to the north. All are constructed of random limestone rubble with advanced brick eaves, and all windows and doors have brick heads. The westernmost block comprises two bays and includes a yellow brick chimney at the party wall with the garden. Its northern face has a timber tripartite window to the left bay and a door to the right bay, with additional doorways to the left and right cheeks (the right infilled). A sunken metal boiler survives in the right bay. A sliding timber doorway between the first and second blocks provides access to the garden. The central block comprises five bays and formerly contained an internal upper floor now gone. The easternmost block is four rooms wide and includes an open front supported on three timber posts. At its eastern end, an ornate pair of wrought-iron gates encloses a nursery garden area. A cast-iron water tank supported on a tubular steel frame stands between the second and third blocks.

The garden originally contained a row of glasshouses along the northern wall, of which only one remains at the western end. This is a low sunken structure with vestiges of a pitched roof over a brick base wall, most glass now gone. Internally it retains the remains of a full-length draining-bench constructed from decorative cast-iron plates along the southern wall, with two large cast-iron pipes on each elevation. Planting beds are of brick with stone coping. Ghost marks on the northern garden wall indicate the former positions of potting sheds. At the centre of the garden is a circular pond enclosed by an octagonal brick wall, recently rebuilt, with openings to the north and south. It is now overgrown but was previously covered with an octagonal glass-house.

The garden was formally laid out in 1832, with potting sheds added in 1833-34 (shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map along with the garden itself). Hot-houses were added in 1835 and a lime kiln in 1876, both now demolished. All but one of the greenhouses were demolished several decades ago. Despite its decline, the garden remains an important part of Crom's building stock and an attractive example set on the island overlooking Lough Erne.