Watch Your Step

This is the view out of the door that leads through the shade house to our garage.  It's the main door that we use to come and go from the house.

But the other day when I went to go out I got quite a surprise as I went to step out the door.  This 1.2 m Red Belly Black Snake was having a nice little sun bake right in front of the door on the door mat.

 He/She did not stick around and headed off into the garden.

However when hubby went to put on a load of washing later on it had decided to get out of the heat (38 degrees) and have a sleep behind the washing machine.  We had to spend the day keeping an eye on it but eventually when it cooled down it went back out side.

Any ideas on snake proofing your house?

Read More

Antrim Lieutenancy

County of Antrim

LORD-LIEUTENANT           

CHRISTIE, Mrs Joan, OBE

VICE LORD-LIEUTENANT  

READE, Mr Richard George, DL



DEPUTY LIEUTENANTS 
                                     

RATHCAVAN, The Rt Hon the Lord, DL

CUNNINGHAM, Mrs Carol, DL

BROOKE, The Hon Christopher A, DL

CASEMENT, Mr Patrick, OBE DL

FRAZER, Mr Andrew David, DL

HILLAN, Mrs Sheelagh Elizabeth, MBE DL

KINAHAN, Mr Danny de Burgh, DL MLA

KELLY, Mr Liam Gerard, JP DL

MITCHELL, Mr Joseph, DL

MONTGOMERY, Mr Hugh Edward J, DL

RAINEY, Mr William Eric, CVO MBE DL

TISDALE, Mrs Miranda, DL

WALLACE, Mrs Patricia, DL

Read More

Viscount Dungannon (2nd Creation)

This is a branch of the noble house of Downshire.

ARTHUR HILL was grandson of William Hill Esq, by Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Marcus Trevor, created Viscount Dungannon in 1662.

Having succeeded to the estates of his maternal great-grandfather, Sir John Trevor, of Brynakilt, Speaker of the House of Commons in England, and first lord commissioner of the Great Seal, Mr Hill assumed the name and arms of TREVOR.

This Arthur Hill-Trevor was raised to the peerage, in 1765, as VISCOUNT DUNGANNON, the former creation having become extinct.

Lord Dungannon was buried at Knockbreda parish church, near his seat, Belvoir Park.

His lordship had no issue by his first wife; but by his second, Anne Stafford, whom he wedded in 1737, he had an only son, 

ARTHUR, who married, though died in the lifetime of his father, leaving three daughters and a son, 

ARTHUR (1763-1837), 2nd Viscount, and Baron Hill, of Olderfleet, County Antrim; born in 1763; married, in 1795, Charlotte, eldest surviving daughter of Charles, Lord Southampton, by whom he had issue, 

ARTHUR (1798-1862), 3rd Viscount, on whose decease the titles became extinct.

The Dungannon estates, including Brynkinallt, passed to the latter's kinsman Lord Edwin Hill, 3rd son of 3rd Marquess of Downshire, who assumed the additional surname of Trevor and was created Baron Trevor, of Brynkinallt, Denbighshire, in 1890.

Of particular interest is the fact that Lord and Lady Dungannon had one son and two daughters, one of whom, the Hon Anne Hill-Trevor, married Garrett, 1st Earl of Mornington, by whom she had issue Richard, 1st Marquess Wellesley; and Arthur, 1st Duke of Wellington.

Of course this makes Lord Dungannon the grandfather of "The Great Duke" of Wellington; and it can be supposed that the Great Duke would have been familiar with the Belvoir demesne and spent time there during his childhood.

Below is the 1st Viscount's memorial:-


First published in February, 2010. Dungannon arms courtesy of European Heraldry.

Read More

Coffee Morning

I motored the six or seven miles to Holywood, County Down, this morning for coffee and a chin-wag with my aunt and Pat.

I managed to get a private parking space close to the café, the Coffee Yard.

It was rather busy this morning. The topics of discussion included a luncheon my aunt gave for friends yesterday; Pat's imminent trip to Bristol; my week and a tiresome character at the National Trust volunteers, who persistently airs his left-wing, nationalist views on the aristocracy ~ viz. the Londonderrys ~ and everything contrary to the Conservative interest.

Of course it antagonises me, though I generally say nothing. He is likely trying to provoke me.

I am of the opinion that it is totally inappropriate to air one's political views in such a context.

