Bridestown, Glenville, Co Cork – seems to be Equestrian Centre
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. 47. “A two storey late-Georgian house with a forecourt flanked by earlier office ranges of cut-stone, at the front of which are two polygonal towers, joined by wrought-iron railings and entrance gates. According to tradition, the towers were built by Jonathan Morgan, a Cork wine merchant, to please his French wife, whom he met on a visit to Bordeaux; for in France, even at late as C18, a tower on either side of the entrance to a house denoted the owner’s nobility. The towers at Bridestown are certainly rather French in flavour; they have round-headed windows and niches below elliptical oeils-de-boeuf, now blocked up; and they formerly had pyramidal roofs, though one of them is now roofless. From a date-stone, it would seem that one of the forecourt ranges was not built until towards the end of C18; while the present house is later still, the original house having been burnt. In fact the present house turns its back on the forecourt, having an entrance front with a fanlighted doorway on the other side. There is a pleasant early C19 decoration in the drawing room and dining room. In the grounds, to the right of the forecourt, is a slender folly tower. Bridestown was sold by the Morgans during 2nd half C19, they are said to have been ruined by the gambling of Lady Louisa Morgan (nee Moore), who was known as “Unlimited Loo.” It afterwards passed to the Lindsay family.”
Detached five-bay two-storey country house, built c. 1820, on site of eighteenth-century house. Older house faced north into formal courtyard of two-storey outbuildings. Present house faces south. Hipped slate roof with overhanging eaves and rendered chimneystacks. Rear elevation has square-headed replacement windows, oval window to frist floor with wheel-spoke glazing and round-headed stairs window with spoked fanlight, having cut limestone sills. Doorway with fanlight to front façade, approached by flight of steps. Two courtyards of outbuildings to north, that directly behind house being part of eighteenth-century complex of older house. Landscaped gardens to front of house.
Appraisal
The present house at Bridestown was built in the early nineteenth century to replace a house built in the previous century. The surviving outbuilding ranges are very finely built and must reflect the quality of the now disappeared house. The present house, at five bays and two storeys, is typical of North Cork and retains its form and many features, such as the round-headed and oval windows to the rear.
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2182
Leet records the Reverend Edward Carleton as resident at Bride-town, Rathcormack. E. Morgan was the proprietor in 1837 and at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, holding the property in fee. The buildings were valued at £42. Bence Jones writes that the Morgans sold the property in the second half of the 19th century having been ruined by the gambling of Lady Louisa Morgan, known as “Unlimited Loo”. Later the home of the Lindsay and Horgan families and still occupied.
https://theirishaesthete.com/tag/bridestown/
One of a pair of highly distinctive lodges with polygonal towers that flank the gates to Bridestown, County Cork. According to Mark Bence-Jones, these and the range of forecourt buildings behind were built in the middle of the 18th century by a local merchant Jonathan Morgan, to please his French bride who he had met while on business in Bordeaux. As he notes, ‘The towers at Bridestown are certainly rather French in flavour; they have round-headed windows and niches below elliptical oeils-de-boeuf, now blocked up.’ Originally both had pyramidal roofs although one of these is now gone, and the original house which stood at the back of the courtyard was replaced by another in the 1820s.
Irish Historic Houses 