The Sea Park

Standing here, in a car park, surrounded by trees, it might be a stretch to ask you to imagine this place in 1850, when you would have been looking across open land towards the sea.

We are at the northwest corner of what was then part of the Clandeboye estate, owned by the young Frederick, Baron Dufferin and Clandeboye. He had inherited Clandeboye at the age of fifteen but did not have any direct involvement until he reached his majority in 1847.

He spent much of his time that winter passing “whole days among the bogs – a somewhat monotonous occupation”, [1] visiting his tenants and contriving ways of improving their lot through the reform of Irish land tenure, mainly through political debate back in England, where he spent much of his time in those early days.

London was where he was able to dabble in politics and pursue a heady aristocratic lifestyle, honed at Eton and Oxford. These were important formative times for the young Dufferin, leading to his appointment in 1849 as Lord in Waiting to Queen Victoria.

In 1850 he returned to Clandeboye which, despite its “misty mockery of a park” [2] , he declared that he loved more than any other place, and employed the services of the landscape designer, James Frazer, to help him create something to match his aristocratic ambition.

We are lucky that Frazer’s working map has survived, on which he drew convergent lines to highlight the ideal locations for vistas and peeps through the landscape. One of those points of convergence was just here, the perfect spot to build a seaside retreat.

In 1852 the decision was made to start the grand project, and soon new roads were under construction, and the avenue leading from Clandeboye house was started. 200 acres of farmland were purchased from tenant farmers,150 acres of new woods were planted, and the Duchess of Argyll laid the Grey Point foundation stone.[3]

But then, horror, in November 1854 everything changed when the Coastguard Commander from Donaghadee contacted Dufferin’s land agent to enquire about building a lookout at Grey Point.[4] By 1857 maps had been produced showing the proposed site of a new coastguard station, just a few yards from here.[5] Undeterred, and despite his agent’s advice to cut his losses[6] , Dufferin was determined to press on with the Sea Park project. He employed Benjamin Ferrey, who also designed the magnificent Helen’s Bay station, to locate and design a Scottish Baronial style house somewhere within the Sea Park out of view of the coastguard station. Ferrey even wrote to Dufferin in 1861 to say that he had erected ladders against trees for him to climb and see the views from suitable sites.[7] But, with Dufferin’s financial constraints and the intrusion of the coastguards, Ferrey never did get his commission.

[1] Lyall, The life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, 83

[2] PRONI D1071/H/V/1/8 (31 August 1853)

[3] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/3/1 (24 November 1854)

[4] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/6/1 (11 February 1857)

[5] PRONI D1071/A/K/1/B/6/1 (20 February 1857)

[6] PRONI D1071/A/K/3/B/2/1 (November 1861)

[7] PRONI D1071/A/K/3/B/2/1 (November 1861)