Walled Garden, Belle Isle, Lisbellaw, Co Fermanagh

Walled Garden at Belle Isle, Lisbellaw

This walled garden covers approximately 1.5 hectares and lies north-east of the house and yard. It has a long rectangular plan oriented north-east to south-west.

The garden is enclosed by stone walls approximately 14 feet (4.30 metres) high, constructed of random stone rubble with an internal lining of brick laid in Flemish Garden Wall bond. This brick lining was standard practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, allowing the wall to absorb the sun's heat to ripen fruit. The walls are topped with stone coping that has minimal overhang except along the outside of the south wall. A roughly 10-metre stretch of the west wall at the north end has collapsed in recent years.

The main entrance to the garden is located in the centre of the south wall, formed by a segmental-headed arched opening with cement lining. This contains double doors of relatively modern construction with lattice framing, opening onto the main axial border running down the garden centre and backed by yew hedges. Two pedestrian doorways are present in the east wall—one centrally positioned with a brick relieving arch, the other towards the south end; both have modern but well-made batten doors. There is no doorway in the west wall.

The north wall originally supported glasshouses. The wall height increases to around 20 feet (6 metres) in the central area to accommodate them. Both original 19th-century glasshouses have been removed, though they were approximately 20 feet long and symmetrically flanked the gardener's house.

The glasshouse on the east side is substantially a 20th-century rebuild of the earlier structure. It retains its brick base wall (three feet high), floor, and internal cast iron support columns with some other fixtures, but the woodwork is relatively modern and original small glass panes are replaced with larger sheets of plate glass. A sequence of blocked arched openings within the base wall indicates it was formerly a vinery, with vine roots allowed to grow outside the building. To the east of this glasshouse was formerly a lower lean-to glasshouse of late 19th-century date, now replaced by a corrugated iron lean-to shed. A double door gives access to the west-side glasshouse.

The gardener's house occupies the centre of the north wall, originally flanked by the two glasshouses. It is a gable-ended two-bay one-and-a-half-storey house with slated roof and bargeboards; its rendered south gable forms part of the garden wall. Prior to substantial remodelling in the 1990s to a design by Richard Pierce, the south gable contained centrally placed sliding sash windows (2 over 2) on both floors with the front door positioned to the west side of the ground floor window. The 1990s alterations placed the front door centrally and flanked it with sliding sash windows on each side. The same period saw the remodelling and incorporation of former lean-to potting sheds into the house on each side. The western range is lit by a new sliding sash window and entered by a new door, both positioned in part of the wall formerly occupied by the west glasshouse.