Tudor Revival Survival
Forest parks on Irish demesnes often have a vital missing component: the country house. All too many were mindlessly demolished in the mid 20th century. Pomeroy House and Seskinore House both in County Tyrone are sadly typical examples. In those two cases all that remain are the stables and a footprint of the house just about legible from an aerial view. Parkanaur is a remarkable exception: the entire house with its rambling wings and outbuildings is intact and in use. Just to add to the country estate feel, white fallow deer descended from a pair gifted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1597 to her niece at Mallow Castle in County Cork roam an enclosure overlooked by the house.
In 1771, an Anglo Irish gentleman Ynyr Burges bought the Parkanaur Estate from the Caulfield family. John Henry Burges, a cousin of John Henry’s daughter Lady Poulet, leased the estate and built a triple gabled hunting lodge about 1804. The entrance door was to the left of the present one. A south wing was added in 1821 when the house became the family seat. John Henry’s son John Yner received an inheritance from Lady Poulet in 1838 enabling him to buy the freehold of the estate the following year.
John Yner commissioned the architect Thomas Duff to design a large extension which was completed at a cost of £3,000 in 1848. The original house has windows with mullions and Georgian astragals; the later addition has mullioned windows with leaded lights. The two principal fronts, at a perpendicular angle to one another, back onto courtyards surrounded by substantial outbuildings included a coach house and tower. The rear elevation of the largest courtyard building with its Georgian sash windows is three storeyed due to the sloping land.
The completed Parkanaur is a handsome Tudor Revival house. Thomas Duff was a serious architect. His oeuvre includes the Catholic Cathedrals of St Patrick’s Armagh, St Patrick’s Dundalk and St Patrick and St Colman’s Newry. Narrow Water Castle outside Newry, equally belonging to the revivification of the Tudor Style, is also by his hand. He partnered for a short time with the equally talented Belfast architect Thomas Jackson. The Newry based architect is credited with designing the first Presbyterian portico in Ulster at Fisherwick Place Church in Belfast.
As a Catholic, Thomas Duff was an unusual choice for Protestant commissions and clients. John Yner and his wife Lady Caroline also made improvements to the demesne, planting thousands of trees each year. The Burges enjoyed a sociable lifestyle revolving around entertaining and visiting other Anglo Irish families. Castle Leslie in County Monaghan, Glenarm Castle in County Antrim and Killymoon Castle in County Tyrone – neighbours in aristocratic terms – were all on their social circuit.
The 1830s were halcyon years for the Burges family. But the following decade, three of their four sons died leaving just two daughters. Lady Caroline sold the carriage horses to fund charitable efforts after the Great Famine struck in 1845. Her husband recorded, “My lady instituted a kitchen with every apparatus and convenience for feeding the labourers, all of whom were fed daily … they got the best beef, potatoes and pudding which sustained them while many were starving … with all this I could not keep my people and no less than 300 went off to America having disposed of their land to try their fortune in a strange country.”
The Burges were benevolent landlords. Lady Caroline’s brother, William Clements 3rd Earl of Leitrim, was not: he was murdered for his callousness in 1878. During World War II, Parkanaur was used as a base for the Western Command, housing 50 military personnel. In 1955, the Burges family sold the house and 25 hectares for £12,000 to Reverend Gerry and Mary Eakin. Their son Stanley had difficulty walking and would later use a wheelchair. The Eakins decided to set up an occupational training college in the house to support disabled students. Parkanaur now celebrates seven decades of educational use and residential care supporting a wide range of needs. It is currently occupied by the Thomas Doran Parkanaur Trust. The demesne continues to be a much loved forest park.
St Michael’s Church of Ireland Church Castlcaulfield is two kilometres from Parkanaur as the falcon files. At the summit of the sloping cemetery stands a Tuscan temple with a gloriously oversized pediment all faced in buff pink (long greyed) Dungannon sandstone. It is the Burges burial vault. There are two tombstones unmissably close to the church entrance porch. One marks the burial place of Frederica Florence Elizabeth (1873 to 1957) Burges of Quintin Castle, Portaferry, County Down (it’s now a nursing home). She was the widow of Ynyr Richard Patrick Burges who was buried in Lawrenny, Pembrokeshire, in 1905. Her tombstone is also over the grave of their daughter Margaret Elizabeth (1908 to 1958). Next to Frederica’s tombstone is the resting place of Major Ynyr Alfred Burges’ (1900 to 1983). The last of the Burges family to own Parkanaur, he was High Sheriff of Counties Armagh and Tyrone. His wife Christine (1908 to 1982) shares the same burial plot.
