Castlewellan on Lesser Spotted Ulster

Castlewellan on Lesser Spotted Ulster

18 November 2015

CASTLEWELLAN and Annsborough will feature in the next episode of the highly acclaimed UTV series Lesser Spotted Journeys.

First stop for presenter Joe Mahon is the picturesque forest park, the former demesne of the Annesley family who built the current castle in the 1850s.

Joe meets up with former head gardener Sam Harrison who takes him on a tour of the arboretum, with the help of Hugh Annesley’s photograph album of all the trees he planted.  The popular presenter also has a particularly unpleasant encounter with a pepper bush at the forest park.

After leaving the park, Joe visits a very different type of dwelling indeed, when commercial artist Frankie Morgan invites him to the portable, yurt-like house he designed and built.

Things take a more sombre turn, however, when Joe meets local historian Mickey Burns who chats about his research on the 19th century mill village of Annsborough, which was built by the Murland brothers, who owned the Annsborough linen mill, in order to house their workers.

The former mill workers’ cottages are still lived in today, and one occupant is Tom Edgar, whose parents grew up in Annsborough in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Tom’s aunts kept all sorts of memorabilia from the First World War and Tom has kept the collection lovingly preserved, turning his home into a kind of museum. He shows Joe some of his favourite artefacts, including an ornament created out of the rubble at Gallipoli.

Finally, Joe travels back to the castle to hear the fascinating history of the Annesley family from historian Dr Sally Montgomery. Sally shows Joe the Moorish tower in which the Annesley children had picnics and relates the fascinating stories of the daughters of the 5th Earl.  Sally even dishes on such details as Mabel’s relationship with her glamorous stepmother and the strict morning routine the servants had to follow.

The episode will be screened on UTV next Tuesday, November 24, at 8pm.