Corballymore (formerly Summerville), Dunmore East, Co Waterford
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. 92. “(Fortescue, E/PB; Gallwey/IFR) A Victorian Baronial house overlooking the Back Strand of Tramore BAy, built by Hon Dudley Fortescue. Of dark random ashlar with bands of lighter-coloured stone; gables, dormer-gables, high-pitched and half-conical roofs. Bought early in the present century by Mr and Mrs H.J. Gallwey; restored after fire 1935. Now an hotel.”
Corbally More (House) (Summerville House), SUMMERVILLE, County Waterford
Detached eleven-bay two-storey Scottish Baronial-style house with dormer attic, built 1878, on a complex plan comprising five-bay single-storey main block with half-dormer attic having single-bay single-storey flat-roofed projecting porch to ground floor, single-bay two-storey bowed projecting bay to right (north-east), single-bay single-storey gabled end bay to left (south-west) having single-bay single-storey shallow box bay window to ground floor, three-bay single-storey recessed wing with half-dormer attic to right (north-east) having single-bay single-storey gabled advanced end bay to right (north-east), two-bay two-storey recessed service block with dormer attic to right (north-east), and single-bay two-storey recessed end bay to right (north-east). Burnt, 1935. Extensively reconstructed, post-1935. Pitched roofs (half-conical to bowed projecting bay; gabled to end bays; hipped to half-dormer attic windows; gabled to dormer attic windows to service block) with replacement slate, post-1935, red clay ridge tiles, rubble sandstone chimney stacks having cut-stone dressings, cut-stone coping to gables, and cast-iron rainwater goods on moulded cut-stone eaves (sproketed eaves to bowed projecting bay). Flat roof to porch not visible behind parapet. Broken coursed squared red sandstone walls with cut-stone dressings including courses to main block, coping to parapet to porch, and detailing to gables. Painted rendered walls to end bay to right (north-east). Square-headed window openings (in tripartite arrangement to shallow box bay window and to end bay to recessed wing) with cut-stone flush sills, lintels having chamfered reveals, and squared red sandstone voussoirs forming pointed segmental relieving arches. Replacement 1/1 timber sash windows, post-1935, to main block with replacement timber casement windows, post-1935, to recessed wing and to service block (having overlights to tripartite openings). Square-headed window opening to first floor bowed projecting bay with cut-stone sills, mullions, and lintel, and fixed-pane timber windows having stained glass panels, dated 1878. Square-headed window openings to end bay to right (north-east) with stone sills, and 6/6 timber sash windows. Square-headed door opening with cut-stone block-and-start surround having moulded reveals, timber panelled door, and overlight. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with forecourt, and landscape grounds to site.
Appraisal
A very fine, substantial house in a Scottish Baronial style, built for Dudley Fortescue (n. d.) to designs prepared by James Ottway (fl. 1877) and Robert Watt (fl. 1877). Distinctive features, including a bowed projecting bay having a spire-like roof, a variety of arrangements to the window openings, and the many gables, all serve to enhance the architectural value of the composition, while the construction in red sandstone with cut-stone dressings produces an attractive textured and polychromatic visual effect. Destroyed by fire, the house was comprehensively restored, and retains most of the fabric dating to that period of reconstruction. Stained glass panels introduce a feature of artistic interest to the composition. Positioned overlooking Back Strand and Tramore Bay, the house forms a picturesque feature in the landscape, and is of additional importance in the locality for its historic associations with the Fortescue and Gallwey families.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20373749.html
Thursday, December 31, 2015 – 00:00 AM
Christy Parker
Summerville Estate, at Corballymore, Dunmore East, which includes a former stately home, held a guide price of €1.2m.
It was purchased as one lot for an undisclosed sum by “a local family”, according to the selling agents, John Rohan Shelley Fitzgerald.
The agents say the holding had been offered alternatively as six lots, with the Scottish-Colonial style Summerville House, its two-storey gate lodge and out-buildings, with 23 acres, reserved at €175,000. The sale attracted “very strong and varied interest, locally, nationally and internationally”.
Ten minutes from Waterford Airport, the site constitutes a vacant possession of tillage, woodland, and a private beach.
The boarded-up house requires major renovation but the buyer intends restoring it as a family home.
The estate was once the seat of the English Catholic Wyse family, whose Waterford connections date to Norman times and whose lands were seized under Cromwell but returned under the Restoration.
Sir Thomas Wyse, keenly pro-union with Britain but a strong advocate of Catholic Emancipation, engineered the defeat of Lord Beresford in the 1826 election, which inspired Daniel O’Connell to contest the 1828 Clare by-election.
