Bert, Athy, Co Kildare
Mark Bence-Jones. 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. 41. (Be Burgh/IFR) A gable-ended house of 1725-30, enlarged early in C19 by the addition of two storey Classical overlapping wings, of the same height as the centre block; which is of three storeys over basement with two seven bay fronts. On one front, the top storey is treated as an attic above the cornice and has blank windows. On this front, the wings are of three bays with, on the ground floor, a Wyatt window between two niches. On the other front, the wings project further and are joined by a Doric colonnade. Plasterwork ceiling in drawingroom; screen of columns in dining room. In recent years, the home of Misses Geoghegan.”
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11903403/bert-house-bert-demesne-co-kildare
Detached eleven-bay three-storey Classical-style house, c.1780, on a H-shaped plan possibly over basement comprising seven-bay three-storey recessed central block with seven-bay single-storey flat-roofed open loggia to ground floor, three-bay three-storey projecting flanking end bays, three-bay three-storey side elevation to east and seven-bay three-storey Garden Front to south having single-bay single-storey projecting glazed porch to centre and three-bay projecting flanking end bays. Hipped roofs on a H-shaped plan with slate behind parapet wall. Clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimney stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat-roof to open loggia behind parapet with iron railings over. Materials not discerned. Nap rendered walls. Ruled and lined. Painted. Rendered dressings including channelled piers to ground floor to end bays, motifs to loggia and decorative panels to upper floors to end bays. Moulded cornice with blocking course parapet wall over. Square-headed window openings (tripartite in round-headed recessed niches to ground floor end bays). Stone sills (balustraded panels to first floor end bays). Moulded architraves (with keystones to first floor; moulded consoles and entablatures to first floor end bays). 2/2 and 6/6 timber sash windows. Square-headed door openings. Moulded keystone with coat of arms over. Replacement timber panelled double doors, c.1995. Square-headed loggia along front (north) elevation with cut-stone columns. Projecting glazed porch to centre Garden Front (south) with ogee-headed domed roof. Fixed-pane windows. Glazed double doors with overlight. Set back from road in own extensive landscaped grounds. Tarmacadam forecourt to front. Lawns to rear.
Appraisal
Bert House is a fine and large country residence that has been well-maintained to retain an early or original appearance. The front (north) and rear (south) elevations of the house are composed of long, imposing ranges of Classical proportions and Classical motifs and are a prominent landmark from the surrounding landscape. Although regular in the dispersion of openings, the front (north) elevation is much ornamented and the use of decorative render of plasterwork is especially noteworthy, being of artistic interest. This is used to add incident to the house through its application on the round-headed recessed panels to the end bays, decorative panels to the upper floors, architraves, stringcourses, and so on. The long, low, flat-roofed loggia is also a feature that is not entirely common to Ireland and is more associated with Italian architecture – at Bert it is used to enhance the entrance front and is gracefully composed of tall, slender columns. The railings over are also a pleasant feature. While the side elevation to east is similarly decorative in its treatment, the elevation to west is comparatively more utilitarian and does not boast any ornate plasterwork. The house retains most of its original external features, including the rendered decorations, multi-pane timber sash fenestration and a slate roof, and this suggests that early features of interest may also survive in the interior. The house is of social and historic significance for having provided much employment in the locality – a role it continues to fulfill at present, where the attendant stables are used for the rearing and training of horses. The house is attractively set in its own extensive landscaped grounds on a hillside overlooking the River Barrow and the Grand Canal and is a picturesque and imposing landmark in the region.
Inside this classical Kildare mansion with two bars and 17 bedrooms
A Kildare mansion that’s seen many romantic moments
Classical mansion: Bert House
Eithne Tynan
September 15 2017 02:30 AM
‘I know, let’s call it Bert,” one of the brothers must have said. “This house…” – sweeping his eyes over the seven-bay, three-storey edifice with its Italian-style first-floor loggia and its magnificent ornamental plasterwork – “…looks like a Bert.”
Consider the possible conversation 300 years ago between William Burgh and his brother Thomas when they were deciding what to name William’s classical mansion which had finally been completed near Athy, Co Kildare.
Once you’ve finished building your colossal stately home, all that remains is to choose a name for it.
You might spend months musing on the matter, or else the name might come to you in a single moment of dizzying inspiration.
The year was around 1720 (though some sources say 1709); William was the owner of the house and his brother Thomas was the architect. Thomas was also responsible for various important Dublin buildings such as the Trinity Library, Dr Steevens’ Hospital, the Royal Barracks (now Collins Barracks), and the Old Custom House, which was replaced by a Gandon-designed building later in the century. It is perhaps just as well Burgh wasn’t given responsibility for naming any of those, or we may have ended up with Trinity Library being called something like Ernie or Cedric.
Bert House has been going by the same unassuming name since then, and in the intervening three centuries has gained even more stature and become even less unassuming itself.
One of the 17 bedrooms
It was extended in the early 19th century to add the two side wings, and, at 24,000 sq ft, it’s the largest mansion in south Kildare.
Much of the Bert Demesne has been hived off though. The former coaching yard has been turned into Bert House Stud, also on the market recently, and the Bert House estate itself has been reduced to six acres. Six resplendent acres they are though, hugging the banks of the River Barrow and with a stately, tree-lined avenue a kilometre long.
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It has been bought and sold many times as a family home, and in more recent years has been obliged to pay for itself as a country house hotel specialising in wedding parties.
