Castlewellan Forest Park

Last updated

Castlewellan Forest Park
Castlewellan-lake.jpg
Castlewellan Lake, Castlewellan Forest Park, with the Mourne Mountains in the background
Map
Relief Map of Northern Ireland.png
Red pog.svg
Location of Castlewellan Forest Park
Geography
LocationDown,Northern Ireland,United Kingdom
Coordinates 54°15′54″N5°57′22″W / 54.265°N 5.956°W / 54.265; -5.956
Area450 hectares (1,100 acres)
Administration
Governing bodyForest Service Northern Ireland

Castlewellan Forest Park is located in the town of Castlewellan in County Down, Northern Ireland.

Contents

The park covers some 460 hectares, including woodland and a 40 hectare lake. It was opened to the public in 1967 after the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture purchased the land from the Annesley family. Features of the park include the National Arboretum, the Peace Maze and Castlewellan Castle. [1]

National Arboretum

It contains the national Arboretum of Northern Ireland, started in 1740, which contains trees from Asia, North and South America, and Australasia. Giant sequoia were planted in the 1850s. They are used by treecreepers, who burrow into its bark and make nests. [2] The gardens originally contained over 1800 species of trees and shrubs, planted by Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley and his head gardener. Over 700 taxa still exist in the arboretum, including at least 30 champion trees.

The gardens suffered from a decline in maintenance in the late 1990s due to a shortage of resources. Work to restore and conserve a number of areas, including the greenhouses and the Moorish Tower, was carried out between 2012 and 2014. Comprehensive plans for restoration of the whole park have been agreed between the Forest Service and the local Council. [3] In 2021 a project to further restore the arboretum and the courtyard was announced. The park received £5.5 million, with half coming from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and half from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. [4]

Peace Maze

The peace maze located in the park was constructed between 2000 and 2001. It contains 6000 yew trees planted by volunteers from Northern Ireland. [2] It was the longest permanent hedge maze in the world until July 2007, when the Pineapple Garden Maze in Wahiawa, Hawaii was extended. [5] [6]

Castlewellan Castle

Castlewellan Castle The castle in Castlewellan forest park.jpg
Castlewellan Castle

Castlewellan Castle is a Scottish baronial castle built by the Annesley family between 1856 and 1858. [7] [8] It stands close to the entrance of the arboretum overlooking Castlewellan Lake and was built on the site of an old church.

The castle was built by The 4th Earl Annesley, who commissioned the Scottish architect William Burn to design it. It was built of locally quarried granite by the Parker partnership of Liverpool.

On the death of the unmarried 4th Earl in 1874, the original estate, much larger than the present park, passed to his brother Hugh, 5th Earl Annesley, who considerably enhanced the arboretum. His son, Francis, 6th Earl Annesley, inherited in 1908 but was killed in the First World War in 1914, after which the earldom passed to his cousin Walter and the Castlewellan Estate to his sister, Lady Mabel. She left it to her son Gerald Francis Annesley (born Gerald Sowerby), who sold it to the government. [1]

Since 1974, after standing empty for ten years, the castle has been used as a Christian conference centre. [9]

Flora

The Castlewellan Gold Leyland cypress was developed in the park from a mutant tree. It was selected by the park director, John Keown, and named Cupressus macrocarpa 'Keownii' in 1963. [10] The original specimen is located in the ornamental gardens. [11]

The national Arboretum of Northern Ireland is located in the park. It was first started in 1740 and contains trees from Asia, Australasia, and North and South America, including Japanese Maple and Giant sequoia planted in the 1850s. [2] In May 2018 the arboretum was awarded a plaque by the International Dendrology Society for having a "dendrological collection of exceptional merit." The society encourages the conservation of rare and endangered plants and trees. [12]

The Giant sequoia were planted as saplings in 1856. They were from a group of seed collected in California by renowned plant collector William Lobb and grown in a nursery from 1853. One of the trees has developed 19 separate trunks, a form rarely seen in cultivated specimens of this plant. The tree was voted Northern Ireland's Tree of the Year for 2018. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maze</span> Puzzle game

A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous with "maze", but can also connote specifically a unicursal pattern. The pathways and walls in a maze are typically fixed, but puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game are also categorised as mazes or tour puzzles.