Thomas was himself elected to Westminster where he served between 1835 and 1847. He married Napoleon Bonaparte’s niece, Letitia, in 1821, but the marriage fragmented under Letitia’s infidelity. They had two sons, while Letitia subsequently had three more children. She died in Italy in 1871.
Sir Thomas had engaged Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin — who co-designed London’s Houses of Parliament — to construct Summerville House on the site of the original but demolished Manor of St John’s.
On losing his seat in parliament, he left to serve as ambassador to Greece, where he died in 1862.
In later times the house served as a hotel, but plans to develop it as a major leisure and holiday facility never took off.
https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/ruins-with-a-view-for-125m-in-waterford-31407171.html
The mansion, located at Corballymore close to both Waterford city and Tramore, was designed by Charles Barry, the architect who rebuilt the House of Commons in the 19th century. In need of complete restoration, it stands on the Summerville Estate which was the seat of the Wyse family for centuries
A substantial farm in Co Waterford and former home of one of the most historic and interesting families in the country is on the market by private treaty.
The 163ac holding is centred around a neglected manor house originally built to a design by Charles Barry, the architect responsible for the 19th century restoration of the British Houses of Parliament.
Summerville Estate at Corballymore between Dunmore East and Tramore sits on 163ac of coastal land and can be bought by private treaty in its entirety or in lots. The entire comes with a guide price of €1.25m while the house on 23ac has a guide price of €175,000.
Corballymore is situated 5km from Waterford Airport, 7km from Dunmore East 7km and 11km from Tramore with Waterford City just 14km away.
The property was the seat of the Wyse family, a dynasty associated with Waterford since Norman times.
The family has an amazing history and as one of the last remaining “Old English Catholic” families its fortunes very much mirrored the twists and turns of Irish history down the centuries.
The Wyse lands were confiscated under Cromwell, returned under the Restoration; the family suffered under the Penal Laws and one of the most illustrious family members, Thomas Wyse, became active in support of Catholic emancipation.
He engineered the defeat of the local grandee, Lord Beresford in the 1826 election campaign, a win that encouraged Daniel O’Connell to seek the Clare seat in the by-election of 1828.
After emancipation, Thomas himself was elected to represent Waterford City in Westminster from 1835 to 1847. He refused to support the movement to repeal the Act of Union, remaining a loyal supporter of the connection with Britain.
He was more successful in politics than in marriage. On the face of it, he married well when Laetitia Bonaparte, the niece of the great Napoleon became his wife in 1821. However, it was a marriage that went aground in 1828 on the rocky shores of infidelity as Laetitia was a true Bonaparte when it came to matters of the flesh.
In later life, Thomas left politics for the world of diplomacy serving as British Ambassador to Greece.
The estate fell into decline and was being sold under the Encumbered Estates Act in the 1860s when the estranged and disinherited son of Thomas and Laetitia, Napoleon Alfred Wyse, (known as Nappo) bought the property and came to live there.
He undertook a lavish restoration of Corballymore but eventually sold up and returned to Paris.
His brother William Charles, not wanting to let the estate to go out of the family, bought it but he was the wrong man for the political times that were in it.
An avowed unionist he swam against the tide of rising nationalism, falling foul of the Catholic Church and the Land League.
‘Nappo’
The unfortunate man followed in his brother Nappo’s footsteps and departed for France and died in Cannes.
The house ‘St John’s Manor’ at Corballymore is currently boarded up and in bad shape. It was built c1870 in a Scottish-Baronial style and comes with a two-storey gate lodge and courtyard, also in poor condition.
Situated in a beautiful setting with mature woodland trees it has direct access to the beach and is surrounded by good arable land. Roseanne De Vere Hunt of selling agents Sherry FitzGerald Country Homes, which is handling the property along with local agents Sherry FitzGerald Rohan, said the place “is oozing with potential and would again make an excellent residential estate.”
However, the house and its surrounding buildings will take considerable investment.
The coastal land extending to 163ac is nearly all in tillage and is in good heart having been well looked over the years. All leases on the land expire in August so any new buyer or buyers will have vacant possession.
The ground is in one block and is available in a series of natural lots that have excellent access and road frontage with some having extensive sea frontage.
The lots include four individual parcels of land varying in size from c33ac to c62ac with the house and out houses available separately and an 8ac parcel with putative site potential is also available separately.
The house, gate lodge and outbuildings on 23ac is guided at €175,000, an amazing price until one looks at the restoration job.
The 8ac parcel is guided at €75,000 or €9,000/ac, the 62ac is guided at €450,000 or €7,250/ac, a 38ac piece is guided at €295,000 or €7,700/ac while a 33ac piece is guided at €275,000 or €8,300/ac. The entire is guided at €1.25m.
Irish Historic Houses 