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. 67. A three storey bow-fronted Georgian house, the bow having a trefoil window and battlements. Pillared porch.
Detached five-bay two-storey country house with half-dormer attic, built 1730; extant 1774, on a cruciform plan originally five-bay two-storey on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay full-height breakfront on a bowed plan; single-bay (single-bay deep) full-height central return (north). “Improved”, 1788, producing present composition. Occupied, 1901. Pitched slate roof on a T-shaped plan including gablets to window openings to half-dormer attic centred on parapet with clay ridge tiles, rendered central chimney stack having corbelled stepped capping supporting terracotta pots, timber bargeboards to gablets on timber purlins, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves retaining cast-iron octagonal or ogee hoppers and downpipes. Part creeper- or ivy-covered rendered walls with battlemented parapet having lichen-covered cut-limestone coping; slate hung surface finish to side elevations. Square-headed central door opening behind (single-storey) prostyle distyle portico with dragged cut-limestone columns having responsive pilasters supporting dentilated “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice on “Cornucopia”-detailed frieze, and drag edged dragged cut-limestone surround framing timber panelled double doors having fanlight. Pointed-arch flanking window openings with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing three-over-six timber sash windows having interlocking Y-tracery glazing bars. Square-headed window opening (first floor) with cut-limestone sill, and concealed dressings framing eight-over-eight timber sash windows having Y-tracery glazing bars. Quatrefoil window openings centred on rounded triangular window opening (top floor) with concealed dressings framing timber casement windows. Square-headed window openings with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six or three-over-six (half-dormer attic) timber sash windows having Y-tracery glazing bars. Interior including (ground floor): bow-ended central hall retaining carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters, plasterwork cornice to ceiling, staircase on a dog leg plan with turned timber balusters supporting carved timber banister, carved timber surrounds to door openings to landing framing timber panelled doors, 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. Set in landscaped grounds.
Appraisal
A country house representing an important component of the domestic built heritage of County Kilkenny with the architectural value of the composition, one restructured in the early eighteenth-century repurposing the fabric of the late medieval ‘house of Naushistowne [Nashtown] of the Manor of Bishopslough’ (Corballis 1996, 106), confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on scenic vistas overlooking gently rolling grounds; the cruciform plan form centred on a Georgian Gothic breakfront; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression: meanwhile, aspects of the composition clearly illustrate the continued development or “improvement” of the country house into the nineteenth century. Having been sympathetically restored following a period of unoccupancy in the later twentieth century, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where contemporary joinery; chimneypieces; and plasterwork refinements, all highlight the artistic potential of the composition. Furthermore, adjacent outbuildings (see 12402409); a walled garden (extant 1837); and a nearby “columbarium” or dovecote (extant 1900), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of a self-contained estate having historic connections with the O’Flaherty family including Thomas O’Flaherty (d. 1778); Thomas Bourke O’Flaherty MP (d. 1812), one-time High Sheriff of County Kilkenny (fl. 1790); and Thomas John Bourke O’Flaherty (d. 1864); the Willett family including Henry John Willett (d. 1872) and Rebecca Jane Willett (née O’Flaherty) (d. 1842); and the O’Keeffe family including Michael O’Keeffe (d. 1905), ‘Farmer late of Castle Eve [sic] County Kilkenny’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1905, 239); and Pierce O’Keeffe (d. 1949).
Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.
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.”
Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.
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.
Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.Bonnetstown, County Kilkenny, courtesy of National Inventory.
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).
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.
Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.
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. 167. “A Georgian house built on the foundations of the medieval palace probably by Charles Este, who was (C of I) Bishop of Ossory from 1736 to 1745. Plain façade with Gibbsian doorcase. Panelled staircase hall, staircase of handsome joinery with Corinthian newels; doorcase with Corinthian pilasters. In 1760, Bishop Pococke built a Doric colonnade joining the Palace to St. Canice’s Cathedral, which incorporated a delightful singe-storey pedimented and bow-ended Robing Room. The colonnade was subsequently demolished, but the Robing Room remains a feature of the palace garden. The Palace was well restored ca 1963 by the then Bishop, Dr. H.R. McAdoo.”
