Ballygiblin, near Mallow, Co Cork – ruin
Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 22. “(Wrixon-Becher, Bt/PB) A house remodelled in Tudor-Baronial style, with a turret and spire, ca 1836 by William Vitruvius Morrison. The house flanked on one side by a detached Gothic orangery, with buttresses and pinnacles. Now a ruin.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
“Good Tudor Revival house designed c. 1836 by William Vitruvius Morrison for Sir William Wrixon Becher incorporating an earlier house. Still intact in 1960. Now a ruin.”
Appraisal
This country house is notable for comprising two blocks built a century apart, each displaying many fine features. The later block was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison, the well-known architect, in the Tudor Revival style which became popular in the nineteenth century. Though now in ruins, the blocks retain their historic characters, enhanced by limestone ashlar and render details and the elaborate door surround to the later block with a crest and motto. The house is prominently situated on a hill overlooking its demesne and has numerous associated outbuildings of architectural merit.
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 317. “The conferring of a baronetcy on the Wrixon-Becher family in 1831 is perhaps what prompted the enlargement and remodelling of their C18 house in a Tudor Revival fashion between 1831-35. This now stands in ruins, after the roof was removed in 1960. The architect was William V. Morrison, and Ballygiblin closely resembles his work at Clontarf Castle, Co Dublin and Hollybrook, Co Wicklow. Benjamin Woodward appears to have had a hand in completing the house, perhaps after Morrison’s death in 1838. The three-storey C18 house has a five-bay N front with Venetian windows lighting a stair. This was given gables, tall chimeys and mullioned windows of three and four lights so that it blended with Morrison’s new ashlar limestone L shaped range, which is built against its S side. This housed a drawing room and dining room, with a dormered upper storey and two-storey battlemented bay window. Morrison also added a three-stage entrance tower with an octagonal lantern and stone spire in the corner between the new and old ranges, and set a richly carved armorial plaque above the entrance.
Behind the house, is a small spiky orangery with arched windows and buttresses which terminate in pinnacles. An extensive and coeval stableyard stands N of the house. In marked contrast is the triumphal arch gateway at the demesne entrance.”
Irish Historic Houses 