Icehouse Hill Park, Dundalk, LH

Description

A lost demesne now subsumbed into Dundalk, of historic interest only. House of c. 18th century now gone, built for James Hamilton, later Viscount Limerick and Earl of Clanbrassil in 1765. The demesne was laid out in the then fashionable picturesque style, as described by Bishop Pococke. Thomas Wright of Durham probably worked here and created designs for garden buildings, as he did for Lord Limerick at Tollymone Park, Co. Down. A mid-nineteenth century map shows a fine layout embellished with canals, two islands, pond, streams, bridges, a grotto and Ice House (extant) lodge, "Dog's Monument", dovecot, woodland, clumps, a vast 'vegetable garden' and flower garden. The shape of the walled garden is discernible and some of the walls remain. The ice house survives in Icehouse Hill Park, a 20 acre public park established in 1995, which includes mature trees, possibly relics of the demesne. Clanbrassil Street marks the perimeter of the eighteenth century demesne on the east side. Railway cut through the demesne c. 1849. P.J. Carroll and Co. acquired the site and built a factory on the site of Dundalk House in 1895.