For that purpose, it has gone by the more grandiose name of De Burgh Manor, Bert sounding perhaps not quite chic enough for a couple bent on spending all their savings on their big day.
Ornate plasterwork adorns the ceiling of a reception room
It’s now on the market again for €1.5m, and is a lot of house for the money.
The selling agents point out that it would make “an idyllic property for a large country residence”, and for a buyer who does intend to convert it back to its intended use as a family home, the biggest difficulty is likely to be shooing away prospective brides from the grounds.
The grounds lead down to the River Barrow
The 24,000 sq ft is spread out over three floors and a basement, and consequently the hoovering will be a Sisyphean job. Like painting the Forth Bridge, you will no sooner be finished than you’ll have to start again.
Some reconfiguration of the layout will also be necessary. The basement, for example, has a bar, a sauna, a snooker room and a dance studio, together with various storerooms and ladies’ and gents’ changing rooms and toilets.
There’s another bar on the ground floor, which is probably at least one bar too many for a private house.
The ground floor is also where the best of the reception rooms are, complete with beautiful plasterwork ceilings with overseeing cherubs, original sash windows, and fine old fireplaces. These include a drawing room, a dining room, a breakfast room and kitchen, as well as a TV room and a living room.
Then there are 17 bedrooms, all en suite, and one of them – positioned for marketing purposes as the Bridal Suite – has a bathroom with a free-standing claw-foot bath.
The back of the property faces southwest towards the River Barrow. There’s a formal garden out here with a fountain, together with a patio and rose garden. Beyond this, there’s a lawn culminating in a flight of steps down to the riverbank. Directly in front of the house and at the end of the avenue is a forecourt for parking.
The nearest village is Kilberry, almost at the end of the old avenue that now leads to the Bert House Stud and hence less than a kilometre away. There’s a quaint, early 19th-century church there, in the graveyard of which all the old Burghs (later known as de Burghs and distant ancestors of the singer Chris) of Bert House are buried.
The town of Athy is about six kilometres to the south, along the course of the Barrow. There are nine or ten trains a day from Athy to Dublin, and the journey takes about an hour. Alternatively, you can get to the capital by car by joining the M7 outside Monasterevin, some 17 kilometres away.
Bert House is for sale with Sherry FitzGerald O’Reilly in Naas, (045) 866 466, and has an asking price of €1,500,000.
Bert House
Kilberry, Athy, Co Kildare
Asking price: €1,500,000
Agent: Sherry FitzGerald O’Reilly, Naas, (045) 866 466
Used to have whole house accommodation
“Beautiful self catering, Georgian Manor centrally located in the hearth of Kildare in a very private setting. De Burgh Manor comprises of 15 bedrooms all ensuite. The ground floor consists of a double reception room, drawing room, dining room, bar, library , breakfast room and kitchen. Situated on c. 6 acres of grounds overlooking the River Barrow.“
The website also tells us about the history:
“De Burgh Manor was built circa 1709 [the National Inventory says it was built around 1780] by Thomas Burgh [1670-1730] of Oldtown [built ca 1709 by Thomas Burgh (1670-1730), MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland, to his own design. The centre block was burned 1950s. A house has now been made out of one of the wings. He also designed Kildrought house, a Section 482 property] for his brother William Burgh later known as Captain William De Burgh and who became Comptroller and Auditor General for Ireland. Thomas Burgh was Barracks Overseer for Ireland from 1701 and was also responsible for [building] – the Library at Trinity College Dublin, Collins Barracks Dublin – now a museum – and Dr Steeven Hospital Dublin.
“William De Burgh was born in 1667 and had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Elisabeth. Thomas, born in 1696, eventually became a Member of Parliament for Lanesboro, Co. Longford. Freeman of Athy Borough and Sovereign of Athy, in 1755 he married Lady Ann Downes, daughter of the Bishop of Cork & Ross. Her mother was a sister to Robert Earl of Kildare. Her brother, Robert Downes, was the last MP for Kildare in 1749 and was Sovereign of Athy.
“Thomas had two sons, William and Ulysses [Ulysses was actually the grandson of Thomas, son of another Thomas]. William born in 1741 went on to represent Athy as an MP in Parliament between 1768 and 1776. A monument to his memory by Sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott, a statue of faith, which depicts him with a book in one hand and a scroll in the other and stands in York Minster. He wrote two books on religion and faith.
“Ulysses, born in 1788 succeeded to the title of Lord Downes [2nd Baron Downes of Aghanville] on the death of his cousin William Downes who was made Lord Chief Justice in 1803 and created Lord Downes on his retirement in 1822. It was Ulysses De Burgh who presented the Town Hall Clock to Athy in 1846 and it was he who had the wings added to Bert House. [Mark Bence-Jones writes of Bert: “enlarged early in C19 by the addition of two storey Classical overlapping wings, of the same height as the centre block; which is of three storeys over basement with two seven bay fronts.”]
“Ulysses’ daughter Charlotte was the last of the De Burgh’s to call Bert House home with her husband Lt. General James Colbourne [2nd Baron Seaton of Seaton, co. Devon]. Charlotte and James came to Bert House in 1863 as Lord and Lady Seaton after the death of Lord Downes. It was sold by them in 1909 to Lady Geoghegan who then sold it onto her cousin, Major Quirke.“
Irish Historic Houses 