Bellamont House

The house was constructed for Judge John Coote and passed down through the family in 1800 to an illegitimate son of Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont. The estate was later gambled away by descendant John Coote in 1874 and acquired by the Dorman-Smith family. Later Eric Dorman-Smith lived in the property after serving for the British army in both world wars before being dishonorably discharged in 1942. Dorman-Smith then changed his name to O'Gowan and became a Republican while allowing the IRA to use the estate as a firing range and safe house during the border campaign. He died in 1969.[8]

In more recent times the property was acquired by a distant descendant of the original Coote family, Australian interior designer John Coote (former husband of Australian MP Andrea Coote) who purchased the House in 1987 for £500,000 Irish pounds. Coote restored the property to its former glory over the following two decades before dying suddenly in 2012 while the property was for sale. The property was finally sold by a Receiver to an American buyer, John Manuel Morehart in 2015 for €2m with part of the grounds leased to the state-owned forestry company Coillte.[9]

In 2021, Coillte relinquished its leasehold of the forestry element of the estate.[10]

Bellamont House in 1870

The house is a Palladian style square-plan, four-bay two storey over basement villa set amongst a rolling drumlin landscape. It is faced with red brick with limestone quoins to the ground floor level, and rusticated stone facing to the raised basement level. A protruding Doric entrance portico to the front of the building is also constructed in limestone atop a stone plinth while the broad steps leading up to the villa are sided with ashlar. There are pediments over the ground floor windows with sandstone surrounds and venetian windows to the sides of the property. The property sits on a hill at the highest point in the surrounding area facing mature woodland, pasture, lakes and rivers.[11][12][5]

The interior contains marbles busts of various members of the Coote family while the entrance hall is paved with portland stone slabs and contains a coffered elaborate plasterwork ceiling.[13]

The house is approached by a long driveway along Town Lough from the town of Cootehill.

• Dartrey Forest