Bonnettstown Hall, Kilkenny, Co Kilkenny
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. 45. “(Blunden, Bt/PB; Knox/IF; Marescaux de Sabruit/IFR) One of the most perfect medium sized early C18 country houses in Ireland; built 1737 for Samuel Mathews, Mayor of Kilkenny, whose name and the date are inscribed on quoins on either side of the entrance front. Of two storeys over a high basement. Six bay entrance front, with tripartite round-headed rusticated doorcase; blank tympanum over door instead of fanlight. Windows in lower storey have rusticated surrounds; those above, shouldered surrounds on consoles; basement windows camber-headed with keystones. Quoins; broad flight of steps with ironwork railings up to hall door. High, sprocketed roof. Garden front also six bays but plain; with two large windows in the centre and below them a door with an enchanting miniature Baroque perron in front of it, complete with double iron-railed curving steps. Large hall, from the back of which rises a staircase of noble joinery, with Corinthian newels and acanthus carving on the ends of the treads. Black marble chimneypiece in hall contemporary with building of house; ceiling over staircase decorated with geometrical plaster panels. Large lobby above hall open to head of stairs with rococo plasterwork. Drawing room and dining room with plain cornices; chimneypiece in drawing room contemporary with house.; that in dining room, of Kilkenny marble with scroll pediment, proabaly earlier, having been brought from Kilcreene House. Drawing room hung with cream and gold wallpaper of slightly Chinese design, originally made for Allerton Park, Yorkshire. Study with original C18 fielded panelling, and another chimneypiece from Kilcreene.”
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12401909/bonnetstown-hall-originally-bonnetstown-house-bonnetstown-co-kilkenny
Detached three- or five-bay (three-bay deep) two-storey over part raised basement country house, built 1737-8, on a rectangular plan; three- or five-bay full-height rear (north) elevation. Occupied, 1911. Hipped slate roof on a quadrangular plan with clay ridge tiles, paired rendered central chimney stacks having lichen-spotted capping supporting yellow terracotta tapered pots, grouped rooflights to rear (north) pitch, sproketed eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods on dragged cut-limestone cornice retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered, ruled and lined walls with drag edged rusticated cut-limestone quoins to corners supporting dragged cut-limestone “bas-relief” recessed band to eaves. Square-headed central door opening in tripartite arrangement approached by flight of twelve lichen-spotted cut-limestone steps between arrow head-detailed wrought iron railings, drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start surround centred on keystone framing timber panelled double doors having overpanel with four-over-four timber sash sidelights without horns. Square-headed window openings in camber-headed recesses (basement) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone monolithic surrounds centred on keystones framing wrought iron bars over one-by-one horizontal sash windows without horns having lattice glazing bars. Square-headed window openings (ground floor) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start surrounds centred on triple keystones framing six-over-six timber sash windows without horns. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with dragged cut-limestone sills on “Acanthus”-detailed scroll consoles, and dragged cut-limestone lugged surrounds framing six-over-six timber sash windows without horns. Square-headed window openings to side elevations with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six (ground floor) or nine-over-nine (first floor) timber sash windows without horns having part exposed sash boxes. Square-headed central door opening to rear (north) elevation approached by “perron” of eight lichen-spotted cut-limestone steps between wrought iron railings, drag edged dragged cut-limestone doorcase with monolithic pilasters supporting “Cyma Recta”- or “Cyma Reversa”-detailed cornice on rosette-detailed frieze framing glazed timber panelled door. Paired square-headed window opening in camber-headed recesses with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing sixteen-over-sixteen timber sash windows without horns having part exposed sash boxes. Square-headed window openings (remainder) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six (ground floor) or nine-over-nine (first floor) timber sash windows without horns having part exposed sash boxes. Interior including (ground floor): central hall retaining carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors centred on cut-limestone Classical-style chimneypiece, moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling, staircase on a dog leg plan with turned timber balusters supporting carved timber banister terminating in fluted Corinthian colonette newels, timber panelled shutters to window openings to half-landing, moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling centred on “Acanthus” ceiling rose in moulded plasterwork frame, carved timber surrounds to door openings to landing framing timber panelled doors, and moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling; study (south-west) retaining carved timber surround to door opening framing timber panelled door with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers, reclaimed rosette-detailed cut-limestone Classical-style chimneypiece, and moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling; drawing room (north-west) retaining carved timber surround to door opening framing timber panelled door with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers, cut-white marble Classical-style chimneypiece, and picture railing below moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling; dining room (east) retaining carved timber surround to door opening framing timber panelled door with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers, reclaimed cut-limestone Classical-style chimneypiece, and plasterwork cornice to ceiling; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers. Set in landscaped grounds.
