Marching
Rural County Tyrone isn’t the most obvious location to come across an overblown Tudorbethan mansion. This half timbered affair would look more at home in the Surrey Hills. A large scale forerunner to Stockbroker’s Tudor semi detached houses. The landscaped garden is an attempt to tame the wildness of this rainswept region. It’s not surprising to learn that the architect of Sion House was an Englishman. The original house which would be engulfed through rebuilding was a more typical country house of these parts. It was a mildly Italianate three bay wide by three bay deep two storey stone faced house built in 1846 to the design of the illustrious Sir Charles Lanyon (1813 to 1889). Less than four decades later, William Unsworth (1851 to 1912), a pupil of Sir Edwin Lutyens, drew up a replacement house to engulf its predecessor.
The Petersfield Hampshire based architect is best known for designing the first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon which opened in 1879. No doubt that’s where he developed his penchant for all things half timbered. William was friendly with Sir Edwin Lutyens who also wasn’t immune to jettied projections and multi diamond paned windows. The architect just happened to be the son-in-law of the client James Herdman and brother-in-law of the celebrated Missionary of Morocco, Emma Herdman.
The Herdmans had arrived in the north of Ireland from Herdmanston in Ayrshire in the late 17th century, first settling in Glenavy, County Antrim. This Plantation family swiftly established itself as big time farmers before entering industry. In 1835, the Herdman brothers James, John and George upped sticks to the sticks, moving from Belfast to Seein in County Tyrone. Seein (derived from the Irish word for fairy fort Sían) would evolve into Sion. John Herdman had gone into partnership with brothers Andrew, Sinclair and Thomas Mulholland who owned York Street Linen Mill in Belfast. Andrew Mulholland (1791 to 1886) built Ballywalter Park in County Down, the pinnacle of Sir Charles Lanyon’s country house designing career. His eldest son John was created 1st Baron Dunleath of Ballywalter in 1892.
The Herdman brothers brought this experience in the following decades to the development of a new mill at Sion. Flax fields and waterpower were the double draw to this site which was leased from the Marquess of Abercorn. The extant wheat mill would be redeveloped. Not content with just building a flax spinning mill designed by the prolific Belfast architect William Henry Lynn (1829 to 1915) – who partnered with Sir Charles Lanyon and his son John – next to a weir designed by the English engineer Sir William Fairbairn, plus a country house, the Herdmans philanthropically added a model village. Soon there was a school, a shop, churches and a fishing club as well as workers’ cottages. William Unsworth also designed a gatehouse to frame the main driveway to Sion House. Eschewing the tradition of single storey gatelodges, he opted for a convincing Hansel and Gretel version of the three storey gatehouse of Stokesay Castle in Shropshire. In the 1850s the Derry City to Enniskillen railway line was completed, running between the grounds of Sion House and Sion Mill, and crossing the River Mourne over Camus Bridge.
And so the glory days began. For eight decades the new Sion House happily played host to generations of the Herdman family and their guests. Celia Ferguson née Herdman MBE is the last direct descendant. She lives in the village and founded the Sion Mills Buildings Preservation Trust in 1999. Celia reminisced in 2014, “Sion House was my grandfather’s home. I lived there after the Second World War. It was such a busy house! As well as my relatives and Welsh nanny, there was a cook and four or five parlour maids. A dairy maid, washer maid and four under gardeners came during the day. The head gardener lived in the gatelodge. It was very self sufficient. In fact the whole of Sion Mills was like that. When we needed a plumber, he came from the mill.”
“The Italianate gardens were designed in 1909 by Inigo Triggs of Hampshire. Inigo was in partnership with William Unsworth and a friend of Gertrude Jekyll. I was asked to go along to Glenmakieran in Cultra, County Down, which I’m quite sure is another Unsworth house. In 1955 a fire threatened to destroy Sion House. Such a huge house. Nevertheless my grandfather rebuilt all 50 rooms exactly as they were before. I remember the oak panelling in the dining room and line wall covering in the drawing room.” Sir Charles Brett doesn’t attribute Glenmakieran to a specific architect in Buildings of North County Down, 2002, but does note that it was “no doubt inspired by Sir Edwin Lutyen’s house of 1901 at Deanery Gardens, Sonning”. He describes it as, “An extremely grand Edwardian merchant’s house, in the so called free style … built for Ernest Herdman: the foundation stone was laid in 1909.”