Kilkenny Bishop’s Palace, Church Lane, GARDENS (ST. CANICE PAR.), Kilkenny, County Kilkenny
Detached five-bay three-storey over basement Church of Ireland bishop’s palace, reconstructed 1735-6, incorporating fabric of medieval undercroft, between 1354-60, to basement with single-bay three-storey return to north-east. Extensively renovated and extended, c.1825, comprising single-bay three-storey flat-roofed central return having three-bay two-storey flanking range to right (north-west). Restored, 1962-3. Now disused. Hipped slate roofs (behind parapet to main block) with clay ridge tiles, cut-limestone chimney stacks (most on axis with ridge), and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Flat roof to central return not visible behind parapet. Unpainted rendered, ruled and lined walls with cut-limestone stringcourses to each stage, moulded cornice having blocking course to parapet, and rendered coping to parapet to central return. Square-headed window openings (Venetian window openings to central return) with cut-limestone sills, six-over-six and three-over-six (top floor) timber sash windows (twelve-over-eight (first floor) and eight-over-eight (top floor) timber sash windows to Venetian openings having four-over-four and four-over-two sidelights). Square-headed door opening with cut-limestone block-and-start surround having keystone, and timber panelled door. Interior with timber panelled reveals to window openings with most having timber panelled shutters. Set back from road in own grounds with gravel forecourt, landscaped grounds to site (including terrace with flight of six steps having parapet with ball finials), unpainted rendered piers with coping, ball finials, iron double gates, random rubble stone boundary wall to perimeter of site having camber-headed pedestrian gateway with red brick dressings including camber relieving arch, and iron gate.
Appraisal
A large-scale house reconstructed under the patronage of Bishop Griffith Williams (1589?-1672) representing an artefact of national significance in the architectural heritage of Kilkenny. A regular entrance elevation displaying Classically-derived proportions together with a distinctive doorcase is counterbalanced with a garden front incorporating a complex massing attesting to a period of evolution spanning five centuries: retaining portions of a medieval undercroft in the basement incorporating the fabric of three separate churches dismantled by Bishop Richard Ledrede (fl. 1317-60) the present edifice not only continues a long-standing occupation of the grounds but represents an integral component of the archaeological legacy of the region. Although now no longer fulfilling the original intended use the house has historically been well maintained following a restoration project undertaken by Doctor Henry McAdoo (1916-98) retaining most of the historic fabric both to the exterior and to the interior where elements exhibiting high quality craftsmanship enliven the design significance of the composition. Set in extensive grounds the palace forms a neat group alongside the associated Cathedral (12005018/KK-4766-08-18) with the resulting assemblage significantly enhancing the character of an historic townscape.
Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.
Detached three-bay single-storey over basement Classical-style robing room, built 1756/60, on an ovoid plan incorporating fabric of medieval town wall, post-1300, with three-bay single-storey pedimented breakfront, and single-bay single-storey bowed side elevations. Now disused and derelict. Hipped slate roof (continuing into half-conical roofs; gabled to pediment) with clay ridge tiles, slightly sproketed eaves, and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods. Unpainted rendered, ruled and lined walls over random rubble stone construction with limestone ashlar dressings including quoins to breakfront, and band supporting pediment having moulded surround. Square-headed window openings with moulded cut-limestone sills, limestone ashlar voussoirs having keystones, and four-over-four timber sash windows (now boarded-up) having some six-over-six timber sash windows to side elevations. Round-headed door opening with four cut-stone steps, cut-limestone block-and-start surround, and glazed timber panelled double doors having fanlight (now boarded-up). Interior with remains of plasterwork including panel over fireplace having lugged surround, round-headed recessed flanking niches having moulded archivolts, and timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set in grounds shared with Kilkenny Bishop’s Palace with rear (west) elevation forming part of random rubble stone boundary wall to perimeter of site.
Appraisal
An elegantly-appointed small-scale range built to designs attributable to Saunderson Miller (1716-80) for Bishop Richard Pococke (1704-65) forming an important element of the architectural heritage of the locality enhancing the group and setting values of the Kilkenny Bishop’s Palace complex: representing the last surviving fragment of a mid eighteenth-century redevelopment of the grounds the robing room provides an indication as to the appearance of the nearby Saint Canice’s Cathedral (12005018/KK-4766-08-18) following the completion of a comprehsive ‘restoration’ programme there in what has been described as the Grecian Doric style. Despite the diminutive proportions the building is distinguished by robust cut-stone dressings producing the pleasing Classical theme enhancing the architectural design value of the composition. Although no longer in use most of the historic fabric survives intact behind protective boarding while an attractive interior space incorporates early joinery displaying high quality craftsmanship together with traces of decorative plasterwork enhancing the artistic design value of the site. Incorporating the fabric of a tower originally forming part of the medieval town wall the site remains an important element of the long-standing archaeological legacy of Kilkenny City.
Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Bishop’s Palace, Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.
Richmond (formerly Killashalloe), Nenagh , Co Tipperary
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. 241. “(Gason/IFR) A fortified house onto which a three storey house over high basement was built in 1733… partly demolished 1956.”
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Bence Jones writes that this was a fortified house onto which a three storey house was built in 1733. The house was later altered and expanded. Richmond was the seat of the Gason family in the 18th and 19th centuries, originally known as Killashalloe. Occupied by Richard Gason in 1814 and in 1837 and held by him in fee in the early 1850s when it was valued at £46. This house remained in Gason possession until 1956 when the roof was removed and the farm was sold in 1962. Part of the facade of the Ulster Bank headquarters at George’s Quay, Dublin, was constructed from blocks of stone from Richmond House (”The Irish Independent”, 16 March 1999) .
Then and Now, Mount Talbot House, 1910 v 2024 from The Landed Estates of County Roscommon fb page
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.
pg. 217. (Talbot, sub Crosbie/IFR) Originally a C18 winged Palladian house, the wings constructed at an angle of 45 degrees to the centre block, and joined to it by by curved open arcades, with urn finials on the parapets. Then, ca 1820, the centre block was transformed into an impressive castellated and Gothic pile; the arcades and wings being left as they were, producing a somewhat hybrid effect. As transformed, the entrance front of the centre block was nearly symmetrical and had a masive square tower like a keep at one end, a pair of turrets in the centre, which resembled a Tudor gatehouse tower, and 3rd turret at the other end. The garden front was more ecclesiastical than military, and had a three bay projection with graceful pointed windows and Gothic pinnacles at the corners. Dining room with Gothic recess. Chaste and elegant Classical arch at entrance to demesne, with rusticated piers and urns on its entablature; flanked by two smaller arches for pedestrians. Mount Talbot was burnt 1922.”
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, courtesy of Mark Bence-Jones.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 127. A mid 18C Palladian house built for the Talbots consisting of a central block connected to pavilions by open arcade sweeps. The pavilions have elevations similar to those at Altavilla, County Limerick. In c. 1820, the central block was remodelled in the Tudor Revival style. The house was burnt in 1922, but the arcade and wings remain.
Chapter in David Hicks, Irish Country Houses, a Chronicle of Change.
THE TALBOTS OWNED 5,916 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY ROSCOMMON RICHARD TALBOT (c1520-77), of Templeogue, County Dublin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, eldest son of William Talbot, the youngest son of Thomas Talbot, Lord of Malahide, married Alice, daughter of John Burnell, of Balgriffin, was father of
JOHN TALBOT, of Templeogue, whose will was proved in 1584; father of
ROBERT TALBOT, of Templeogue, who wedded Eleanor, daughter of Sir Henry Colley, of Castle Carbury, and had two sons,
John, of Templeogue, dsp 1627; HENRY, his successor.
Mr Talbot died in 1616, and was succeeded by his younger son,
JAMES TALBOT, of Templeogue, and Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, Colonel in JAMES II’s army, was killed at the battle of Aughrim, 1691.
He married Bridget, daughter of Francis, 17th Baron Athenry, and had two daughters,
Mary, m John, 9th Earl of Clanricarde; Bridget, m Valentine Browne (ancestor of the Marquess of Sligo).
Mr Talbot died without male issue, and was succeeded by his brother,
WILLIAM TALBOT (-1692), of Mount Talbot, who wedded Lucy, widow of George Holmes, daughter and co-heir of William Hamilton, of Liscloony, King’s County, by whom he had a son,
HENRY TALBOT (-1729), of Mount Talbot, High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1713, who married Isabella Forward, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; John (Rev).
The elder son,
WILLIAM TALBOT (-1787), of Mount Talbot, High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1753, wedded, in 1739, Sarah, widow of John Southwell, and daughter of the Rt Hon Henry Rose MP, and had issue,
Henry Rose, dvp 1759; WILLIAM JOHN, succeeded his brother; Bridget; Jane.
