It was The 3rd Marquess of Donegall who finally sold off almost all of his family's Belfast estate in the 1850s. This left, of the 'Belfast estate', only the Ormeau Demesne and most of Cave Hill in the ownership of Lord Donegall. Curiously, it was only when he no longer owned Belfast that Lord Donegall became interested in actually living there. He decided to build what has been described as a new 'princely mansion' for himself in the 1860s on what was then the northern edge of Belfast, just over a decade after the Great Famine had ended. This new residence was called Belfast Castle, in a nod to family history, even though it was built on a completely different site from the original castle site, which had been located right in the centre of Belfast. By the 1860s, nothing remained above ground of the original Belfast Castle.