History of The Argory

Irish lords and English settlers

The Argory lies in a landscape of low, rolling hills, with streams threading through many small valleys. In the medieval period this area was home to the Uí Nialláin whose principal stronghold was at Loughgall, just to the south. By the sixteenth century it had become the favourite haunt of the O’Neill family. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, spent a good deal of time here in Oneilland, on lands owned by his half-brother, Art MacBaron O’Neill.

Towards the end of her reign, Elizabeth I revived the English colonial project in Ireland, attempting to regain and maintain political and economic control over the island. In the violent confrontation that followed, Art MacBaron sided with the Crown.

Having been involved in secret negotiations with Spain, in 1607 Hugh O’Neill and the Earl of Tyrconnel escaped to the Continent in the hope of acquiring Spanish military support. The flower of the Gaelic aristocracy accompanied this ‘Flight of the Earls,’ forfeiting vast estates to the Crown in the process.

In the re-allocation of lands for settlement in James I and VI’s programme of Plantation, Art MacBaron might have expected favourable treatment. But because Oneilland was the most fertile of all the Plantation lands it was granted to a number of English ‘undertakers ’. As with other Irish nobles, Art MacBaron’s grant of new, less productive lands elsewhere lasted only as long as he and his wife lived.

The Nicholsons of Derrycaw

By the late 1600s, Oneilland – ‘the granary of Ulster’ – was a Quaker heartland, almost entirely populated by English farming families, many from northwest England. It is in the ownership of the Quaker Nicholson family that the lands of Derrycaw, of which The Argory forms a part, first come to notice.

The Nicholsons had been farming Derrycaw since the 1690s, and possibly long before. But in 1740, in payment of a debt, their estate passed to Joshua McGeough of Drumsill (1683-1756). The Nicholsons stayed on as tenants, continuing to live in the house they had built on the property in 1698. They seem eventually to have acted as land stewards for the McGeoughs at Derrycaw.

Starting from Scratch: creation of the Argory (1817-40)

A canny businessman, Joshua McGeough set his descendants up for success. Amassing what would now be called a diversified portfolio of land and other financial assets, the family was never totally reliant on land rents. Further wealth was brought in through legal careers, and from advantageous marriages. In the mid-eighteenth century, Joshua McGeough’s eldest son William, for example, married an heiress, Elizabeth Bond of Bondville, whose importance to the family is reflected in the adoption of her surname by later generations.

Joshua’s great grandson, Walter McGeough Bond (1790-1866), was a young barrister of considerable means when he inherited his father’s estate in 1817. The terms of his father’s will meant that if he married, he would be unable to live in the family’s principal residence at Drumsill unless two of his sisters also married.

Walter clearly had no intention of letting this hinder his progress. He was probably developing plans for building a new house on his lands at Derrycaw as early as 1818-19. He chose a greenfield site, not far from the Nicholsons’ late seventeenth-century residence. Building works were well underway on the 8 acre (3.3 ha) plot called the Argory by 1820, continuing for a number of several years.

Designed by Dublin architects Arthur and John Williamson, the new house was uncompromisingly modern – an austere, Greek Revival villa on the exterior, expensively decorated and comfortably furnished inside. When Walter married in 1826, his house must have been nearing completion: bills survive for furniture and draperies provided for reception rooms in 1827, including ‘2 very superb sett of Drawing Room curtains.’ By the 1830s, Walter and his second wife Anne Smyth were filling the house with furniture, paintings and ornaments purchased in France and Italy, which can still be enjoyed by visitors today.

The Williamson brothers also designed the gardens and wider landscape which formed the new demesne. Their design makes the most of the surrounding countryside to make the demesne seem larger than it is. The view of a bend in the River Blackwater from the front of the house is carefully contrived: screens of trees make the water appear as if it is a lake, like those found on very grand estates. Some specimen trees may survive from the original design, such as a spreading Cedar of Lebanon in the terraced garden.

The Age of Empire: from colonial adventuring to country house life

In common with other Anglo-Irish gentry families, a number of the younger sons pursued military careers. Ralph MacGeough Bond Shelton (1832-1916) attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Joining the 12th Lancers, he eventually rose to the rank of Captain. Early in his career he fought in the Eighth Frontier War against the Xhosa Kingdom in South Africa (1850-53). Of the long series of colonial wars in the eastern Cape, this had the most devastating results for the Xhosa people .

Going on to fight in the Crimea and in the repression of the Indian Mutiny in the 1850s, Captain Shelton later spent time with the Italian army. Finishing his career with a role in international diplomacy, he retired to a relaxed life at the Argory.

A great entertainer, Captain Shelton welcomed friends and family to country house parties. Photographs in large Victorian albums record tea on the lawn and equestrian sports. Guests’ weight on arrival and departure was measured on a jockeys’ weighing chair, to confirm they had been well-fed. Many of his books remain on the Argory’s bookshelves, recalling this leisured lifestyle – much light literature, generally in French, and occasionally a little risqué.

Winding down (1916-1945)

Captain Shelton had a strong attachment to The Argory, and the continuation of his family’s link to this place was extremely important to him. Having discovered that his intended heir had no intention of moving in, he altered his will in favour of his nephew, Sir Walter MacGeough Bond (1857-1945). The condition of inheritance was that he spend at least part of each year at The Argory.

Sir Walter, however, felt no deep attachment to The Argory – it was not his childhood home. He spent most of his career in Cairo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century during the period of British occupation, serving in the Court of Appeal as a judge and then Vice President. So neither Sir Walter and his wife, Ada Nichols, lived much at The Argory, preferred the warmer, drier climes of mainland Europe; Sir Walter spent a good deal of his time in the south of France, while Lady Bond travelled on the continent.

Despite this, their presence has left a strong imprint on The Argory. Although not a close couple, they shared an interest in collecting antique furniture and objets d’art. Her interest in elaborately inlaid furniture and his in Egyptian material culture give a particular flavour to the character of the house.

Mr Bond: ‘a collector without a gallery’

In 1943, Nevill MacGeough Bond (1908-86) took over management of the estate, then occupied by American troops. Having served as a girls’ school in the early years of the war, the house was unoccupied, with much of the furniture stacked in the drawing room. After the war Mr Bond, as he was generally known, set up an apartment for himself in one wing of the house. Apart from his study and the dining room, much of the main house remained under wraps.

Mr Bond was drawn to the arts rather than the law or the military. His dream would have been to become a concert musician, but without the virtuoso talent necessary, he diverted his energy into collecting pictures and sculpture. Over his lifetime he amassed a collection of around 400 works of art, mostly contemporary. In the 1960s he developed a strong interest in the work of young Ulster artists, some of whom were to become major creative figures. Describing himself as ‘a collector without a gallery,’ he rotated his artworks between the rooms and corridors of his own apartments and storage in unused rooms.

Endings and new beginnings

From the late 1960s, Mr Bond had been considering transferring The Argory house and demesne to the National Trust – an aim which was finally achieved in 1979 with support from the Ulster Land Fund. He worked closely with the Trust to reinstate the main house as it had been in his childhood, finally awakening it from its long slumber.

Mr Bond had hoped that a gallery for his artworks could be established in the stable block. In the end, that did not come to fruition, and the collection was dispersed after his death. A few of his paintings and sculptures do remain at The Argory, and his study has been preserved as if he has just popped out for a moment, so the spirit of the last of the MacGeough Bonds to live at The Argory remains in its atmosphere.

For further reading

Purdue, O. 2005. The MacGeough Bonds of the Argory: An Ulster gentry family, 1880-1950. Dublin: Four Courts Press.