<i>Sequoiadendron giganteum</i> Species of tree found in North America

Sequoiadendron giganteum, also known as the giant sequoia, giant redwood or Sierra redwood is a coniferous tree, classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Sequoioideae. Giant sequoia specimens are the most massive trees on Earth. They occur naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newcastle, County Down</span> Town in Northern Ireland

Newcastle is a small seaside resort town in County Down, Northern Ireland, which had a population of 8,298 at the 2021 Census. It lies by the Irish Sea at the foot of Slieve Donard, the highest of the Mourne Mountains. Newcastle is known for its sandy beach, forests, and mountains. The town lies within the Newry, Mourne and Down District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The National Forest (England)</span> Environmental project in central England

The National Forest is an environmental project in central England run by The National Forest Company. From the 1990s, 200 square miles (520 km2) of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and southeast Staffordshire have been planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodland with newly planted areas to create a new national forest. It stretches from the western outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, and is planned to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arboretum</span> Botanical collection composed exclusively of trees

An arboretum is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arboreta are in botanical gardens as living collections of woody plants and is intended at least in part for scientific study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leyland cypress</span> Species of conifer

The Leyland cypress, Cupressus × leylandii, X Cuprocyparis leylandii or X Cupressocyparis leylandii, often referred to simply as leylandii, is a fast-growing coniferous evergreen tree much used in horticulture, primarily for hedges and screens. Even on sites of relatively poor culture, plants have been known to grow to heights of 15 metres (49 ft) in 16 years. Their rapid, thick growth means they are sometimes used to achieve privacy, but such use can result in disputes with neighbours whose own property becomes overshadowed. The tree is a hybrid of Monterey cypress and Nootka cypress. It is almost always sterile, and is propagated mainly by cuttings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earl Annesley</span> Title in the peerage of Ireland

Earl Annesley, of Castlewellan in the County of Down, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 17 August 1789 for Francis Annesley, 2nd Viscount Glerawly, with special remainder to his younger brother the Honourable Richard Annesley. He had previously represented Downpatrick in the Irish House of Commons. The titles of Baron Annesley, of Castlewellan in the County of Down, and Viscount Glerawly, in the County of Fermanagh, were created in the Peerage of Ireland on 20 September 1758 and 14 November 1766 respectively for his father William Annesley, who sat as Member of the Irish Parliament for Midleton. Annesley was the sixth son of the Honourable Francis Annesley, fourth son of Francis Annesley, 1st Viscount Valentia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tollymore Forest Park</span>

Tollymore Forest Park was the first state forest park in Northern Ireland, established on 2 June 1955. It is located at Bryansford, near the town of Newcastle in the Mourne and Slieve Croob Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It covers an area of 630 hectares at the foot of the Mourne Mountains and has views of the surrounding mountains and the sea at nearby Newcastle. The Shimna River flows through the park where it is crossed by 16 bridges, the earliest dating to 1726. The river is a spawning ground for salmon and trout and is an Area of Special Scientific Interest due to its geology, flora and fauna. The forest has four walking trails signposted by different coloured arrows, the longest being the "long haul trail" at 8 miles (13 km) long. It was listed in The Sunday Times top twenty British picnic sites for 2000. The Forest Park has been managed by the Forest Service since they purchased it from the Roden Estate in 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castlewellan</span> Town in County Down, Northern Ireland

Castlewellan is a small town in County Down, in the south-east of Northern Ireland close to the Irish Sea. It is beside Castlewellan Lake and Slievenaslat mountain, 11 miles (18 km) southwest of Downpatrick. It lies between the Mourne Mountains and Slieve Croob. It had a population of 2,782 people in the 2011 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley</span>

Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley was a British military officer and Member of Parliament for County Cavan from 1857 to 1874.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John J. Tyler Arboretum</span> United States historic place

Tyler Arboretum is a nonprofit arboretum located at 515 Painter Road, Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It is open daily except for major holidays; an admission fee is charged to non-members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hedge maze</span> Outdoor garden maze or labyrinth

A hedge maze is an outdoor garden maze or labyrinth in which the "walls" or dividers between passages are made of vertical hedges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emo Court</span> Irish neo-classical mansion

Emo Court, located near the village of Emo in County Laois, Ireland, is a large neo-classical mansion. Architectural features of the building include sash-style windows, pavilions, a balustrade, a hipped roof, and large dome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryansford</span> Human settlement in Northern Ireland

Bryansford is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland. It sits at the northern side of Tollymore Forest Park, roughly halfway between the towns of Newcastle and Castlewellan. The village is within the townlands of Ballyhafry and Aghacullion. It had a population of 392 people in the 2001 Census.

Lady Mabel Marguerite AnnesleyHRUA was a wood-engraver and watercolour painter. Her work is in many collections, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of New Zealand. She exhibited in the Festival of Britain in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Panther</span>

Mount Panther is an historic country house located between Dundrum and Clough in Northern Ireland. The house dates from the 1700s and has been derelict for some years. In 2009 it was offered for sale for £5m along with 140 acres of farm and parkland. In 2014 it was considered a complete ruin with a reduced demesne of 80 acres. It is a listed building of County Down since 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilderness (garden history)</span> Highly artificial and formalized type of woodland

In the Western history of gardening, from the 16th to early 19th centuries, a wilderness was a highly artificial and formalized type of woodland, forming a section of a large garden. Though examples varied greatly, a typical English style was a number of geometrically-arranged compartments closed round by hedges, each compartment planted inside with relatively small trees. Between the compartments there were wide walkways or "alleys", usually of grass, sometimes of gravel. The wilderness provided shade in hot weather, and relative privacy. Though often said by garden writers at the time to be intended for meditation and reading, the wilderness was much used for walking, and often flirtation. There were few if any flowers, but there might be statues, and some seating, especially in garden rooms or salle vertes, clearings left empty. Some had other features, such as a garden maze.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arley House and Gardens</span>

Arley House and Gardens are situated at Upper Arley, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of Bewdley, in Worcestershire, England. The gardens, arboretum and parkland are listed Grade II in Historic England's Register of Parks and Gardens.

References

  1. 1 2 "HISTORY OF CASTLEWELLAN CASTLE". Castlewellan Castle. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 "Woodlands - Castlewellan Arboretum". BBC. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  3. Reeves-Smyth, Terence (2015). "In the shadow of the Mournes". Irish Arts Review (2002-). 32 (1): 122–125. ISSN   1649-217X.
  4. Fitzmaurice, Maurice (30 March 2021). "Castlewellan Forest Park to get £5.5 million revamp". Belfast Live. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  5. "Castlewellan Forest Park". NI Direct. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  6. "Largest maze, permanent hedge maze". Guinness World Records. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  7. Hill, Niki (1997). The Mournes. Dundurn. p. 66. ISBN   9781900935043.
  8. Maguire, W. A. (2000). A century in focus: photography and photographers in the North of Ireland, 1839-1939. Blackstaff. p. 42. ISBN   9780856406799.
  9. "Welcome to Castlewellan Castle". castlewellancastle.org. Retrieved 31 October 2014.
  10. Gerd Krüssmann (1995). Manual of Cultivated Conifers. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press. p. 101. ISBN   9780881920079.
  11. Rogers, Mal (23 July 2014). "The top alternative tourist spots in Ireland". The Irish Post. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  12. Moynagh, Aileen (3 May 2018). "Castlewellan garden receives international award". BBC. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
  13. "Tree of Year 2018". Woodland Trust. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018.