The walled garden, at Favor Royal House, Favour Royal Road, Augher, Dungannon, Co Tyrone, BT77 OEW

The walled garden at Favour Royal House

The walled garden lies to the extreme east of the Favour Royal demesne group, situated on the south side of the driveway. It encloses a rectangular area that slopes to varying degrees from northwest to southeast, consisting of an inner walled garden flanked on the west, south and east by three slip gardens. These slip gardens are bordered mainly by hedge plantings with trees outside; however, at the south there is a ditch boundary, and at the north the wall extends along the edge of the western slip to include part of a pleasure garden walk.

The walls are constructed of red sandstone, lined with red brick. There is a main access gate in the north wall, accessed via a wide segmental-headed archway, which leads onto one of several pathways that are still traceable within the garden. In addition, three other access points are located on the west, south and east sides.

The west access forms part of the pleasure ground walk and originally consisted of two doorways, the outer having an architrave of finely dressed sandstone in a Neo-Classical fashion and a moulded ashlar keystone inscribed 1720. However, as of January 2006, this dressed sandstone doorcase and dated keystone are no longer in place. A path, bordered by the remains of hedges, leads across the slip from this doorway into the inner walled garden. A similar, though less ornate doorway with moulded and cut stone surround originally provided access through the east wall of the garden to the eastern slip. This cut stone surround is also no longer in place as of January 2006.

The eastern slip functions as the cold-frame or working area for the garden and contains the former gardener's house, a single-storey vernacular dwelling with a pitched natural slate roof and rendered masonry walls. Its main access is on its east elevation, contained within a large porch.

The pathways traceable in the garden show a grid pattern of layout typical of 18th and 19th century walled gardens. Some of these paths are still lined with the remains of box hedges. The planting has long been unmanaged, though a mature L-shaped ornamental beech hedge is situated in the western interior. Ornamental planted trees include two monkey puzzles, and unmanaged orchard trees, which include apple and walnut, can also be found within the walled garden itself and in the associated slips. The remains of two glasshouses stand in the northwest, while at the south there is an oval-shaped pond-like feature, with steps leading into it; this once served as a focal point in the layout. This garden is one of only a small number of walled gardens that survive in Northern Ireland dating to this early period.