JOURNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL .SOCIETY damage been since made good. A year spruce, Scots tlr, Silver lfir, poplar or so afterwards Mr. Foster went to re.., cricKet-bat willow and home-grown side at the neighbouring island of St. harctwood. Ernan's on the opposite side of the At one time there was a picturesque channel. lake, about a mile in clicumference, This property at Bell's Isle or, more close to the house; and at the time ·· pr.operly, Lower Murvagh, has bearing on Captain Hamilton's grandfather came to the early history of what we may call. Brownhall, on attaining his ma.jorlty in the Brownhall Hamiltons, who are of 1821, the lake showed signs of beginScottish descent with royal blood in their ning to fill in at the sides. John veins. The first residence which they Hamllton thought to allay the silting had in Drumholm is believed to · have up process by draining the lake, and with been 9n this same · Bell's Isle. property, that end in view he blasted a bar of but·not on the' island itself. The house rocK from the bed of the river where stood out in the warren approaches it issued from the lake near what is close to the sandhills, on a high hill ·known as the China Bridge. The work of boulder clay overlooking a long stretch went no further as John Hamilton lc:ft of level strand on Donegal Bay. This Brownhall, which he ceded to his hill is called Moyne, and there is a view brotner, Edward, and went to reside on of it as well as a poem on it in Tom the island of S't. :Ernan's in .1825. 'The Kearney's Odds and Ends of · Verse, blasting of the rock finally put an end already referred to. A few scattered to the lake. A photo of it at Brownhall, stones point to the site of this early taken in the year 1870, showed it still a Hamilton . home which probably dat~s fair sie:ied sheet of water, and there was from the latter half of the 1590'sc.........a de- a boat on it as late as 1910. Thousands cision arrived at when we come to con- of duck-widgeon and teal~used to fresider what time . the family came to quent It. Hrownhall. The Sheepskin Cave and the Pi:Per's In John Hamilton's Sixty Years' Cave, on the course of the Pullin river l!:xperience As An Irish .Landlord, the which flows thr·ough Brownhall, have to date is given as 11697; but, judging fr·om be seen to be appreciated. There is a description of Brownhall, written about a legend conce·rning the Piper's Cave 1700, the manuscript of which is still which states that the piper went in and In the possession of Captain Hamilton, never came out, and you st111 hear a little study would incline us to the nim playing on moonlit nights. · belief that their coming could be placed Between 1840 and 1850 a woman, much. earlier than this~in fact to the named Margaret Ca.rron, who lived about year 1600 or thereabouts. The manu- a mile to the east of R'l'."ownhall, was script describes as existing then at gomg home in company with her h.usBrownhall a fine avenue of lime trees, band from Ballintra Fair. Nobody now and Captain !Hamilton, who ls knows exactly what happened, but the an · authority on trees and their woman fell down a deep rock race close growth, and who has, moreover, to the avenue·at a point where the river tne experience of · the · very slow starts to flow underground for the last growth of ·1ater planting of lime trees time within the confines of the demesne. nearer the house and put there by· his The husband reported the matter to father, is certain that you cannot have Major Hamilton at Brownhall, and It a nne avenue of lime trees in less than took a number of men fishing with 40ft. lou years. poles for three days before the body was 1Brownhall has long been famed for recovered from underneath the rocks. its caves and underground river, and has The spot has ever since been known as been referred to in\ all guide books of Margaret's Hole. Ireland .for well over a hundred years One of the most remarkable things back. The woods are the result of connected with 1Brownhall is of comjudtcious planting by successive genera- paratively recent date. A large beech tions. of the Hamiltons; and the Captain tree near -one of the walks was blown since he came back in 1919, after a down by a great storm on the 27th nine years' sojoua-n in Canada has, him- January, 1927. •It had only a slight self, planted up:wards of 58,000 trees, covering of earth over the roots which, comprising Jap larch, Sitka spruce, instead of going down, spread in a great 'Qouglas :nr, Canadian cedar, !Norway network over the rocks. When the tree
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQxNzU3