Chronicles - Walk 5

If you had looked through a gap in this old estate wall in 1914 you would have seen the beginnings of the Ulster 36th Division’s Clandeboye Camp. It was first a tented camp, but as the war progressed, so did the scale of the camp, with the construction of dozens of wooden huts. Young men from across Ulster came here to train for war. Many had never been away from home before, and many would never return. The Somme was their primary destination, where, over the first two days of July 1916, they suffered 5,500 officers and enlisted men killed, wounded, or missing, with approximately 2,500 fatalities.

Many of these young men visited Helen’s Tower whilst they were here and signed their names in the visitors’ book.[1] I wonder if they included any of the nine soldiers who displayed extraordinary valor and were awarded the Victoria Cross during the Somme offensive and whose names are etched into history at the Ulster Tower, a replica of Helen’s Tower, built on the Somme in 1921 as a memorial to all of those who lost their lives over those two tragic days.

The tragedy of war also visited the Blackwood family, two of whom were lost forever in the fields of Belgium, under remarkably similar circumstances.

Robert Blackwood was uncle to Lord Dufferin, the 1st Marquess. He was born in 1788 and rose through the ranks in the army to the rank of Major. He was severely wounded at the battle of Badajoz in 1812. He returned home on sick leave and decided to from the army. However, on hearing of Napoleon’s escape from Elba, he changed his mind and clandestinely left Clandeboye with a pair of horses, heading for the continent. He arrived at Brussels on the night of 17th June 1815 and rode out early the next morning to Waterloo. He was looking for his regiment when, a General wishing to send a message, someone said “Oh here’s Blackwood; he’ll do”; but no sooner had he started out to deliver it that he was cut in two by a round shot, some say that it was the first shot of the battle.[2] There is a memorial to him in Clandeboye Chapel, as well as a stone urn in the gardens.

A little over a century later, Lord Dufferin’s third son, Basil, aged 47, was lost in no-man’s land near Ypres. He was also severely wounded, at the battle of Mons in 1914, but he did not enjoy his forced rest and returned to the front two years later as a Lieutenant. It was in preparation for the Battle of Ypres that he was sent out with a small reconnaissance party on 3rd July 1917. He never returned and his body was never recovered.[3] His is just one of the almost 55,000 names inscribed on the Menin gate at Ypres. He is also remembered on the large Celtic cross in the family burial ground beside the lake, together with his eldest brother, Archie, who died at the Siege of Ladysmith in South Africa in 1900.

[1] PRONI T3953/2

[2] PRONI D1071/H/W/1/27 Draft of Lord Dufferin’s Memoir, 73

[3] PRONI D1231/G/5

Although we are surrounded by woodland, this was not the case at the time of the plantation in the seventeenth century, and any that did remain was closely guarded by the Earl of Clanbrassil. However, there was plenty of peat for the tenants to dig and dry for fuel, and provision was made in leases to keep open the tracks to the bogs, or mosses as they were known. For example, in a lease to William Crafford in 1674 there was a covenant protecting “all royalties especially the waies leading to the mosses of Ballyleidy and Bangor”.[1]

You may have noticed that the water on either side of this causeway looks black. This is probably because the lakebed is composed of peat, which would confirm that it was once one of the mosses of Ballyleidy, long since dug out; but dug out by whom? Certainly, at the time of the first Ordnance Survey map in 1834 this area was shown as moss land, in fact it is still known by estate staff as “the moss”. However, an estate map of 1862 shows this to be a lake, but without this causeway across it.

It is well documented that Lord Dufferin created the lake in front of Clandeboye house both as a landscape feature and as a means of diverting the main road around his estate.[2] Perhaps this lake was initially created for the same reasons. In his landscape map of 1852, James Frazer drew what might have been a square lake on the southern side of the causeway but did not interfere with this road. In the same vein, Frazer, when drawing the potential lake at the house, also drew a road to pass around it. So, it looks as though Dufferin had other ideas, sometime after Frazer had completed his work. This is backed up by a hand-coloured estate map of about 1862 which depicts this lake with no causeway. However, all subsequent maps show the causeway.

The supposed conclusion is therefore that Dufferin was not successful in closing this road and was forced to reinstate this earlier roden or bog road, to allow passage to this and other mosses in the vicinity. Although there is no later evidence of turf digging, or turbary as it was known, the lake and causeway may have been used for military training during the First World War, as there are the feint marks of trenches in the woods nearby, where I once found a pig tailed spike, as used to string up barbed wire in no-man’s land in Flanders.

Although still marked on maps, the causeway gradually grew over and became impassible, until 1983, when it was reinstated and now forms part of the Columban way that runs from Bangor, through the estate from Helen’s Bay to Helen’s Tower and onwards towards Newtownards and Comber.[3]

[1] Margaret Garner, "North Down as displayed in the Clanbrassil Lease and Rent Book," Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society: 35.

[2] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/14/1 (9 March 1865)

[3] https://www.visitardsandnorthdown.com/explore/heritage-trails/columban-way-heritage-trail

This road through the estate from Clandeboye House to Helen’s Tower was nearing completion in May 1857 and was being top dressed with gravel from the spoil heaps at the lead mines, about a mile from here. According to Dufferin’s agent, it was almost impossible to procure the amount of sea gravel required for the job, so they were using mine tailings instead. However, the game keeper was complaining that it was poisoning the pheasants.[1] Such was the life of a land agent, don’t I know.

Just here might have been the junction with another new road, this one was to link the estate to a railway station at Conlig on the proposed Newtownards to Donaghadee line. The road was designed to rise gently across the contours, through the woods and out onto what is now Clandeboye Golf Course, before curling down the hill through Little Clandeboye, which had been purchased from the Pirrie family a couple of years earlier.[2] Lord Dufferin may even have purchased the land for this purpose, because he was unsure about what to do with the house, which he called an encumbrance and inconvenience and wondered if it could be leased to a Belfast merchant.[3]

Although Helen’s Bay may be noted for its remarkable Scottish Baronial style railway station, it was the planned railway line past Conlig that Lord Dufferin had his eye on when he engaged James Frazer to design a grand landscape for the estate.

Frazer’s working map even shows, as a dotted line, the proposed route of the Newtownards to Donaghadee railway line, with a station at Conlig. The promise of a direct link to Portpatrick in Scotland from Clandeboye was too appealing for Dufferin to miss and he became a keen supporter of the County Down Railway and the Portpatrick Steam Packet. The railway had already reached Newtownards in 1850 and by 1855 the company was seeking Dufferin’s support, which he readily gave.[4] The line was completed in 1861 but, as warned by his cousin in a letter a year earlier: “The scheme for establishing a communication between Belfast and Lough Ryan [Stranraer] is supported by most influential parties in this c[ounty] and if it succeeds I fear it will be a death blow to the Portpatrick Line”.[5]

These were indeed prophetic words, for the advantages of the short sea crossing were soon outweighed by a number of factors, including the disadvantages of the small size and exposure of Portpatrick harbour, compared with Stranraer.[6] Conlig did get its station, but it closed in 1865, so it was just as well that Frazer’s road was never built.

To add insult to injury, the railway station at Portpatrick eventually opened in September 1868, but closed again in November of the same year, never to reopen.[7]

[1] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/6/1 (22 May 1857)

[2] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/2/1 (June – October 1853)

[3] ibid

[4] PRONI D1071/H/V/1/11 (3 October 1855)

[5] PRONI MIC22/9 (14 January 1860)

[6] Masefield. Robin, 'Be Careful, Don't Rush' (Bayburn Historical Society, 2015), 33.

The road here from Clandeboye House was carefully designed by James Frazer in 1852 to entice visitors as they progressed through the shade of woodlands and open vistas across the parks, with occasional peeps of the tower beckoning from the horizon.

Eventually, in the words of Harold Nicholson in 1937: “The road winds up to it through the woods that [Lord Dufferin] planted, and as one reaches the summit there is a gleam of light among the undergrowth and a sudden clearing upon which the tower rises slim and strong”.[1]

Nicholson then went on to describe the smell of the caretaker’s rabbit stew and potato cakes that permeated the building, for in those days the tower was a popular destination, attested by visitor books spanning the years from 1904 to 1953.[2]

The architect was William Burn, who also designed the gatehouse at Killyleagh Castle. His 1848 sketch depicted the tower looking a little bleak on the hill-top, but as the trees grew around, so did the magic. Just as with the journey through the park, the journey up the stone turret stairway, glancing through doors into heavily decorated and panelled rooms with peeps through narrow windows into the trees, draws the visitor ever onwards to the journey’s end. In Nicholson’s words again: “Up a final short flight of steps to the roof-bastion, with its sweep of sky around the battlements and the rush of the winds from Scotland. Below, tumble the green fields and white cottages of Ulster and at one’s feet the woods and lakes of the Clandeboye demesne”. [3]

The building work was completed in 1850, as the 24-year-old Dufferin noted in his diary: “Arrived at Clandeboye, found my tower and lodge built. Tower looks less well from ye house than any other position, but ye effect is upon the whole excellent.”[4] A couple of weeks later: “Miss Hamilton christened the tower by ye name of Helen’s Tower & champagne went all over her.”[5] She may well have been the young Hariot Rowan Hamilton, from Killyleagh Castle, whom Dufferin was to marry as an eighteen-year-old in 1862. Helen was Dufferin’s mother, who was herself only eighteen years older than him.

