Bearforest, Mallow, Co Cork – for sale April 2019, sold 900,000
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. 34. “(De La Cour/LGI1958; Purdon Coote, dub Coote, Bt/PB; Moore, sub Digby, B/PB) A villa built in 1807-8 for Robert Delacour to the design of Richard Morrison, who intended it to display “his taste and talents as a villa architect” and “his capacity for designing and executing a residence that should combine simplicity and elegance with a convenience and extent of accommodation suitable for the purposes of a large family, or of affluent fortune, while it retained the modest character becoming the habitation of an unostentatious private gentleman.” Of two storeys; thee bay front, semi-circular porch with engaged fluted Doric columns, between Wyatt windows under relieving arches; four bay side elevation with semi-circular fanlighted conservatory; eaved roof on brakcet cornice. Compact, but spacious plan: oval hall, extending into the porch, with columns flanking the doorcases, as at Castlegar and Issercleran; central top-lit staircase hall; large, well proportioned drawing room and dinign room. All in all, the house lives up to Morrison’s intentions; though surprisingly, in an age which set a high store on vi9ews and prospects, he made the southern side of the house, where there is an attractive view to the Nagles Mountains, the back; so that it was largely blinded by the service wing. The house subsequently passed to the Purdon Coote family; it was burnt ca 1920 and afterwards rebuilt, without the conservatory and with an extra storey on the porch, which now has the effect of central curved bow. The Morrison interior decoration, which was naturally lost in the fire, was not reinstated. Bearforest was sold by the Purdon Cootes a few years ago to Mr C. A. and Hon Mrs Moore who have solved the problem of the house’s orientation by demolishing the original service wing and making a patio where it stood, and building a new service wing on the north side of the house. They have also refloored the hall in marble.”
https://archiseek.com/2015/1808-bearforest-mallow-co-cork/
1808 – Bearforest, Mallow, Co. Cork
Architect: Richard Morrison
Constructed 1807-08 for Robert Delacour to designs by Sir Richard Morrison. Inscribed on the entablature over the entrance ‘est ubi depellata somnos minus invida cura’ from Horace Epistle 1.10. A deceptively large house, with two storeys over a full basement.
House, furniture and contents destroyed in 1921/22. Rebuilt circa 1925 by Chillingworth & Levie with a second storey added to the curved entrance bow and without the conservatory.
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 32. The bulk of Cork’s not inconsiderable stock of country houses were built between 1790 and 1820, a period of unprecendented agricultural prosperity: incomes from estates increased by 100-150 %, and in some cases by as much as 300%. Most of these houses are generous rectangular blocks without architectural ambitions, with symmetrical facades of two or three storeys. It is only in their detail that they differ from their C18 forebears. Roughcast begins to give way to stucco, and the availability of larger slates allowed the pitch of roofs to be lowered, so that parapets designed to disguise steep roofs fell out of fashion, and by the 1820s deep bracketed eaves were popular. Windows became larger, and were often filled with sashes of astonishing delicacy. [p. 34] The Wyatt window, a wide tripartite type, could be used to emphasize the centre of a façade in a similar way to the C18 Venetian window, but was also commonly paired on each side of the entrance. Doorways, of stone or timber, were given fanlights rather than pediments, often to a tripartite pattern incorporating narrow side-lights. All in all, the repetition of design suggests a taste for well-tested conformity over modish experimentation.
There is generally little to differentiate glebe houses of the period from the smaller of these houses. A common and economical pattern was to place the entrance in the narrow side elevation to allow a pair of reception rooms to fill the view front. The origin of this plan is not known, but in 1788 the Rev. Daniel Beaufort inspected a glebe house being built at Midleton, describing it as ‘a very odd plan without a door in front.’
Larger Classical houses of this period are comparatively rare, many of course having been lost. Longueville (Mallow), Kilmoney Abbey (Carrigaline), Mount Leader (Millstreet) and Castle Park (Kanturk) all feature elegent cut-stone columnar porches. Gortshagh near Charleville, though modest in scale, is satisfyingly monumental, with a massive central stack, and a porch with pared-down Greek Doric columns in antis. A tour-de-force Greek Revival portico of sublime purity exists at Dromdihy at Killeagh, a house happily about to undergo rehabilitation after decades of ruination. Bearforest (Mallow) is a classic villa designed by Richard Morrison; the arrangement of Wyatt windows in shallow arched recesses and the central bow ringed with columns derives from the work of both James Wyat and John Soane. The finest house of the period is Fota, a mid-C18 house enlarged and remodelled in the 1820s by Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison, then the leading country house architects in Ireland. Within, they formed a spatially complex hallway with adjoining vestibules, to connect a sequence of opulent reception rooms decorated with their richest plasterwork. The sequence of lobbies and landings on the upper floors is no less thrilling.
