Old Mountjoy, 205 Gortin Road, Mountjoy Forest East Division, Gortin, Co. Tyrone, BT79 7JQ

Old Mountjoy is an asymmetrical, two- and three-storey, multi-bay castellated country house built around 1780 and substantially remodelled around 1820. It sits on the east side of Gortin Road on the slopes of Mullaghcarn, within an extensive wooded demesne in Mountjoy Forest.

The house is generally L-shaped on plan, with projections, some gabled sections, and a three-stage square tower. The roof is pitched natural slate, hipped in parts, with angled ridge tiles and leaded hip caps. Rainwater goods are concealed behind crenellated parapets. Chimneys are varied — some ashlar, some rendered — and include both rectangular and circular forms, several with corbelled and serrated caps. The walling combines ruled-and-lined render with ashlar stonework, and there is a rubble stone conical tower at the west end.

Windows to the upper floors, gables, and tower are round-headed timber sashes with Y-tracery, some grouped in threes and fours sharing a single timber frame, others separated by plain masonry mullions, and some single lights; all have label moulds. Ground-floor windows are square-headed, and some uPVC replacements are evident. All windows have projecting masonry sills. The principal elevation faces north, where the entrance is approached by three moulded stone steps, and the door is panelled with a drip moulding over the lintel. A hexagonal turret sits at the north-west corner, and round turrets appear at the quoins of a projecting gable on the south front.

The house is set within an extensive wooded demesne and is approached from the south-west by a long winding drive lined with mature trees and surrounded by forest. The entrance from the main road has cement-rendered, alcoved, castellated walls with double cast-iron gates. There is a gravel forecourt to the north front, and outbuildings are evident to the north-east.

The house was built by Luke Gardiner, the first Lord Mountjoy, or possibly by his father, Charles Gardiner of Rash House, who was MP for Taghmon in County Wexford. It began as a modest five-bay, two-storey dwelling. Around 1780, Luke Gardiner — described by contemporaries as a patriot improver — began planting trees across the estate with the assistance of John McEvoy, author of the statistical survey of County Tyrone. By 1802, the planted area covered 927 acres of what was then one of the largest plantations in Ireland, comprising around 3,000 acres in total. The actor Charles Matthews is said to have helped in laying out details of the plantation.

On Lord Mountjoy's death in 1798, the estate passed to his son Charles John, who became the Earl of Blessington. The Earl carried out what were described as grandiose schemes on the estate. A small theatre was constructed in the forest — possibly housed in the west wing, of which only a fragment now survives. The original cottage received a miscellany of castellated additions, described as having all the character of amateur work. A long range was added to the north-east. At the west end of the old house, a great room was built at a higher level, featuring a Gothic plasterwork cornice and a large mullioned window in a turreted gable end. The drawing room at the centre of the old house was given an Ionic marble fireplace and plaster ceiling decoration of oak and laurel garlands. It is this complicated, accretive composition — with its crenellated parapets, decorative chimneystacks, arched and mullioned sash windows, and irregular staggered layout — that survives today.

When the Royal Navy surgeon Thomas Reid visited in 1822, he rode through the park and demesne of the Earl of Blessington and noted that they were "rich and well laid out, but not kept in the best order." The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the house as an inferior erection in which "room has been added to room" without forming any regular suite, and note that the owner kept a small pack of hounds and introduced an annual race in the demesne.

The building appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 labelled "the cottage," and on the third edition of 1905–6 as "Mountjoy Cottage." Griffith's Valuation of 1858 assessed the house at £25, with a marginal note recording that it was purchased that year for £2,110, and that the house and offices were at that point vacant and in bad repair. The valuation was increased to £28 in 1861.

In 1876, the house became the seat of the Right Honourable Sir William Grey Ellison-Macartney, sometime Governor of Tasmania and Western Australia and Member of Parliament for Tyrone. The property passed from the Macartney family to Mr Dickie in 1918.

While some windows have been replaced with uPVC, the overall character of the house remains largely intact. Old Mountjoy is a significant example of a large property that developed in response to successive fashions in architecture and landscape design, and that was home to a family of considerable public importance.