The intention is to bring a radio with headphones; thus becoming blissfully oblivious to him whenever he is within ear-shot.

Of course my perspective can be reactionary, a cross I gladly bear.

Read More

Grey Abbey House

The Montgomery family has been of great antiquity and historical importance in Ulster and the Ards Peninsula. I have written an article about the house of MONTGOMERY.

William Montgomery is one of the foremost brokers of country estate management, sales, fine arts and property consultancy in Northern Ireland and, indeed, further afield; and he also represents Sotheby's interests in the Province from Grey Abbey House.

Flora Montgomery, his daughter, is a well-known actress.

Sir Hugh Montgomery (1560-1636), 1st Viscount Montgomery of the Great Ardes, was founder of Newtownards and a pioneer of the plantation of Ulster. 

The 3rd Viscount was created 1st Earl of Mount Alexander in 1661. The titles became extinct in 1757 on the death of the 5th Earl.

The name, Grey Abbey, which is also that of the adjacent village, derives from the late 12th century Cistercian Abbey at the site. The ruins of the abbey can be seen from Grey Abbey House.

The manorial demesne, long known as Rosemount, was established in the early 17th century and the present house was built during the early 1760s.

Originally the property of the Clandeboye O’Neills, Grey Abbey was granted in 1607 to Sir Hugh Montgomery. In 1634 his son, Sir James, built a ‘noble house and stately out-offices’.

It was described by William Montgomery in 1683 as:

‘a double roofed-house and a baron and fower flankers with bakeing and brewing houses, stable and other needful office houses….built after the forraigne and English manner; with outer and inner courts walled about and surrounded with pleasant gardens, orchards, meadows and pasture inclosures under view of ye said house called Rosemount from which ye manner taketh name. The same was finished by …Sir James Ao Domi 1634’.

In 1701 William Montgomery was to add to this account that ‘only some small convenient additions of buildings and orchards were made by ye sd William and improved lately by his sd son James’.

In Harris’s County of Down, 1744, it was related that: 

‘Rosemount was the mansion house of Sir James Montgomery …he built here a noble house and stately out-offices (which were afterwards burnt down Ann. 1695) and laid out fine gardens behind it, executed in the form of a regular Fortification, some Bastions of which are yet to be seen. 

However the present worthy proprietor [William Montgomery] has built a neat and commodious house with handsome offices on part of the site of the former offices, and laid out his gardens and Out-grounds about it in elegant taste’.

This house too, built in 1717 by William Montgomery (d. 1725), was itself later burnt. 

In the absence of surviving 17th or 18th century Montgomery estate maps (no doubt burnt in one of those fires or in a fire in a fire in the agent’s house) it is difficult to be certain where exactly these various early buildings stood.

The house, which was accidentally burnt in 1695, may have stood in the vicinity of the present stable yard, and indeed could have the 1717 house, but some believe could have stood on the seaward side of the present mansion.

The ‘fortified’ garden may have occupied what is now the walled garden to the north-west, but there seems to be no physical sign of this today.

It is possible that the present yard, being a complex of 18th and 19th century buildings, could incorporate elements of the ‘handsome offices on part of the site of the former house’, mentioned by Harris in 1744.

The present house (above) at Rosemount, located on a rise in the park, was built from 1762 by William Montgomery, who had succeeded to the property in 1755. It was still being erected when James Boswell visited the place on 2nd May 1769 and noted the ‘excellent house of Mr. Montgomery’s own planning, and not yet finished’.

The house is a three-storey block over basement, Palladian in style, with six bay entrance front, hipped roof and balustraded roof parapet.

It has a three-sided bow in the centre of the garden front (Gothic windows on ground floor, inspired by Castle Ward, are a later addition, possibly c.1785) and canted projections and diagonally set single-storey side porches on the side elevations, the latter being added in 1845-6 to design of James Sands, commissioned by Hugh Montgomery, who succeeded to the family property from his father William in 1831.

The roof-balustraded parapets were also added in the 1840s. A single-storey smoking room extension was added to the north-east in 1895.

The existing naturalistic landscape park with its woodlands, shelter belts, meandering walks and sweeping carriage drives, was laid out as a setting for this house in the 1760s or 1770s. 

The old abbey ruins were made a feature of this park and a sunken drive was created below the garden front of the house.

In the 1840s, a masonry pedestrian humped bridge was built, allowing access to the park across this sunken way.

