Greenpark, Ballymoney, Rostrevor, Co.Down

Greenpark (also historically known as Moore Park and Green-Park) is a country house in Rostrevor, County Down, with a history of occupation stretching back to at least 1771. It is a private residence with a remarkably well-documented ownership history and a building fabric that may incorporate elements of a considerably earlier structure.

Historical Background

Documentary evidence places a house on this site from at least 1771, when the property — then called Moore Park — was advertised for letting in the Belfast News-Letter in May of that year and again in May 1772. It also appears on Taylor and Skinner's road map of 1777. At that time the property comprised land, a dwelling house, coach house, stable, offices, and garden, belonging to either James or Hugh Moore, described as drapers, both of whom had been resident in the Rostrevor area from at least 1756, when they are recorded as operating a bleach yard there. By March 1785, a letting notice in the Dublin Journal referred to the house — by then known as Green-Park — as being "about 14 years built" and having been "new-fashed and put into complete order last August," with offices described as "extremely good and convenient, forming an inclosed court to the rere of the house." Both the Newry Magazine of 1815 and Bradshaw's General Directory of 1819 attribute the building of the house to James Moore, consistent with the 1771 date implied by the Dublin Journal advertisement.

Whether the site has any history predating the 1770s is uncertain. A castle marked "Polly" appears in this general area on John Speed's 1610 map of Ulster. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1836 describe it as "a good old house," and a more recent source states that "the original house at Green Park was built in 1646 and it was here that Robert Ross [the first of that family to acquire land in this area] stayed when he came to Rostrevor in the early 1700s." However, pre-1770s documentation relating to any structure on this site appears to be lacking. There is also a local tradition that the house stands on the site of a Magennis castle and may have been built around its ruins — a theory given some circumstantial support by the building's commanding view over Carlingford Lough. Certain elements of the building, most notably the back section's overall vernacular appearance including its battered walls and relatively steeply-pitched roof, suggest it may contain the fabric of an earlier structure, and the square enclosed yard to the rear has an almost bawn-like quality.

The property reverted to the name Moore Park by 1786, when it is mentioned in the Post-Chaise Companion as "Moore Park the seat of Mr. Moore," and again in 1794 by Tyner. The Moore family are recorded as still in possession in 1806. The General Directory notes that the house was occupied for a time by a Mr. Strong — possibly John Stronge of Fairview (the earlier incarnation of Tynan Abbey), County Armagh, who is mentioned in the 1785 letting advertisement — and afterwards by a Mr. Broomfield.

By 1808 the house, once again called Green Park, had become the residence of Francis Carleton (died 1829), son of Francis Carleton Senior (1713–91), a Cork merchant, and brother of Hugh Carleton, Viscount Carleton of Clare. Francis Carleton served as Collector of Customs at Newry from around 1793 until some point before 1819, and remained at Green Park until his death in 1829. The Newry Magazine provides the earliest description of the house in its present form, noting that "Collector Carleton having added an entire new front, [which] has made the house a very fine mansion." A letter from Carleton himself suggests this new front block was built in 1816, though the Magazine implies it was completed at least a year before that date.

Subsequent Ownership

By 1832 the property, or at least the lease, had been sold to Mrs. Margaret O'Brien, who let it to Lady Walsh (or Welsh) in 1835 but was living there again herself by 1840. By 1846 Lady Balfour is listed as the occupant, though ownership appears to have remained with the O'Brien family: a William S. O'Brien is recorded as lessor in the second valuation of 1861. Notably, that valuation also states that the property was at that point in the hands of the Court of Chancery, raising the possibility that this William S. O'Brien was the Young Irelander William Smith O'Brien (1803–64), who had been transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1849 and allowed to return to Ireland in 1856. However, no clear connection between the latter and the owner of the house in the 1830s has been established, beyond both having owned estates in County Clare.

Lady Belmore — Juliana Butler, wife of the 2nd Earl of Belmore — continued to rent Green Park at £200 per annum until her death in 1861. The property then passed to the Honourable Mary C. A. Maude, widow of the late Reverend W. Maude of Enniskillen, who was resident until 1866. It was subsequently sold to a Mrs. S. Hall of the Hall family of nearby Narrow Water Castle, with Major Roger Hall purchasing it for £2,220 in 1886. In the 1901 census, Major Hall is recorded as living there with four domestic servants; the house itself is classified as a first-class dwelling with fourteen rooms in use.

Green Park remained with Roger Hall until around 1911–12, when it was bought by a Henry Carden, who held it until 1916, when it was acquired by Mrs. Helen Hamilton. Frederick Devenish-Meares became the next owner in 1935, with Harriet Devenish-Meares recorded as resident two years later. Colonel Francis Hall, of the same Hall family, returned to Green Park in 1941, though the house and grounds were requisitioned for use by the United States Army for part of the war years. In 1948 the property was sold to Commander William E. Bellgrave, who is recorded as still living there in 1972. The present owner purchased the property in 1975.

Architecture and Layout

The house as it stands today is defined by the hipped-roof front block added by Francis Carleton around 1815–16, which the Newry Magazine described as transforming the house into "a very fine mansion." Behind this is an older rear section of distinctly vernacular character, with battered walls and a relatively steeply-pitched roof that may incorporate earlier fabric.

The first valuation of 1835 records the main front portion as measuring 74 feet by 24 feet by 27 feet, and the rear section as 44 feet by 26 feet by 30 feet, with two smaller single-storey returns measuring 25 feet by 10½ feet by 6½ feet and 15½ feet by 7½ feet by 6 feet respectively. Within the yard at that time there were outbuildings measuring 29 by 13 by 8 feet, 20 by 17 by 7 feet, and 34 by 17 by 7½ feet, a stable of 40 by 20 by 14 feet, a coach house of 21½ by 21 by 13 feet, and a gate lodge of 22 by 13 by 6 feet with a return of 15 by 8 by 5 feet.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the house as roughly square in plan with two small projections to the north, indicating additional sections to the rear at that time. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1860 shows a plan broadly similar to what exists today, but with what appears to be a projecting porch to the front, though this feature is not mentioned in the valuation of 1861, which records dimensions identical to those of 1835. The 1861 valuers described the front part of the house as "very elegant and superior" and the rear half as "old," and noted that the property afforded "a splendid view of mountains and lough" — a view over Carlingford Lough that remains one of the house's most notable features.