The younger son,
WILLIAM JOHN TALBOT (-1787), of Mount Talbot, wedded firstly, in 1765, Elizabeth Margaret, daughter of George Rose, of Moyvane, County Limerick, and had a daughter,
Jane, m in 1786 Sir Edmund Stanley.
He espoused secondly, in 1775, the Lady Jane Crosbie, daughter of William, 1st Earl of Glandore, and had further issue,
William, dsp 1851; JOHN, of whom presently; Charles; Theodosia.
The second son,
THE REV JOHN TALBOT, assumed, in 1816, the name and arms of CROSBIE in pursuance of the will of his uncle, John, last Earl of Glandore.
He married, in 1811, Jane, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of Beechmount, County Limerick, and had issue,
WILLIAM (TALBOT-CROSBIE), of Ardfert Abbey; JOHN, of Mount Talbot; Anne; Diana.
The Rev John Talbot-Crosbie died in 1818, and was succeeded by his second son,
JOHN TALBOT JP DL (1818-95), of Mount Talbot, High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1857, formerly of the 35th Regiment, who assumed, in 1851, the name and arms of TALBOT instead of CROSBIE.
He espoused firstly, in 1845, Marianne, eldest daughter of Marcus McCausland, of Fruit Hill (otherwise Drenagh), County Londonderry, and had an only daughter,
Marianne Jane Theodosia.
Mr Talbot married secondly, in 1858, Gertrude Caroline, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Bayly, of Ballyarthur, County Wicklow, by whom he had a son,
CAPTAIN WILLIAM JOHN TALBOT JP DL (1859-1923), of Mount Talbot, High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1886, Armagh, 1903, who wedded, in 1897, Julia Elizabeth Mary, only child of Sir Capel Molyneux Bt DL, of Castle Dillon, County Armagh, though the marriage was without male issue.
Captain Talbot was the last Lord-Lieutenant of County Roscommon, from 1917 until 1922.
MOUNT TALBOT HOUSE, near Athleague, County Roscommon, today lies in ruins.
It was built ca 1750 in the Palladian style, with wings constructed at an angle to the main block, joined by curved arcades.
The arcades, which were open, were embellished with urn finials on the parapets.
The central block was changed, about 1820, into a castellated Gothic, Tudor-Revival edifice.
The main block now had a huge square tower at one end with a pair of pinnacles or miniature turrets; and a third castlellated turret at the other end.
Whereas the garden front boasted a three-bay projection with pointed windows and Gothic pinnacles.
A grand Triumphal kind of arch with rusticated piers still remains at the former main entrance to the demesne.
The Talbot family’s great ancestral home was maliciously burnt in 1922.
William John Talbot and his wife probably never returned.
Mr Talbot, the last Lord-Lieutenant of County Roscommon, died in London one year later.
THE charming little church at Mount Talbot, which contains the family mausoleum, was erected by the Talbots in 1766.
It has been described as “a plain, neat, Gothic building, erected in 1766 at an expense of £415, a gift from the Board of First Fruits.“
Its last service took place in 1965, it is thought.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
It was the late Nuala O’Faolain who, almost 25 years ago, told me the unhappy story of Marianne Talbot, a story Nuala later incorporated into her 2001 novel, My Dream of You. The tale can be summarized as follows: in January 1845 John Talbot-Crosbie, a younger son of the Rev John Talbot-Crosbie of Ardfert Abbey, County Kerry, married Marianne McCausland. A year later the couple’s only child, a daughter also called Marianne, was born. In May 1851 John Talbot-Crosbie’s uncle William Talbot died, and left his nephew an estate in County Roscommon called Mount Talbot. However, the will stated that John was only to enjoy lifetime occupancy and full ownership rested on his having a male heir. A year later, John, who by royal licence had now dropped Crosbie from his surname, claimed to have discovered his wife Marianne with a groom called Mullen in the latter’s room, the door to which was locked; curiously the couple’s little daughter was also in the room. However, immediately separated from her child, the following day Marianne Talbot was brought by the local rector to Dublin and there kept in confinement. It is said that Mullen followed Marianne to the city and tried to see her there, but was not allowed to do so. Some time later she was declared insane, taken to England and placed in a lunatic asylum where she is believed to have spent the rest of her life. Meanwhile, her husband initiated divorce proceedings against Marianne on the grounds of adultery and although his application was granted, it was repeatedly challenged by Marianne’s family, the case going all the way to the House of Lords where the couple’s divorce was confirmed in July 1856. As can be imagined, the matter attracted considerable public attention, and it was widely believed that John Talbot, knowing his wife was unlikely to have any further children and certainly not a boy, had fabricated her adultery with the groom so as to allow a divorce. Having succeeded in this ambition, he was able to marry again – in October 1858 – and a year later his second wife, Gertrude Caroline Bayley, had a son. Divine justice then intervened: John Talbot died a fortnight after the birth.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