Celia concludes, “In 1967 it took just one day for Ross’s in Belfast to auction the house and its contents, even the books. The house went for only £5,000 and the contents £3,000. Fortunately Sion House is well documented. My grandfather wrote daily letters from 1934 to 1964 chronicling life in the house. At the moment I’m writing a book about my mother Maud Harriet MBE JP – a fascinating person. I now think of my Herdman ancestors as constructive revolutionaries totally committed to Ireland. They had great compassion for their countrymen and the courage to risk all to do something about their fate.”
The Irish Builder recorded the new Sion House in glowing terms in its December 1884 edition: “Sion House, the residence of the Herdman family, which for some time past, has been undergoing extensive alterations, is now completed, and as the building and grounds are singularly picturesque and pleasing, a short description of what is unquestionably one of the most unique and remarkable examples of domestic architecture in the north of Ireland, will be read with interest. The approach to the grounds is on the main road from Strabane to Baronscourt, about three miles from the latter place, and is entered through a delightfully quaint Old English gatehouse of striking originality, containing a porter’s residence and covered porch carried over the roadway. Winding down the graceful sweep of the avenue, through the wooded grounds which appear to have been laid out with considerable judgment many years ago, we catch a glimpse of the house, reflected in the artificial ponds formed in the ravine that is crossed by a two arch stone bridge of quite medieval character.”
“As we approach the house, the general grouping of the house is most pleasing, and the full effects of the rich colouring of the red tiled roof is now apparent, diversified with pitched gables, quaint dormers, the beautifully moulded red brick chimneys, the skyline being covered by the Tyrone mountains and the village church in the distance. The style of the building is late Tudor of the half timber character, which, thought it has been described as showing a singular and absurd heterogeneousness in detail, yet gives a wonderful picturesque in general effect. The principal entrance is on the north side, through a verandah supported on open carved brackets, in which is placed an old oak settle, elaborately carved and interlaced with natural foliage in bas relief. On entering through an enclosed porch we are ushered into a spacious entrance hall, with its quaint old fashioned staircase, open fireplace, and wood chimneypiece with overmantel extending to the height of the panelling.”
“The screens enclosing the entrance porch, as also that from the garden entrance to the southeast side, are filled in with lead lights glazed with painted glass and emblazoned with national and industrial emblems, monograms and coats of arms. The billiard room, which is in a semidetached position, and entered from the east side of the hall, is very characteristic of the style of the building, having the principal roof timbers exposed, and forming the pitched ceiling into richly moulded panels. The walls are wainscoted to a height of five feet in richly moulded and panelled work. The fireplace is open and lined with artistic glazed earthenware tiles of a deep green colour and waved surface, giving a pleasing variety of shadow, and is deeply recessed under a quaint panelled many centre arch, freely treated, forming a most cosy chimney corner with luxurious settles on each side. On a raised earth, laid with terra-metallic tiles in a most intricate pattern, are some of the finest examples of wrought iron dogs we have ever seen. There is also in this chimney nook a charming little window, placed so as to afford a view of the pleasure grounds. The reception rooms are on the south side. On entering the spacious drawing room we notice particularly the panelled arch across the further end, which forms a frame to the beautifully mullioned bay window enriched with patterned lead glazing.”
“From the recess of the bay a side doorway leads to a slightly elevated verandah enclosed with balustrade, extending the full length of the south façade and leading to the beautiful conservatory on the south side, with a short flight of steps giving access to the tennis lawns. The dining room is enclosed off this verandah by a handsome mullioned screen, having folding doors and patterned lead glazing similar to the drawing room bay. The walls of this room are panelled and moulded in English figured oak enriched with carvings, the arrangement of the buffet being an especial feature, as it forms part of the room in a coved recess and designed with the panelling. The fireplace is open and lined with tiles in two colours, of the same description as the billiard room, with chimneypiece and overmantel of carved oak, having bevelled mirrors, and arms carved in the most artistic manner in the centre panel. The mullioned screen masked by a gracefully carved arch made in oak and capped (as is also the panelling over the buffet and mantel) with a moulded cornice supported by artistically carved brackets and richly dentilled bead mouldings. Here and in the drawing room the ceilings are of elaborate workmanship, enriched in fibrous plaster, with moulded ribs in strong relief, and massive cornices with chastely enriched members. The floor, like those of the principal rooms and halls, is laid in solid oak parquetry.”
