 He was in charge of the family's ancestral seat, Castle Coole, in County Fermanagh during the Second World War, when all country houses in the county were requisitioned by the armed forces because of the strategic importance of the flying-boat base on Lough Erne.As Mark Bence-Jones explains, "Lord Belmore, an elderly and autocratic bachelor of elephantine build, tried to keep the military out of his own demesne of Castlecoole (sic), but it was discovered that the place was held originally by a Plantation grant which obliged the grantee to help with the defence of the country.So the authorities declared Castlecoole escheated, giving it back to Lord Belmore when the military left.