Detached three-bay two-storey over basement house, built c. 1805 and rebuilt c. 1925, facing west, with central projecting bowed entrance bay to front elevation, three-bay side elevations, southern having gabled breakfront, five-bay two-storey over half-basement rear elevation, and with two-bay single-storey flat-roofed addition and further two-bay single-storey hipped-roofed garage extension to north elevation. Hipped slate roof with overhanging sheeted eaves, cast-iron rainwater goods and rendered chimneystacks. Rendered pediment and pitched slate roof to breakfront. Moulded render cornice to bow. Painted rendered walls with dressed limestone plinth and quoins. Dressed limestone stringcourse between floors of façade. Dressed limestone entablature to ground floor of bow comprising fluted engaged columns, architrave, frieze and cornice with attic course having circular recessed panels with carved surrounds flanking central rectangular recessed panel with lettering in relief. Square-headed openings with timber sliding sash windows throughout with dressed limestone sills. Six-over-six pane to first floor and to bow, panes of latter vertically arranged. Nine-over-nine pane to ground floor, windows of front elevation being tripartite and set in segmental-headed recessed panels with dressed limestone tympanums having carved circular panels with floral motifs, and lights separated by render pilasters with moulded decorative brackets. Triparite nine-over-nine pane window to north elevation set into segmental-headed recess with cut limestone details similar to ground floor windows of front elevation, but with render tympanum and cornice. North elevation also has evidence of being formerly five-bay. Square-headed window openings to basement with and one-over-one pane windows. Square-headed door opening to front elevation with timber panelled door, timber doorcase comprising pilasters with square-headed recessed panels and decorative caps, timber architrave and moulded cornice and margined overlight. Approached by curved flight of dressed limestone steps. Square-headed opening to breakfront with timber panelled door, flanked by timber fluted Ionic-style columns, with decorative architrave, ornate frieze and cornice. Flanking bays of south elevation have square-headed openings with fixed timber French doors approached by flights of dressed limestone steps.
Rebuilt in the 1920s, this large house forms part of a complex of related structures with the associated outbuildings, walled garden and entrance gates and lodge. Its regular and symmetrical façade is enhanced by the central full-height bow and its carved entablature, which is an unusual feature and, together with the breakfront, adds an air of elegance to the façade. The house retains early features such as the limestone steps and timber sliding sash windows. The window surrounds and doorcase to the south add artistic interest to the façade while the carved motto adds context.
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=B
Named after Richard Beare who held this land in the early 18th century, the house was built in 1807-1808 by Robert Delacour, a partner in the Delacour bank of Mallow. Townsend writes that it was designed by Richard Morrison. Delacour was living in the house in 1814 but had vacated it by 1837. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it was occupied by John Hugh Bainbridge who held it from James Murphy. The buildings were valued at £70. Bence Jones records the Purdon Coote family as later owners. The house was burnt in June 1921 during the War of Independence when it was the residence of Maj. Charles Purdon Coote but was rebuilt.
https://www.yaycork.ie/pics-this-romantic-mallow-mansion-could-be-yours-for-less-than-e1m/
April 2019
Named in honour of local landowner Richard Beare, the house was built in 1807 for Mr Robert Delacour.
It was designed by Sir Richard Morrison, the architect behind some of Ireland’s most beautiful country houses, including Ballyfin in Co Laois, Ireland’s most exclusive hotel.
The beautiful bow front opens into an entrance hall floored in green marble. Past the curved staircase there’s a front sitting room with French doors onto a terrace.
On the other side of the hall, a cosy, book-lined study (compete with open fire) leads into the huge drawing room and elegant dining room (imagine the parties).
Loosely translated, the Latin inscription over the door of Bearforest House means ‘the place less distracted by envious care’.
And with a bit of updating, it could be your own personal getaway from life’s distractions or a brilliant base for any number of home businesses.
There are nine bedrooms in total and the five on the first floor are all exceptionally generous, with high ceilings, en-suites in each and sweeping views of trees, rolling fields and the Nagles Mountains.
The stable courtyard boasts a coach house, working stables and a staff apartment, while at the end of the driveway, the two-bedroom gate lodge offers yet more accommodation.
The grounds and gardens are picture perfect and the remains of the old Victorian walled gardens are just waiting for the right green fingers to bring it back to life.
Sold €900,000
Irish Historic Houses 