Ancestor’s research of Strangford family is unveiled

1 January 2014

IN 1854 my great great grandfather, James Skillen, married Eliza Lowry. He was 19 and she was 17. They went on to have 14 children together, the 13th being my great grandfather, Robert.

James and Eliza worked for Colonel Wallace and his family at Myra Castle, the neighbouring estate to Castleward, near Strangford. He was a coachman and she was a domestic servant. During the 19th and early 20th centuries estates like Castle Ward and Myra Castle were an important source of employment to the local community and generations of families, including the Skillens, followed each other into the service of these households.

Sarah Jane Gain and Robert Skillen were married in Christ Church, Ballyculter, on September 15, 1910. They had both found work at Castleward during the time of Henry Ward, fifth Viscount Bangor, who with his wife, Mary King, employed a huge staff on a scale never to be known again on the estate. It consisted of a butler, two footmen, a personal valet, four housemaids, a personal maid, a cook, a kitchen maid, a scullery maid, laundry maids, a boot boy, a coachman, two grooms, a land steward and about 40 workmen who were mainly farm workers, gardeners, gamekeepers and a boatman.

Robert Skillen was employed as a gardener and was in charge of the ‘Little Garden’ (about four acres), which he had helped create. It included the triangular and round beds between the stone flags of the sunken rose garden as well as the upper terraces of the rose beds with clipped box edges. There was also a sloped rockery filled with perennials, agapanthus, large poppies and all the surrounding shrubs and lawns.

When Maxwell Ward — the sixth Viscount Bangor — inherited the estate after the death of his father in 1911, Robert was one of the gardeners kept on. He remained in employment there until the National Trust took it over in 1950. My grandfather, Albert, also began his career as the gamekeeper at Castleward. My family gave almost 100 years of service to these houses.

Robert and Sarah lived in the Downpatrick Gate Lodge, one of 20 properties on the estate. While the wages were low, Lord Bangor’s employees paid him no rent. The lodge consisted of two bedrooms, a hall, kitchen and a scullery, and was situated in the clearing of the woods at the main entrance gate of the estate. The family earned themselves an extra half crown per week by opening a shutting the gate when Lord Bangor swept in and out. Robert and Sarah had four children together — Hester (born 1911), Ida (born 1915), Albert (my grandfather, born 1917), and Agnes (born 1921).

Sarah’s father, James Gain, was an iron moulder from Glasgow. He moved to Ireland in 1891 with his wife Sarah (née Coates) and children Edward and Sarah Jane. Although they were married in Scotland Sarah was originally from Walshestown.

James found work at one the County Down foundries and settled a stone’s throw from Castleward on a little plot of land (17 acres) just beyond the estate walls on the Audleystown Road. Their home, known as The Mallard, was a two-roomed cottage and when he was old enough their son, Edward, farmed the surrounding land.

James Gain died before the 1901 census, as Sarah was described as a widow. Edward joined the 14th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles in 1914 and was killed in battle on January 18, 1918, leaving his mother to live in the cottage alone and let the land out to local farmers for grazing.

The position of the Downpatrick Gate Lodge was relatively isolated and there were not many children the same age as Albert living on the estate. He enjoyed the camaraderie school brought and with his younger sister he walked the four miles to the nearest school at Ballyculter clasping bread, jam and milk for his lunch.

Albert and Agnes collected the son of the chauffeur from the stable yard at Castleward on their way to school and sometimes when they returned home the boy’s mother would give them cake. The school was distinct by being an integrated school with both a Catholic and Protestant teacher. About two thirds of the children were Catholic and were given their religious instruction separately before going to class.

As a boy Albert enjoyed clambering up trees in the woods and going to visit his widowed grandmother at The Mallard. His mother would send him with food parcels and he would lend a hand by gathering wood for the fire. I recall visiting this house in the 1970s and it had no electricity even then.

It was a happy, but simple life and in the evening Albert helped his father with his woodwork hobby, making walking sticks and boats which they took down to play with at the bay near Strangford. Another passion of Robert’s was his music and although untrained, he learned by ear and I am told he was a talented musician. He taught all his children to play the fiddle by putting his thumb on the strings as they played.

When they left school all of Robert and Sarah’s children found employment at Castleward, Hester and Ida as servants and my grandfather as a gamekeeper, and they continued to live with their parents until they got married.

When World War 2 broke out in 1939, my grandfather joined the Royal Ulster Rifles where he learned to drive and for a time during the war became the personal driver of a colonel. He married my grandmother, Florence Elizabeth Mary Major in 1941, and they had three children together — Brian (born 1942), Molly Patricia (my mother, born 1944) and Peter (born 1957).

After the war my grandfather moved to Belfast and became a lorry driver, a job he stayed with until he retired. Although he lived in the Whitewell housing estate for most of his married life, Albert kept in touch with his country roots. Never without his highly trained Springer spaniels, he maintained his hobby of shooting game when he could. He died in 2005, aged 88.

In the autumn of 1950 Lord Bangor died, leaving the estate to his son, Edward, who immediately found himself faced with the enormous death duty of £80,000. While Edward, now the seventh Viscount Bangor, sat in the family church at Ballyculter for his father’s funeral, he was weighed down by responsibilities he would rather not face.

Eventually he moved back to London and handed the house and estate over to the National Trust. Unlike the majority of the estate staff, my great grandfather, Robert was relieved to find himself still employed when the National Trust took over and continued to work in the gardens until he retired. Even then he was reluctant to leave and he was well into his 80s when he stopped work.

Robert died in 1961 and Sarah died some 14 years later at Lecale House, Downpatrick. Of all my great grandparents, Sarah is the only one I ever met. I have fond memories of visiting her as a boy at the little cottage on the Audleystown Road.

Nestled between the Castleward and Myra Castle estates on the shores of Strangford Lough there was a village called Audleystown. In 1852, according to the last rent book available, the village had 25 families living there — 201 inhabitants in total.

They paid rent and were employed by Lord and Lady Bangor. Ten of these inhabitants were Skillens and 17 were Lowrys. Given the close proximity of all these locations, I have every reason to believe they were related to my great great grandparents.

There is a story that in October 1852 — two years before my great grandparents were married — it all the residents of this village were unwillingly evicted and their homes were destroyed. The belief is they were herded on a ship called the Rose and sent to America. It remains my quest to discover their fate.

• This story is included in Tales from Inverbrena, the Inverbrena Local History Group’s magazine. It is priced £8 and is on sale at Kevin Og’s shop, Strangford.

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