Barbican gate, Tollymore Park, Newcastle, Co Down

Barbican Gate, Tollymore Park

This Gothick barbican gate dates from around 1780 and stands at the eastern entrance to Tollymore Park, roughly one and a half miles west of Newcastle, County Down. It was built by the 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil as part of a series of Gothick adornments to his demesne, and was probably designed under the influence of Thomas Wright of Durham — an English architect and friend of both Lord Limerick and his father, who visited Tollymore in 1746. The gate is currently in central government ownership and remains in use as a gate and screen.

The structure is rubble built and lightly harled. It consists of a tall, two-centred pointed arch central gateway flanked by two round castellated towers. The towers are two storeys in height but relatively squat. Both are largely identical in design, featuring a bevelled base, pointed arch doorways at ground floor level (on both the east and west sides), a string course at mid level, trefoil openings at the upper level (again to east and west), and a castellated parapet carried on a series of small stone brackets. The doorway in the north tower is open and serves as a pedestrian entrance, while the west-facing doorway of the south tower gives access into the tower itself and retains a recessed timber door. The east-facing doorway of the south tower is blind. The central arch has a string course at springing level, and cross arrow loops in the spandrels. The arrow loops and the trefoil openings in the towers are dressed in granite. The gates themselves are wrought iron, with spearheads and curved tops, but are otherwise relatively plain. Short sections of boundary wall in the same materials as the barbican, though plain, extend to the north and south of the towers.

Around 1810 the 2nd Earl of Roden added a matching single-storey gate lodge to the north side of the gate, but this was demolished in the mid-20th century.

Historical context

In the late medieval period, Tollymore and the surrounding townlands were held by the Magennis family of Upper Iveagh. In 1611, Brian MacHugh Magennis received royal confirmation of his ownership when King James I granted him seven and a half townlands including the land that now forms the park. The estate remained in the Magennis male line until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died childless and the property passed to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton. On Ellen's death, the estate passed to their son James, and James's own son — also named James — inherited in 1701. He was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil (of the second creation) in 1728.

This first Lord Limerick initiated the development of Tollymore as a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720, enclosing much of the land as a deer park, beginning large-scale tree planting, and building a hunting lodge and the Old Bridge. He also rebuilt the parish church at Bryansford, the small estate village to the north of the park, which was named after his ancestor Brian Magennis. Around 1750 he began construction of a larger house, probably with design advice from Thomas Wright, who visited Ireland in 1746–47, staying at Tollymore in September 1746. Dr Pococke, writing in his Tour of Ireland of 1752, noted that Lord Limerick had completed two rooms of his new "pretty lodge" by that date, and had also built "a thatch'd open place to dine in" on the south side of the Shimna River. The Clanbrassil Barn was added just north of the house in 1757, and the Horn Bridge was built to the south around the same time. Lord Limerick died in 1758 and was succeeded by his son James, who extended the house and continued the tree planting programme.

In the 1780s the 2nd Lord Limerick erected the Barbican Gate at the eastern entrance, the Gothick gate at the Bryansford entrance, a hermitage, Gothick follies and a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, and a number of bridges within the park including Ivy Bridge, Parnell's Bridge, and Foley's Bridge — the last named after his wife, Grace Foley. These additions, like the earlier structures, appear to have been influenced by Thomas Wright. Bernard Scalé's 1777 map of Tollymore conveys the picturesque character of the park at this period: a rolling landscape with extensive planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offered lodgings in Bryansford village with "a most pleasing prospect of the Right Hon. Earl of Clanbrassil's much admired demesne, which is beautiful to the sight and extensive to the bounds," and praised the wholesome air and grazing on which goats fed, making the place "much frequented by ladies and gentlemen for the recovery of lost health."

James, 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil, died without issue in 1798. The park passed to his sister Anne, wife of Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden. Their son Robert, 2nd Earl of Roden, inherited in 1802 and built the Bryansford and Barbican gate lodges, the latter now demolished. He also erected an obelisk monument to the east of the house in memory of his second son James, who died prematurely in 1812.

The 2nd Earl and his successor, the 3rd Earl, further developed Bryansford village. A Roman Catholic church was built at the eastern edge of the village in 1820, school houses in 1823 and 1826, and labourers' dwellings and the large dower house known as The Nest were added around the same time. The 3rd Earl constructed a water-powered sawmill within the demesne and in 1865 added a further small lodge to the east. He also enlarged Tollymore House itself by raising the wings by an additional storey and adding a tall French château-style roof — described as somewhat incongruous — to the original central block.

Tollymore Park remained in the Roden family until 1930, when the 8th Earl sold two thirds of the land to the Ministry of Agriculture for afforestation. The remaining third was purchased by the Ministry in 1940, and during the Second World War the house and part of the grounds were used by the Army. After the war the house fell into disrepair and was demolished by Lord Roden in 1952. In 1955 Tollymore became the first state forest in Northern Ireland to be designated a Forest Park and was opened to the public. Though the house itself has gone, the majority of the park's 18th- and early 19th-century gates, bridges, and lodges have survived, and the park has continued to be developed for timber production, recreation, conservation, and education.