Derrymore House

Derrymore House is a rare Irish example of a late 18th-century cottage orne, built in the 1770s as a summer retreat for Isaac Corry, MP for Newry, and probably designed by the landscape gardener John Sutherland to look rustic outside and refined within, with a thatched roof and softly curved limewashed walls. Corry championed the Act of Union, and though it is often said the Act was drafted here, the National Trust finds no evidence for it. In 1859 the Quaker linen magnate John Grubb Richardson, founder of the model village of Bessbrook, bought the estate, laid out woodland walks and turned the early medieval rath into a garden. The house is a private residence and not open, so the visit is the 110-acre demesne of parkland and woodland overlooking the Mourne Mountains and the Ring of Gullion, with a natural play area among the trees. Dogs must be kept on a short lead throughout the estate, with an off-lead exercise field beside the main car park. Reviewers, many of them locals who come weekly, like the woodland walks, the sheltered playground and the autumn colour. One tip: there are toilets but no cafe, so bring a picnic.