“The library and morning room are situated on the north side. These rooms are complete in arrangement for comfort, most of the required furniture and fittings being constructed with the building and in perfect character. The culinary departments are situated on the west side, on the same level as the principal rooms. They are of the most perfect and convenient description, containing every modern appliance for suitable working. Here also the evidence of artistic design is to be observed, more especially on a wrought iron hood constructed over the range for the purpose of carrying off the odour from the cooking to flues provided for that purpose. The hood is a very intricate piece of wrought ironwork which, we learn, was manufactured at the engineering works of Herdman and Co. The upper floors contain 16 spacious bedrooms and dressing rooms. Several of the bedrooms are obtained by the judicious pitching up the main roof, and obtaining light through the quaintly shaped dormers which form so marked a feature on the roofline. There is a spacious basement extending under the entire area of the building, which contains the usual offices, and in which are placed two of Pitt’s patented apparatus, now so favourably known for warming and ventilating, by which warmed fresh air is conveyed to the various apartments and corridors.”
“One of the great features of the exterior elevations is the balconies of which there are several, whence views of the varied scenery and charming surroundings can be obtained. There is also easy access to the leads of the roof, from which more extended views of the beautiful and romantic valleys of the Foyle and Mourne, together with the picturesquely grouped plantations of the Baronscourt demesne, and the far famed mountains of Barnesmore, Betsy Bell and Mary Gray can be seen in the distance. From this point a magnificent bird’s eye view can be obtained of the village of Sion and of the palatial buildings which form the flax spinning mills and offices of Herdman and Co, which we are pleased to observe are so rapidly extending their lines and improving under the enlightened policy of the spirited owners.”
“The gardens and grounds are laid out in terraces with low red brick walls in character with the house, which give great effect when viewed from the several levels. It is noticeable throughout the perfectness and richness of all the detail, which has been carried out with great care from special designs. The architect has succeeded in giving an individuality and picturesqueness of outline, due proportion of its parts and beauty of the whole, to the buildings and grounds, which have not been heretofore obtained in this part of the country. The execution of the work throughout was entrusted (without competition) to John Ballantine, builder of this city, who has carried it out in a style of workmanship maintaining his high reputation as a builder, and reflecting credit on the skilled tradesmen associated with him in the work. The entire building, gate entrance, bridge, grounds, fittings and principal furniture have been carried out according to the designs and under the superintendence of William Unsworth.”
Rex Herdman, a child of the house, would later recall, “The house was getting too small as the family grew up. Uncle Willie Unsworth did it very cleverly indeed, converting a square Irish country house into a long Tudor mansion with lovely proportions. He managed to build it around the old house with the minimum of demolition and alterations. At one end he added the present lovely hall and staircase, the drawing room – a room with great character, and a billiard room, now the library. At the other end he built the kitchen offices and servants’ hall. And over the main block of the house he added a second storey with a red tiled roof. Uncle Willie added on verandahs and balconies, and put a timbered shell on the outside, giving the house a Tudor style which in those days was most fashionable. Uncle Willie also laid out the gardens in terraces with steps and low brick walls.”
Opposite the mill high up on the far bank of the River Mourne in the parish of Camus-Juxta-Mourne (Camus is pronounced “Came-us”) stands Camus Rectory, an exquisite restored Georgian box. It is the polar opposite of Sion House in massing, design and fortune. The Herdman brothers bought the adjacent Camus Farm in 1847 and planted 10 hectares of oats and 1.6 hectares of turnips to feed their families and workers. Three hectares of flax were used for the mill.
While her family was having a transformative influence on County Tyrone, Emma Herdman was breaking boundaries and pushing back frontiers in north Africa. Her friend the Reverend Albert Augustus Isaacs, one of the first photographers of the Holy Land, wrote A Biographical Sketch Relative to the Missionary Labours of Emma Herdman in the Empire of Morocco the year after her death. He opens with, “Emma Herdman, the eldest daughter of James Herdman Esq, of Sion House, County Tyrone, Ireland, was born at Ligerton in the same county on 17 October 1844. From her earliest years she gave promise of attainments beyond those of her compeers. A French master, who was employed to conduct a French class, affirmed when she was but seven years of age, that he had never met with a child in his own experience of such mental capacity. At 13 years of age, Emma Herdman was sent to Neuwied on the Rhine, in order that she might acquire a competent knowledge of the German language. The school at Neuwied is under the direction of the Moravian Brethren. There is reason to believe that the work of grace in her soul was first kindled through the instrumentality of some Christian friends whose acquaintance she formed at a boarding house in Torquay.”
Emma was fluent in six modern languages and competent in Latin, Greek and Biblical Hebrew. Knowing Arabic would come in useful when she joined the North African Mission aged 40, moving from Tangier to settle in Fes (or Fez) in 1888. Albert explains, “A settlement in a town of this character was a matter of considerable difficulty. Up to that time no Consular agent or other representative of Great Britain had been settled in Fez. There were no other subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.” She was one of four female missionaries in the town who taught English and ran a medical clinic. “The authorities would hardly connect a number of helpless women with any intrigue, or any attempt to interfere with the customs and religion of the country. And when it became known that they ministered to the wants of the sick and suffering, it would serve to dissuade any zealot from canvasing the character of a work which bore such useful and profitable fruit.” Jonathan Hamill explains in The Herdman Family and Sion Mills: An Irish Linen Dynasty and Its Utopian Legacy, 2017, “Apart from two brief visits to England, in 1888 and 1893, Emma Herdman would spend the rest of her life in the African Missions.”
One of her many altruistic endeavours was her work with prisoners. Albert states, “In every land access to prisoners presents serious difficulties. The ladies of the Mission who had secured through their philanthropy and earnestness the respect of the Government officials, had no difficulty in reaching the vast numbers of those who were suffering imprisonment. Their native evangelists also got access to them.” In Emma’s own words, “The prison work increases in interest. We do a little in six prisons and three dungeons – practically large prisons also. In Fez most of the converts in the prisons are political prisoners – in irons, and always hungry. My bread, such as I send, is a luxury. For many I have bought matting, with which they make huts. I look for better Christianity here than in any land, for the people here have faith to start with, and many Christians have none – and many limit God. The believers here do not.”
In 1896, three years before her death, she ventured southwest in Morocco to Souss-Massa. Emma was the first European to enter this region. She records, “The scenery has been lovely. Some of the creeks would be valuable bathing places in a civilised land. We have come into the Bay of Agadir. One creek was full of large caves, the rocks forming flat roofs to them. In these caverns jackals, hyenas and foxes abound.” Albert confirms, “Much of the enjoyment of the scenery must have been lost to the traveller, for she was not allowed to wear spectacles. The use of these would have been an evidence that she came from one of the lands with which the inhabitants of Souss had a feud.”
On her return to Fes, Emma took suddenly ill but dedicated herself to work until the end. “She could not be dissuaded from receiving and teaching the group of men who hung upon her lips for instruction from the Word of God. A few of the number, in front of whom stands the vacant chair, have been photographed, to illustrate the manner in which this portion of her work was carried on.” When she rose from that chair her work was done – her pilgrimage was drawing to a close. “There was hardly an interval between the moment when her last words fell on the ears of the group of men, of whom she had been the venerated teacher, and the blessed summons into the presence of the King.” Her fellow workers decided Emma needed to get to Tangier – a four to five day journey – to meet a doctor. “Very early on the morning of Thursday 20 April, Miss Herdman, who had seemed no worse, was carried in the palanquin by bearers to the outside of the city. There the mules were yoked to it, and the party started.”
“On Sunday the party reached a village about 20 miles south of Alcazar. There Miss Herdman again became worse, and at dawn the following morning, just after the march had been resumed, she quietly passed away at 5am. After halting for an hour and doing what was necessary for our dear friend’s remains, the party proceeded towards Tangier that Tuesday, which was still 72 miles or so off. It was a sad procession which wended its way into the city of Tangier.” She was thought to have died of acute pericarditis and an ulcerated throat. Emma was immediately buried in a Christian cemetery in Tangier. “The Jew and the Gentile, the Moor and the Spaniard stood side by side with the English speaking inhabitants and the band of fellow works, in committing to its last early resting place the remains of their beloved friend. Miss Mellett wrote that ‘almost everyone was in tears’. One colporteur brought a geranium all the way from Fez to plant on her grave.” Albert summed up Emma Herdman: “Her energetic Irish nature was full of spirit and zeal.”
The July 1899 edition of The Monthly Record of the North Africa Mission (priced one penny) included an In Memoriam to Emma Herdman, “Various fellow labourers have worked with her, but she has ever been the leader. As a rule, she devoted herself to the work of teaching the people; and being older than the rest and more experienced, gave special attention to the men to whom younger ladies could not so well speak. Though not 55 at the time of her death, she had the appearance of being many years older, and her wisdom and experience caused her to be universally looked up to by both natives and Europeans. No native dared to be disrespectful to her. Large numbers of men and women came to her house for medicine, and she usually, though not always, left the doctoring to her fellow workers and attended herself to the spiritual work. Then she visited the homes of the people, and from time to time travelled extensively in the country.”
