Gosford Castle is a 19th-century country house situated in Gosford, a townland of

Markethill Markethill () is a village in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. It is beside Gosford Forest Park. It had a population of 1,647 people in the 2011 Census. This article contains quotations from this source, which is available under th Open Governme ...

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

. It was built for

Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, (1 August 1776 – 27 March 1849), styled The Honourable Archibald Acheson from 1790 to 1806 and Lord Acheson from 1806 to 1807, was a British politician who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada a ...

, and designed in the Norman revival style by London architect Thomas Hopper. It is a Grade A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

, and is said to be

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...

's largest. The

Earls of Gosford Earl of Gosford is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1806 for Arthur Acheson, 2nd Viscount Gosford. The Acheson family descends from the Scottish statesman Sir Archibald Acheson, 1st Baronet of Edinburgh, who later settled ...

occupied the castle until 1921, and the estate was later purchased by the

Ministry of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister ...

to form

Gosford Forest Park Gosford Forest Park is a forest park located outside Markethill, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The park, previously Gosford Demesne, was acquired by the Department of Agriculture in 1958 and comprises some 240 hectares of diverse woodland ...

. The building subsequently deteriorated and in 2006 was sold to a development company who converted the castle into private dwellings.

History

The Acheson family were granted land in

King James VI & I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until hi ...

in 1610, at the start of the

Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation ('' plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of th ...

. They established the village of

and built a castle, though this was destroyed during the

Irish Rebellion of 1641 The Irish Rebellion of 1641 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1641) was an uprising by Irish Catholics in the Kingdom of Ireland, who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantat ...

. A manor house was built in its place, which the Achesons occupied until 1840. The writer

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

(1667–1745) visited Gosford and contributed to the layout of the gardens. In 1819, The 2nd Earl of Gosford (1776–1849), then head of the Acheson dynasty, commissioned Thomas Hopper (1776–1856) to design a new house at Gosford. A Norman revival style of architecture was chosen, marking Hopper's first attempt at this style that he would go on to perfect at

Penrhyn Castle Penrhyn Castle ( cy, Castell Penrhyn) is a country house in Llandygai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, constructed in the style of a Norman castle. The Penrhyn estate was founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In the 15th century his descendent Gwilym a ...

in Wales. Hopper was assisted by local architect Thomas Duff. In 1837 the building was reported as unfinished, and was not fully complete until 1859 when Hopper's assistant George Adam Burn rebuilt the entrance front. The 4th Earl of Gosford (1841–1922) was forced to sell the castle's contents in 1920 and, after his death in April 1922, the castle was no longer occupied by the Acheson family. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, Gosford was commandeered and used to accommodate troops, with a prisoner-of-war camp on the estate. Following the war the Achesons sold the estate to the

, who established the demesne as

. The castle was used for the storage of public records, and in the 1970s served as a barracks for soldiers. In 1983, it was opened as a hotel, though this venture was not successful, and the leaseholders allowed the building to fall into disrepair.

Redevelopment

The Forest Service, then part of the

Department of Agriculture and Rural Development The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is a government department in the Northern Ireland Executive, the devolved administration for Northern Ireland. The minister with overall responsibility for the department i ...

(DARD), regained control of the property in February 2002. The castle at this time was in a desperate state of disrepair and without urgent intervention was in real danger of becoming irretrievably beyond repair, leading to calls for action from the

Ulster Architectural Heritage Society Ulster Architectural Heritage Society was founded "to promote appreciation and enjoyment of good architecture of all periods and encourage the conservation, restoration and re-use of Ulster's built heritage to regenerate and sustain our communitie ...

(UAHS). The castle, with of grounds, was put up for sale for as little as £1, subject to viable proposals for restoration. In 2006, the decaying castle was bought by Gosford Castle Development Ltd. for £1,000. The developers, supported by architects the Boyd Partnership and the

Environment and Heritage Service The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) is an executive agency within the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). It is responsible for conservation of Northern Ireland's environment and natural heritage. Ori ...

, put forward a £4m proposal to restore the castle as 23 residences, based on vertical division of the building and retention of the main rooms. In January 2008 the first residents of the new apartments moved in. In 2013, it was reported that the redevelopment had been stalled since 2010 due to financial issues. The restoration was undertaken by a team of artisans and craftsmen, to create homes of two, three and four storeys in height set within the original fabric of the castle. The development aimed to retain the character and historic integrity of the castle by using existing staircases and walls where possible. Approaches used include the restoration of original colour schemes in the principal rooms, such as the vaulted ceiling of the Inner Hall; walls that were painted green to represent drapery; and a background of scarlet used to set off the library's wooden bookcases. Residents began moving into the first completed homes in the castle courtyard in January 2008. The castle was used as a filming location for ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of '' A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the fir ...

''. It was sold in 2019 with plans to convert it to apartments.

References

External links

Gosford Castle
Bygones and Byways: Markethill & District Local History Project
Gosford Castle
Queen's University Belfast {{Places of Interest in County Armagh Castles in County Armagh Country houses in Northern Ireland Grade A listed buildings Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest Houses completed in 1859 Romanesque Revival architecture in the United Kingdom Romanesque Revival architecture in Ireland

History

Redevelopment

See also

References

External links