Blessingbourne Estate

We’ve just returned from a short holiday at Blessingbourne Estate. Located in County Tyrone, and within walking distance of Fivemiletown, Blessingbourne offers a range of self catering accommodation including some dog friendly options. So, for a few sunny days in early September, off we went with our basset hound Boris for a much needed getaway in the Irish countryside.

A little more about the estate

Blessingbourne Estate sits in 550 acres of countryside at the edge of the Clogher Valley with woodlands, picturesque grounds and its own private lake Lough Fadda. It’s also home to a beautiful manor house built between 1871 and 1874 and has a small Victorian garden. It boasts 13km of mountain bike trails as well as walking trails through the estate. You can also go fishing on the lake. As I mentioned earlier, Blessingbourne is a short walk from Fivemiletown. It’s a busy little town and you’ll find everything you need for a self catering holiday including convenience stores, cafes, pubs and some nice boutiques too. I’ll add some useful links at the end of the post.

The Manor House at Blessingbourne Estate

The facade is lined with cottage garden plants

Our time at Blessingbourne Estate

We had a very relaxing time on the estate. With no fixed agenda, our days were spent walking the dog through the woodlands which he really enjoyed. We also took him into Fivemiletown. The local hotel there welcomes dogs in one of their lounges so we enjoyed a drink there one afternoon. Thankfully, Boris is a very well behaved dog which makes life much easier. Once he’s got familiar with his surroundings, he is quick to settle down for a snooze. Sometimes, you would almost forget he is there !

The rest of the time we spent reading in our cabin, The Oak Tree cabin, and I occasionally took myself off for a few wanders with my camera. There’s plenty of wildlife too on the estate. My husband spotted a brown hare on two occasions. We also saw large dragonflies swooping over the fields and late one evening I heard, for the first time, the screech of a fox in the woodland nearby. It’s a sound I won’t forget any time soon !

Boris at Oak Tree Cabin

The Victorian Garden at Blessingbourne Estate

Sunset over Lough Fadda at Blessingbourne Estate

In summary

All in all, we had a lovely relaxing time during our stay at Blessingbourne. The estate is approximately a 90 minute drive west from Belfast. It’s pretty much a straight run down the M1 motorway and then the A4 so it’s easy to find. Our accommodation had everything we needed. And with a veranda attached to the cabin, it meant we could sit outside even when it occasionally rained. We joked that we were a bit like the Waltons ( if you are old enough to remember that TV programme!) Having Fivemiletown so close by made a big difference as there was no need to get back in the car to get provisions. But, if you do want to venture further, Enniskillen and the beautiful lakelands of Fermanagh are about a 30 minute drive away.

Thanks for stopping by.

Paula

ps You can also now pin images from my blog on Pinterest. You’ll find the Pin It button by hovering over the top left hand corner of the image 🙂

Useful Links

We stayed in the dog friendly Oak Tree Cabin, details of which you can find here.

We went for a drink at The Valley Hotel which has a dog friendly lounge.

I also highly recommend DLicious – the raspberry and white chocolate scones are, well, delicious !

You’ll find Foxberry at the end of the village – a lovely boutique selling brands such as Seasalt and Barbour

Our last dog friendly holiday was in Portrush – you can find more details on that here.