At the same time Emma was living in Fes, the north of Ireland’s great artist Sir John Lavery (1856 to 1941) made frequent visits to Tangier. The city was much more developed than Fes and the brilliant intensity of its coastal light attracted artists and wealthy visitors. His first visit was in 1891 and eventually he would buy a house in Tangier. Lavery on Location, a 2024 exhibition at the Ulster Museum Belfast, celebrated the artist’s work. Exhibited oils on canvas included The Road to Fez, The Camp, Evening (1906); On the Cliffs, Tangier (1911); and Tangier Bay, Sunshine (1920). The Pergola (1906) captures alfresco living at the Laverys’ winter retreat Dar-el-Midfah. In two very different ways, the legacies of these Irish giants of civilisation remain undiminished. Sir John Lavery’s art can be enjoyed in galleries in Belfast, Dublin and London. Emma Herdman and her cohort at the North African Mission established a Christian community in Morocco which continues to this day with the International Protestant Church of Fes.
The Herdmans’ evangelising efforts didn’t end with Emma’s demise. Jonathan Hamill relates, “After Emma’s death, her anti smoking teetotal vegetarian sister Agnes was moved to continue her work in Morocco … Agnes is referred to as a ‘Holy Terror’, a deeply devout woman with a seemingly endless supply of religious tracts, which she handed out to members of the family at every available opportunity. For example, a request to see the Catholic Cathedral in Derry was not all that it seemed. As Agnes made her way through the cathedral, boldly leaving her tracts on the empty pews, another sister scurried along behind her, discreetly gathering them up.” That other sister was Julia, who smoked a pipe and enjoyed a tipple of whiskey.
Back to the present and one of the workers talks about his experience at Herdman’s Mill: “I started a six year apprenticeship in the mill in 1965 and worked there for the next 13 years. I was one of six apprentices. All the basic skills were given to you – there was an inhouse training centre. There was about 600 people working in the mill then. During slumps in the trade we would sometimes be down to a three day week. All the facilities were immaculately kept: there was a bowling green, cricket pitch and tennis court. You got time off work to play matches. Mr Pat Herdman was small and very well built; he had leather sewn into the elbows of his jacket and had a wee dog. He would be chauffeured in a Bentley but sometimes he would drive around in his chauffeur’s Mini. The gardens of Sion House were fantastic and had a full time gardener. The Herdmans always had new potatoes that had been planted in sand for Christmas day.”
“There was the old mill and when I left the new mill was built. But there was also the original mill. Each floor of the old mill was a different department. The spinning room on the fourth floor was a wet process so workers wore aprons and were in their bare feet. The fifth floor winding room continued drawing out the thread. Then in the finishing room the flax was finally made into thread. The machines were all maintained inhouse by the overhaul team. The spinning room was all women but the winding room was mixed. At 10am tea was brought round and you could buy a cup. Byssinosis was a health risk of the flax industry but the Herdmans introduced ventilation and fans early on. We were the first linen yard in the world to build a floor with slots in it over the turbines for flax to be left covering the floor and the moisture from the water below strengthened it: this method was unique.”
Herdman’s Mill closed in 2004 and despite various attempts to rejuvenate the nine hectare site and its cluster of large buildings, it remains derelict and vandalised. Only a few metres away from the mill entrance, the gardens of Sion House are well maintained but such is the scale of the house that it requires restoration. Jeremy Williams writes in his 1994 work Architecture in Ireland 1837 to 1921, “Timber verandahs are losing out in their struggle to support wisteria.” The “beautifully moulded red brick chimneys” so admired by the Irish Builder disappeared during one of several phases of 20th century renovation works. The gatehouse is more manageable in size and in better condition: after lying boarded up it was restored in 2017 and the mock Tudor exterior has been painted mustard and skin colour rather than the more conventional black and white. The stable block with its distinctive clocktower abutting the main road through the village, another William Unsworth design matching Sion House, was restored in 2014 by Hearth Preservation Trust. Jeremy also writes, “The shingle stable block and the half timbered gatehouse screen once formal grounds from the outside world.”
After a couple of restaurants opened and closed, Dundalk born Chef Patron Niall Gorham has been successfully running Sika by Niall in one half of the former Sion House stables since 2023. The other half is a museum of the village. Originally from Dundalk, Niall has 22 years’ experience working in Dublin, Letterkenny and Strabane. This is his first solo venture. Sika comes from the deer that once roamed the nearby Baronscourt Estate, seat of the Duke of Abercorn. The 7th Viscount Powerscourt introduced this Asian breed into Ireland in 1860. The restaurant interior retains the stables’ leaded windows, parquet floor and roof beams. Sunday lunch is especially popular. Beetroot and vodka cured salmon with spiced caper berry dressing followed by roasted Ballyholey vegetable and goat’s cheese wellington with smoked paprika sauce is unmissable. Sion House has seen better days; Emma Herdman is long gone; Herdman’s Mill has definitely seen better days; but Sion House Stables are living their best life right now.
