Original Description from A. Atkinson

ECCLESVILLE AND FINTONA.

When we visited Ecclesville in 1830, it was then the seat of the late lamented John Dickson Eccles, Esq. proprietor of the Fintona estate, and a country gentleman of sterling worth, though of plain and unassuming manners.

The demesne embraces about 250 acres of this property, lightly and ornamentally planted; but from its comparatively low position, it commands no prospect of the surrounding country; a fact in its topographic history, which need not be much lamented, since that country exhibits but little of the picturesque, and all that is necessary to a decent domestic landscape, may be found within the confines of Ecclesville demesne.

The house, which stands at a short distance from the public road, at the bottom of a valley formed by gently sloping hills, is a plain but noble edifice (the expressive type of the founder’s honest mind, where the rich streams of benevolence, flowing through a retired valley to that invisible ocean, where they are now centred for ever, felt too deeply their own intrinsic worth, to court that sweet- smelling cowslip of popular applause, ‘which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven,’) and to this has been added all those plain and useful appendages of a family residence, which are necessary to decent rank and to substantial comfort.

Fintona, a market and post town on this estate (which has several shops, and does some business in the corn trade) may be regarded as the capital of the property. It stands on a public road a little elevated above the valley of Ecclesville, of which it commands an imperfect view; and although the appearance of this town is not remarkably attractive, we understand a good deal of business is done there; to which the policy of granting to improving tenants, leases in perpetuity, of houses and plots for building, must largely contribute; while a similar indulgence to persons of neither property nor talent, would mar the improvement of the town, and inflict a needless wound upon the interests of the landlord. To this admirable plan of giving the tenant a perpetual interest in his town holding, we would recommend (in every possible case) the addition of a few acres of land for the accommodation of his town establishment. This land, being held at a moderate rent on a lease of lives or years, would have a favourable influence on the interests of the whole estate, as the value of farms approximating with it would advance in an exact ratio with the wealth and population of the neighbouring town; and we hope this also is the policy of the Eccles family.

The valley of Ecclesville is separated from the town of Fintona by a water called the Casheron river, which passes through the Fintona estate. On this a corn mill has been erected for the accommodation of the tenantry, and a site for another mill with a fall of from seven to ten feet is said to exist upon the same river, and of course presents to some enterprising man of business, an inducement to form a bleaching or manufacturing establishment at that place. If the successors of the late Mr. Eccles follow his example, we have no doubt they will be found ready to give all due encouragement to this and every other instrument of employment to the poor that may be found to exist in their immediate neighbourhood; for from all that we could learn of the character of that lamented gentleman, as a landlord, a magistrate, and a man, his sudden removal by death, while we were travelling in his native county, was felt to be a public loss; and as such was very justly and generally deplored, by the poor and by the public.

‘Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, and Seventh of England’s Dominion: Enriched with Copious Descriptions of the Resources of the Soil, and Seats and Scenery of the North West District’

By A. Atkinson. Esq.