Benjamin Ferrey, who designed Helen’s Bay station, was engaged to oversee the interior works, even helping to choose furniture.[6] Dufferin’s diaries record the progress of the work, with the glass windows installed in 1856.[7] It must have been difficult to complete the work in these damp conditions as the agent had to install two patent stoves, which were kept burning during wet weather and windows open[ed] in easterly winds, all of which proved to be beneficial.[8]

The stories of the tower are personal to so many, from soldiers training for the battle of the Somme, to tea with Prince Charles and Lady Dufferin, presided over by Robbie John Cousins, her butler, with a huge silver tea-pot, and hopefully there will be many more.

[1] Harold Nicholson, Helen's Tower (London: Constable and Co Ltd, 1937), 138.

[2] PRONI D1231/G/5

[3] Nicholson, Helen's Tower, 141.

[4] PRONI D1071/H/V/1/5 (2 October 1850)

[5] Ibid (20 October 1850)

[6] PRONI D1071/H/V/1/11 (4 December 1855)

[7] PRONI D1071/H/V/1/12 (17 January 1856)

[8] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/6/1 (12 January 1857)

The ivy clad building beside the footpath is all that remains of the engine house of the Conlig lead mine, constructed in 1836,[1] and the subject of a chink in Lord Dufferin’s diplomatic armour.

In 1863 he was leasing the land from Robert Ward of Bangor Castle, but with no control over the mineral rights, when Ward told him that the mining company wished to expand, writing “I should be very sorry that any part of your park were disfigured by additional buildings and shall not conclude as to terms with the mining company without giving you time for further communication on the subject.”[2]

In February 1865 Dufferin, concerned that Ward would relet the mines without giving him first refusal,[3] wrote to him, referring to the fable where the Greek sold the Trojan a donkey, but not the shadow. In this case he would lose the substance rather than the shadow as “what service will be a few acres of barren rock and bog, if their beauty, the only value they really possessed, shall have been destroyed.”[4]

Ward replied that he realised that Dufferin would take on the mine to preserve the views but had a responsibility to the public good and his successors. He also referred to Dufferin's 'asinine illustration', writing “I will end by expressing a hope that I have written as little as you have which will have an effect of making matters worse between us as than the circumstances oblige”[5]

Dufferin replied that he had spent upwards of £50,000 in making a park and it had been “the one great amusement & principal delight of my life, and this establishment of mines will be at the very centre & most beautiful portion of that park”. He stated his intention to make a drive to [Clandeboye] house as soon as the short sea passage [to Portpatrick] is open and close the road to the mines and the mines themselves.[6] A bit of a give away of his true intentions.

Soon after that the lease was put on the market and Dufferin wrote to his agent that the sale would be at Garrowy's Coffee House, with a note that “It is of vital importance that we get these mines”.[7] This was followed by another letter explaining that the sale was at Garrowy’s in London, not Belfast, so Dufferin went there himself and purchased the mining lease for £5 over the £1,000 asking price.[8]

Under the terms of the mining lease, Dufferin was obliged to operate the mine until it was exhausted. However, further exploration proved fruitless, and the mine was finally closed down in 1867,[9] ending one of the more controversial episodes of Dufferin’s landscaping exploits.

[1] S.P. Schwatrz and M. F. Critchley, "A history of the Silver-Lead Mines of County Down, Northern Ireland," Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland 13 (2013): 83.

[2] PRONI D1071/A/K/3/B/3 (6 January 1863)

[3] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/15/1 (26 February 1856)

[4] PRONI D1071/A/K/3/B/6/1 (1 February 1865)

[5] Ibid (22 February 1865)

[6] Ibid (28 February 1865)

[7] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/15/1 (4 March 1865)

[8] Ibid (7 March 1865)

[9] Schwatrz and Critchley, "A history of the Silver-Lead Mines of County Down, Northern Ireland," 75.