Redburn Country Park the Dunvilles and Bruno the Bear

I'm with son Ben in Redburn Country Park (66 hectacres) on the edge of Holywood Co Down. We are in these ancient Redburn Dunville woods, to try and locate the site of a bearpit reputed to be the night time home to Bruno the Dunville family tame bear. Back then in the early 1900s Bruno was part of a private zoo acquired by Lord Dunvilles's zoology minded son.
The Dunville family were one of Belfast's leading dynasty families during the 1700 and 1800s and early 1900s. They were originally known around the world for founding and producing the famous Dunville Irish whiskey brand.
The production of whisky took over from the importation and making of tea that they had first embarked on. Dunville & Co. whisky company was at one time a leading world whisky producer. In 1869 the Royal Irish Distilleries were built next to the railway marshalling yard outside the Great Victoria Street Station. The firm was passed from father to son or nephew through five generations of Dunvilles. The money acquired funded a lavish lifestyle and public generosity.
Dunville & Co. launched their best-known brand of whisky, V.R., in 1837 after Queen Victoria (Victoria Regina) ascended the throne. In 1845 John and Ann Dunville moved to the stately Richmond Lodge, which had been built on the Holywood Road in County Down around the early 1800s.


Ballooning
The sport of ballooning was popular among the wealthy from the turn of the century until the outbreak of the First World War. John dunville and his wife victoria were heavily involved in ballooning.
In September 1907 John Dunvile won the Northcliffe Cup. It was awarded to the Briton who had made the longest flight during the year. John Dunville won the cup by flying 'La Mascotte' nearly two hundred miles from London to Wales. In June 1908 he won a Hare and Hounds race from Hurlingham. John Dunville and Charles Pollock crossed the Irish Sea in the balloon 'St. Louis' in February 1910. The five-hour flight reached an altitude of ten thousand feet and covered one hundred and sixty miles.
The Irish Sea had been crossed in a balloon only twice before, forty years previously and earlier by Windham Sadler in 1817. John Dunville's wife Violet continued flying balloons. In 'Banshee II' she won the Hedges Butler Challenge Cup three years running, in 1912, 1913 and 1914. The cup was awarded for the longest distance flight by any type of flying machine, starting from London on a specified day. If it was won by the same person three times in succession it became the property of the holder, and so this cup became the property of Violet Dunville.


WW1 John spencer Dunville VC
John Dunville's second son, Second Lieutenant John Spencer Dunville VC (1896-1917), had been educated at Ludgrove School and Eton. He joined the (Inniskilling) Dragoons and went to France in June 1915. There he took part in the Battle of Loos in September 1915, and transferred to the 1st (Royal) Dragoons in January 1916.
In June 1917, while he was serving in the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, he died from wounds he received at Épehy in France. He had been protecting an N.C.O. of the Royal Engineers who was repairing and assembling a Bangalore torpedo. The Victoria Cross which he was posthumously awarded was received by his father John Dunville from King George V at Buckingham Palace in August 1917. He was also awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal 1914-20 and the Victory Medal 1914-19.

John Spencer Dunville was buried at Villers-Faucon in France, but there is a memorial stone in Holywood Priory Cemetery to commemorate him. Part of a ligustrum (privet) bush from his grave in France was planted next to the memorial stone.
In the same year his father John Dunville was promoted to Wing Commander, with four hundred and fifty officers and two thousand men under his command at the No. 1 Balloon Training Wing, Roehampton. He was awarded the Commander of the British Empire for his services during the war.



Robert Grimshaw Dunville and Redburn House

William's nephew, John Dunville Junior's son, Robert Grimshaw Dunville married in 1865 Jeannie Chaine, daughter of William Chaine of Moylena. In 1866 Robert built the magnificent Redburn House, two miles along the Holywood Road from Richmond Lodge, where his uncle William was living. Redburn House was designed by the architects Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon. It had seventy rooms, the most grand of which were the entrance hall and the ballroom, and it was set in one hundred and seventy acres of land, with views of Belfast Lough and the hills of Antrim. Robert and Jeannie's son, John Dunville Dunville (1866-1929), was the first member of the family to be born in Redburn House.
The Dunville Family of Northern Ireland and Dunville's Whisky
http://www.dumville.org/whisky.html#r...