Burrenwood is a

cottage orné Cottage orné () dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding ...

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

and estate near

Castlewellan Castlewellan () is a small town in County Down, in the south-east of Northern Ireland close to the Irish Sea. It is beside Castlewellan Lake and Slievenaslat mountain, southwest of Downpatrick. It lies between the Mourne Mountains and Slieve C ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, Northern Ireland.

History

The ornamental wooded and cottaged

demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

at Burrenwood was conceived by Theodosia Hawkins-Magill (5 September 1743- 2 March 1817), the Countess of Clanwilliam, a great Ulster heiress and landowner, the daughter and heir of Robert Hawkins-Magill, of Gill Hall, Dromore, Co. Down. Having inherited her father's estates centred on Dromore and

Rathfriland Rathfriland () is a market town in County Down, Northern Ireland. History In older documents written in English, the town's name was usually spelt ''Rathfylan'' or ''Rathfrilan''.

, as a child in 1747, she married Sir John Meade, 4th Bart., (Meade was ennobled in 1766 & 1776), in 1765. The house, a , horseshoe shaped, rustic villa and cottage ornée, was built near

in the late eighteenth century. TheodosiaHawkinsMagillbyReynolds

It lies on some land conveniently half way between Theodosia Clanwilliam's mother's famous new house at

Castle Ward A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

, near

Strangford Lough Strangford Lough (from Old Norse ''Strangr Fjörðr'', meaning "strong sea-inlet"PlaceNames N ...

(the mother had married

Bernard Ward Bernard Ward may refer to: *Bernard Ward, 1st Viscount Bangor (1719–1781), Irish MP for Down, Bangor and Killyleagh *Bernard Ward (bishop) (1857–1920), English Roman Catholic writer *Bernard Ward (sailor) (1918–?), Bermudian Olympic sailor *B ...

after the early death of Robert Hawkins-Magill), the seventeenth century holdings of Alderman William Hawkins in and near Rathfriland, the infamous and similarly ancient Magill ancestral seat at Gill Hall, near Dromore, and the

Greenore Greenore () is a village, townland and deep water port on Carlingford Lough in County Louth, Ireland. History A lighthouse was built on Greenore Point in 1830. Several decades later, the Dundalk and Greenore Railway Act of 1863 authorised th ...

ferry which was caught by way of

Newry Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011. Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, althoug ...

, which at one time was plague ridden, avoidance of which is said to have been the incentive to build, in six weeks, the house by the Burren. The Countess's second son, the General the Hon. Robert Meade (*29.2.1772–11.7.1852), Ensign in the 1st Foot (11.1787), Lt. Col. of the

31st Foot The 31st (Huntingdonshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1702. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot to form the East Surrey Regiment in 1881. History Origins ...

(wounded 1807), commander of forces in

Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

, Colonel of the 12th Regiment, Lt. General 4.6.1814, inherited the

Rathfriland Rathfriland () is a market town in County Down, Northern Ireland. History In older documents written in English, the town's name was usually spelt ''Rathfylan'' or ''Rathfrilan''.

estate and the Burrenwood demesne which he extended; and it remained with his family for several further generations. In 1808 he had married (20.6.1808) Anne Louise (d.1853), daughter and heir of the late General Sir

John Dalling General Sir John Dalling, 1st Baronet (c. 1731 – 16 January 1798) of Burwood Park in Surrey, was a British soldier and colonial administrator. Origins Dalling was the son of John Dalling (1697–1744), of Bungay in Suffolk, by his wife Cathe ...

, 1st Bt., sometime Governor of Jamaica and later Commander in Chief at Madras. They had Robert (1809-); Theodosia (*27.1.1811-); John (*23.2.1812-); Louise; Anne; Catherine; Adelaide (*17.2.1818-), who married

William Brownlow Forde William Brownlow Forde (1823 - 8 February 1902) was the Member of Parliament for County Down, 1857–1874. Colonel the Rt. Hon. William Brownlow Forde, PC, JP, DL, of Seaforde, married Adelaide, daughter of General the Hon Robert Meade, of Burr ...

(1823-1902), PC, MP, DL, JP, of Seaforde, in 1855; Rose (*8.1819-) and Caroline.information re Forde family via Timothy Belmont of Belfast Burrenwood is comparable with the ''Swiss cottage'' at

Cahir Cahir (; ) is a town in County Tipperary in Ireland. It is also a civil parish in the barony of Iffa and Offa West. Location and access For much of the twentieth century, Cahir stood at an intersection of two busy national roadways: the Dublin ...

; Derrymore,

Bessbrook Bessbrook is a village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It lies about three miles (5 km) northwest of Newry and near the Newry bypass on the main A1 Belfast-Dublin road and Belfast-Dublin railway line. Today the village of Bessbrook str ...

, Newry, Co. Armagh (

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

); and the

Petit hameau The Hameau de la Reine (, ''The Queen's Hamlet'') is a rustic retreat in the park of the Château de Versailles built for Marie Antoinette in 1783 near the Petit Trianon in Yvelines, France. It served as a private meeting place for the Queen and ...

de la Reine at Versailles. All of which were in part inspired by Abbé Laugier, aka

Marc-Antoine Laugier Marc-Antoine Laugier (Manosque, Provence, January 22, 1713 – Paris, April 5, 1769) was a Jesuit priest until 1755 than a Benedictine monk. He was one of the first architectural theorist. Laugier is best known for his ''Essay on Architectur ...

. It lies between the forest parks of Lords Clanbrassill and Roden's Tollymore and Lord Annesley's Castlewellan, beside the Mourne mountains (the inspiration for

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...

) and just inland from Dundrum bay at

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

References

*Ulster Architectural Heritage Society: ''Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance: In the Mourne area of South Down'', P. J. Rankin, May 1975 (page 41). *

Mark Bence-Jones Mark Adayre Bence-Jones (29 May 1930 – 12 April 2010) was a writer, noted mainly for his books on Irish architecture, the British aristocracy and the British Raj. He regarded himself as being both Irish and English, seeing no contradiction in ...

, ''A Guide to Irish Country Houses'', Constable, 1988. *Grace Dorothea Meade (1902–1977), (wife to Major John William Meade (1894–1984), transcript of one part of the BBC's: ''Houses of Ulster'', Sunday, 21 November 1937. *Valerie Pakenham, ''The Big House in Ireland'', Cassell & Co., 2000. (Has pictures of aristocratic cottages, but nothing directly relevant).

External links

Hawkins-Magill & Meade history
from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI): A.P.W. Malcolmson & Peter Houston. ::
Alternative link
to the above info. *''The Complete Peerage'', ed. G. E. Cokayne, volume III.
Groves-Raines Architects
Photos of the north front

{dead link, date=November 2016 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes .

from their publication of 1975.
Castle WardDerrymoreUlster Museum's
1765 Reynolds portrait of Theodosia Magill.
Ulster Museum's
1765 Gainsborough portrait of Theodosia Magill. Buildings and structures in County Down Country houses in Northern Ireland