Lissan House
| Lissan House | |
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Lissan House
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| General information | |
| Type | House |
| Architectural style | Ulster Plantation House with Georgian and Victorian additions |
| Location | Cookstown, County Tyrone |
| Coordinates | 54°40′58″N 6°45′52″W / 54.682702°N 6.764539°WCoordinates: 54°40′58″N 6°45′52″W / 54.682702°N 6.764539°W |
| Construction started | Evidence of building on site c.1580; first constructed c.1620; reconstructed c.1690 with notable alterations in c.1780, c.1840 and c.1880 |
| Governing body | Lissan House Trust |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Alterations by Davis Ducart |
| Website | |
| http://www.lissanhouse.com | |
Lissan House is a historic house and tourist attraction in Northern Ireland. Lissan lies nestled at the foot of the Sperrin Mountains amid ancient woodland near the historic market town of Cookstown.
The estate was home to the Staples family from about 1620 until the death of the last incumbent, Hazel Radclyffe-Dolling (née Staples) in April 2006, the longest known occupation by a single family of a domestic dwelling in Ireland.
Thomas Staples had originally come from Yate Court, near Bristol in Southwestern England, in about 1610 as part of the plantation of Ulster. He settled in the town of Moneymore (then being constructed as part of the terms of the Plantation Grant to the Worshipful Company of Drapers who had been granted large swathes of the new County in 1611) in County Londonderry and his stone house is marked on a Thomas Raven map of 1622 beside the Market Cross.
In around 1622 Thomas Staples married Charity Jones, heiress of Sir Baptist Jones, Master of the Worshipful Company of Vintners. In 1628, he was created the first Baronet of Lissan and Faughanvale by King Charles I. Around the same date, he purchased several leases including the lands of the town of Cookstown and 180 acres (0.73 km2) at Tatnagilta (now the Lissan estate). It is thought that a dwelling existed on the estate at this time along with an Iron Forge which was used to smelt the iron deposits found across the estate. Mainly as a result of the existence of the forge, the dwelling house survived the Rebellion of 1641 when the estate was seized by the O'Quin who had marched with a troop of rebels from Castlecaulfield. Charity, Lady Staples, and the couple's four children were imprisoned briefly in the Castle at Moneymore before being moved more permanently to the Castle at Castlecaulfield where they spent almost two years in captivity until Moneymore was relieved and the rebels suppressed. Throughout the Rebellion, the rebels used the estate and its workers to manufacture pikes, and other weapons as a result of which all the buildings on the estate survived despite the rebels' destruction of the town of Cookstown and the nearby plantation estate at Ballydrum (later Springhill). Testimonies taken from The Dowager Lady Staples and her son, the new Baronet, Sir Baptist Staples (which survive in Trinity College Dublin, describe the brutality of their treatment during these years. Lady Staples recounts witnessing Anglo-Irish families being murdered outside her prison window or those being tortured in chain-gangs begging to be killed to be done with their misery.
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Wikipedia