Near the abbey a well house was built in the 1770s, known as ‘The Nun’s Well’, possibly replacing a medieval well-house mentioned by Harris in 1744.

The stable yard, being a complex of one and two-storey ranges of both 18th and 19th century construction, including a free-standing game larder, are hidden within the park, as is the walled garden lying to the north-west.

The three 19th century gate lodges were added in the 19th century; viz. the old gate lodge ca 1820, known as Rosemount Cottage, made redundant by a re-alignment of the public road; the Abbey entrance of ca 1815-20; and the village West Gate Lodge of ca 1860.

The entrance lodge is in Georgian-Gothic style, as is the pinnacles gate-screen, and appears to have been inspired by the lodges at Mount Stewart, designed by George Dance (the younger), in 1808-09.

In 1843, the garden designer, Ninian Niven, made some alterations to the park layout, notably adding a parterre to the terrace on the north east side of the house. This has been grassed over in recent decades. 

The parkland survives today in good order and contains fine mature trees with shelter belts and woodlands down to the lough shore.

Contemporary ornamental planting is maintained to the east and west of the north front; the south entrance front is in lawns, with a sweeping carriage drive.

Part of the walled garden to the northwest of the house is cultivated. A portion of what was once a much larger orchard is retained.

William Montgomery, who lives with his family at Grey Abbey estate today, is descended from the younger brother of the 1st Earl of Mount Alexander, Sir James, who was given the Grey Abbey estates which remain, in part, in the family today.

The family is, therefore, of the same family but not directly descended from him.

In Victorian times, the family owned land in the Ards Peninsula extending to some 5,000 or so acres, though this figure would have been closer to 100,000 acres in the 16th century.

The Montgomerys also owned the Tyrella estate, near Rathmullan, County Down - it having come into the family through the marriage of William Montgomery to Suzanne Jelly in 1749.

Mrs Daphne Montgomery is the granddaughter of 1st Viscount Bridgeman. William Montgomery is a Trustee of Weston Park estate in Shropshire. The Bridgeman family inherited Weston Park itself during the 18th century and today it is run as a trust by the Weston Park Foundation.

I am grateful to William Montgomery for providing me with further details and images of Grey Abbey House. Mount Alexander arms courtesy of European Heraldry. First published in May, 2010.

Read More

Blackberry Sponge

County Down blackberry sponge pudding, made this afternoon at Belmont GHQ. The flavour is sublime.

The blackberries were picked in September at Portavo reservoir, near Donaghadee.

Read More

NY Daily News Reports Classic Car Market At All-Time High

by Andrea L. Algar
Motorheads Performance

We're asked constantly about the values of classic cars, and whether the current trend in popularity will be on-going or whether we're in for a bubble-burst. As much as I'd love to provide a definitive answer, there is really no way to accurately predict. The previous gas war we were in in the 1970's proved fatal to a thriving muscle car era.

Even following the downturn following the 1970's highs, there were always the true enthusiasts who not only kept their enthusiasm in tact, but helped to keep the cars themselves from extinction. I think that this will always be the case. And, if we are faced with another downturn in collector attention, it should drive up the prices when they once again surface because there would be fewer survivors. As we all know, rarity does drive up the values of collector cars.

That said, the news in the collector world is still good. It is being reported in the New York Daily News that, "The demand for classic cars is at an all-time high. If viewed as a class of commodity, they would seem like the only sure bet for investors."

We'll continue to monitor demand and valuations of classic cars, but for us, it's more than the monetary value. Guy Algar states, "I have always believed that the fun of owning a classic car or truck is NOT in the financial gain you might get from owning one. It is in the joy that owning and driving one brings, even if the costs outweigh the value. It has the ability to take us back to our youth when life was delightfully simpler, and cars were something that you actually enjoyed!" As one person commented online, "treating old cars as an investment would suck the fun out of owning them." We agree!

RESOURCES FOR CLASSIC CAR INVESTMENT:
Classic Car News - Buying Classic Cars As Investments - What Are Your Chances of Making Money? 
Classic Car News - Don't Let The Thrill Of Driving Die - Traditional Ritual In Danger
Classic Car News - Future of Cars May Be Incredible, But Will They Be As Fun To Drive?
NYDailyNews.com - Demand for Classic Cars Reaches New Heights

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920’s through 1970’s. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.

Read More