A country house erected by ‘Saml. Mathews Esq. May the 14th 1737’ representing an important component of the domestic built heritage of County Kilkenny with the architectural value of the composition, ‘one of the most perfect medium-sized early eighteenth-century houses in Ireland’ (Bence-Jones 1978, 45), confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a “Venetian”-like tripartite doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship in a silver-grey limestone; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with those openings showing robust dressings recalling the contemporary Desart Court (1733; demolished 1957); and the high pitched sproketed roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, including crown or cylinder glazing panels in hornless sash frames: meanwhile, contemporary joinery including ‘a very wide staircase rising out of the hall in the seventeenth-century manner’ (Craig and Garner 1973, 93); chimneypieces reclaimed from Kilcreen House (ibid., 93); and sleek plasterwork refinements, all highlight the artistic potential of the composition. Furthermore, adjacent outbuildings (see 12401921); and a walled garden (extant 1839), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of an estate having subsequent connections with William Pitt Blunden JP (1815-94) ‘late of Bonnettstown [sic] County Kilkenny’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1894, 46); Major Lindesay Knox JP (1865-1933), one-time High Sheriff of County Kilkenny (fl. 1905); and Commander Geoffrey Marescaux de Saubruit (1901-86) who allowed Andrew Bush access to photograph the house for the book “Bonnettstown: A House in Ireland” (1989).
4th April 2017
In 1989 American photographer Andrew Bush published a book of images he had taken at the start of the decade. Bonnettstown: A House in Ireland caused something of a stir at the time and has since become a collector’s item, as it chronicles the last days of a now-disappeared world. The visual equivalent of a Chekhov play, the pictures exude a melancholic dignity. Many of them had previously been exhibited in the United States, and in The New Yorker critic Janet Malcolm wrote that what gave the photographs a special lustre was ‘the frank avowal that they make of their voyeurism. Bush’s images have a kind of tentativeness, almost a furtiveness, like that of a child who is somewhere he shouldn’t be, seeing things he shouldn’t be seeing, touching objects he shouldn’t be touching and struggling with the conflict between his impulse to beat it out of there and his desire to stay and see and touch.’ Anyone who looked at the pictures became willingly complicit in that voyeurism.
As is so often the case, we know relatively little about the history of Bonnettstown, County Kilkenny although conveniently a date stone advises the house was built in 1737 for Samuel Mathews, a mayor of Kilkenny. In other words, this was a merchant prince’s residence, conveniently close to his place of work and yet set in open countryside so that he could play at being a member of the gentry. The house was designed to emulate those occupied by landed families, albeit on a more modest scale. Flanked by short quadrants and of two storeys over a raised basement, it has six bays centred on a tripartite doorcase accessed via a flight of steps. The rear of the building is curious since here the middle section is occupied by a pair of long windows below which is another doorcase approached by a pair of curving steps with wrought-iron balustrades. While much of Bonnettstown remains as first designed, some alterations have been made since the house was first built: the fenestration was updated, although a single instance of the original glazing survives on the first floor. And on the façade, the upper level window surrounds on consoles look to be a 19th century addition. Nevertheless, one feels that were Mayor Mathews to return, he would recognise his property.
Inside, Bonnettstown has a typical arrangement of medium-sized houses from this period. It is of tripartite design, with a considerable amount of space devoted to the entrance hall, to the rear of which rises the main staircase with Corinthian newels and acanthus carving on the ends of each tread. The rooms on either side show how difficult it can sometimes be for aspiration to achieve realisation. As mentioned, Bonnettstown was meant to be a modest-proportioned version of a grand country house, and as a result the requisite number of reception rooms had to be accommodated. To make this happen, some of them are perforce very small, as is the case with what would have been a study/office to the immediate left of the entrance hall. Here a chimneypiece has been incorporated which is out of proportion with the room, although the reason for this could be that it came from Kilcreene, a since-demolished property in the same county. That is certainly the case with the chimneypiece in the dining room, which is wonderfully ample in its scale. The chimney piece in the drawing room looks to be from later in the 18th century, as does another intervention on the first floor, a rococo ceiling in a room above the entrance. The well-worn back stairs lead both to the largely untouched attic storey and to the basement with their series of service rooms.
While hitch hiking around Ireland as a young man in the late 1970s Andrew Bush was offered a lift by an elderly gentleman called Commander Geoffrey Marescaux de Saubruit who invited the American to visit his house, Bonnettstown. Bush took up the offer and over the next few years regularly stayed with the Commander and his octogenarian relations. During this time, the property was sold and so Bush’s photographs, and subsequent book, became a record of what had once been. ‘I guess I was responding to my desperation,’ he later explained, ‘to the anxiety that I was feeling that this place was disappearing. I guess I wanted to soak up as much as I could before it was gone.’ Inevitably it did go, as the new owners put their own stamp on the place and cleared away the atmosphere of shabby gentility which had pertained when Bush saw Bonnettstown. A few weeks ago the house was sold again, and now another generation will take possession. What mark will it leave on the house, and is it likely that another Andrew Bush will wish to make a record of Bonnettstown before the next change occurs? We must wait and see.
An abiding problem in the study of Irish country houses is ascribing a date of construction. Not so Bonnettstown, County Kilkenny where on completion of building work the original owner helpfully provided this information. On one of the quoins to the left of the entrance is the gentleman’s name, Samuel Mathews, while its match to the right features the date May 14th 1737. On the other hand, what remains unknown is who was responsible for the design of Bonnettstown: like a number of other houses in this part of the country for the past half-century it has been attributed to the gentleman-architect Francis Bindon.
Irish Historic Houses 