'The Tower', Hilltown Road, Aghacullion, near Bryansford, Newcastle, Co Down

The Tower, Hilltown Road, Aghacullion

This is a gothick folly tower, constructed around 1780 by the 2nd Lord Limerick (James, 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil) as one of a series of ornamental structures built to adorn his Tollymore Park estate and the surrounding countryside. It stands on the north side of the Hilltown Road, set next to a low field wall, roughly a mile west of Bryansford village. Like the other follies associated with the estate, it was probably influenced by the designs of Thomas Wright of Durham, a friend of the Limerick family who visited Ireland in 1746–47 and is thought to have had a hand in shaping the character of the demesne. The tower is recorded on the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1859, and all subsequent OS maps, under the name 'The Tower'.

The structure is built of fieldstone rubble and appears to have been completely harled. It is hexagonal in plan and rests upon a circular base. Alternate faces carry pointed arch recesses of window proportions, while the remaining faces have quatrefoil loopholes. The arch heads of the recesses and the quatrefoil loopholes are dressed in granite. On the east face, the recess is enlarged to door size and is reached by a flight of stone steps; the top of these steps continues around the structure as a plat band. The tower has a cornice supported on intermediate and corner rounded corbel stones and is crowned with split fieldstones set at each corner. Above this rises a narrow conical spire decorated with three rings of rounded, bun-shaped fieldstones — known as 'bap' stones — set at intervals along its height.

The tower is privately owned and remains in use as a folly. Its architectural interest lies in its style, proportion, ornamentation, setting, and group value as part of the wider collection of Tollymore estate structures.

Historical background

The history of Tollymore Park and its surroundings is closely bound up with the tower's origins. In late medieval times the area was held by the Magennis family of Upper Iveagh. In 1611, Brian MacHugh Magennis received a royal grant of seven and a half townlands from King James I, confirming his ownership. The Magennis male line continued until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died without children and the estate passed to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton. Their son James inherited, and his own son — also James — inherited in 1701. This younger James was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil (second creation) in 1728.

This first Lord Limerick, popularly remembered by his earlier title, began transforming Tollymore into a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720. He enclosed much of the land as a deer park, undertook large-scale tree planting, built a hunting lodge and the 'Old Bridge', and rebuilt the parish church at Bryansford — the small estate village to the north of the park, named after his ancestor Brian Magennis. Around 1750, he began constructing a larger house, likely drawing on advice from Thomas Wright, who had stayed at 'Tullymoor Park' in September 1746. By 1752, Dr Pococke, in his Tour of Ireland, noted that Lord Limerick had completed two rooms of his new 'pretty lodge' 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, with the Horn Bridge built to the south around the same time. Lord Limerick died in 1758.

His son — the 2nd Lord Limerick, and the builder of this tower — extended the new house and continued the tree planting. In the 1780s he erected the Barbican gate at the eastern entrance to the park, the gothick gate at the Bryansford entrance, a hermitage, gothick follies and a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, and several bridges within the park, including Ivy Bridge, Parnell's Bridge, and Foley's Bridge, the last named after his wife Grace Foley. Bernard Scalé's map of Tollymore of 1777 gives an impression of the picturesque character of the park during this period, with its rolling landscape, extensive planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offered lodgings in Bryansford village, making much of their '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 praising the wholesome air and the herbage on which goats fed, which made it 'much frequented by ladies and gentlemen for the recovery of lost health'. The 2nd Lord Limerick died without issue in 1798, and the park passed to his sister Anne, wife of Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden.

Their son Robert, 2nd Earl of Roden, inherited the estate 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 young in 1812. The 3rd Earl further developed Bryansford village, and added a Roman Catholic church in 1820, school houses in 1823 and 1826, labourers' dwellings, and the large dower house known as 'The Nest'. He constructed a water-powered saw mill within the demesne and in 1865 added a small lodge to the east. He also enlarged Tollymore House by adding an extra storey to the wings and a tall French château-style roof — described as somewhat incongruous — to the original central block.

Tollymore Park remained in Roden family ownership 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 Tollymore 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 the region to be designated a Forest Park and was opened to the public. Although the house itself has gone, most of the 18th and early 19th century gates, bridges, and lodges associated with the estate have survived.