The Talbots were a family long settled in Ireland, the first of them being Richard de Talbot who around 1185 was granted land in Malahide where his descendants lived in a castle until 1973. Another branch was based in Templeogue, County Dublin until, in the aftermath of the Cromwellian Wars, Sir Henry Talbot had his lands seized and was transplanted to County Roscommon. Restored to his original lands in the aftermath of the Restoration, all seemed well until Sir Henry’s son James took up the cause of James II and was killed at the Battle of Aughrim in 1691. Once again, the family lost its property in the Dublin region, but somehow managed to hold onto the Roscommon estate, which eventually passed to James Talbot’s nephew Henry. In the 1730s he embarked on building the core of what remains today of the house at Mount Talbot. The design of this has been attributed to that prolific architect of the period, Richard Castle. Certainly, the building as originally constructed conformed to the Castle’s Palladian model, the main block being flanked by wings set at an angle of 45 degrees and linked to them by curved open arcades with a series of urns along the parapets. So far, so standard but then around 1820 the era’s Tudor Gothic craze hit Mount Talbot’s then owner, the aforementioned William Talbot (the terms of whose will would later be the cause of so much unhappiness). The consequences were startling.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
Mount Talbot, County Roscommon, photograph by Irish Aesthete.
The architect chosen to oversee Mount Talbot’s transformation was a local man, Richard Richards, of whom relatively little is known although he did design a number of churches. This was certainly his most important commission and he clearly wanted to make an impression. What presumably had been a symmetrical classical house was given a great square keep at one end of the façade and a smaller polygonal turret at the other; between them the entrance to the building was now flanked by similar turrets. The centre of the garden front received a three-storey projecting block with arched Gothic windows and pinnacles at the corners of the roofline, all of which was castellated. One more turret rose above all the others in the middle of the building. Further work undertaken in the early 1880s when a new entrance front approached by a grand stone staircase was added in the north-east corner of the house. Yet while the main block was dressed up to look like a castle, the arcades and wings retained their original classical appearance, an altogether bizarre juxtaposition of styles. It was not to last long. William John Talbot, the heir born to John Talbot just two weeks before his death, in due course came of age and into his inheritance when he embarked on the additional work mentioned above. Known as Johnnie, in 1897 he married a wealthy heiress, Julia Molyneux, only child of Sir Capel Molyneux of Castle Dillon, County Armagh, meaning the couple were exceedingly wealthy. All was well until the onset of the War of Independence and its aftermath, the Civil War. During the first of these, British troops were garrisoned in the house and grounds of Mount Talbot, the Talbots seemingly living during this period at Castle Dillon. Following the signing of the Treaty, they returned to Mount Talbot but in early April 1922, a group of armed Republicans arrived at the house and assaulted the now-elderly Johnnie Talbot, giving the couple 24 hours to leave the place or face worse. The next day the Talbots departed, never to return, he to go into a nursing home in Dublin, his wife to the Shelbourne Hotel, where she died that night, supposedly from shock brought on by the attack at Mount Talbot. Johnnie Talbot died the following year in London. Meanwhile, as the Civil War continued, Free State troops occupied Mount Talbot which in July 1922 was attacked by Anti-Treaty forces who placed a mine under the main entrance and other bombs around the building, causing considerable damage. The Talbots had no children, and following his death, the estate was broken up by the Land Commission and the house, along with its contents, sold. All that remains today is a stump of the central block and one of the wings. No trace survives of the other wing, nor of either linking arcade. After all that John Talbot had done to ensure Mount Talbot remained in his family, and all the suffering he had caused to his first wife Marianne, this was the end result.
Summerhill, County Meath, etnrance front, photograph: Maurice Craig, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
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.
“(Langford, Bt/EDB; Rowley, Langford, B/PB) The most dramatic of the Irish Palladian houses, probably by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle. Built 1731 for Hercules Rowley, MP, who inherited the estate from his mother, the daughter of Sir Hercules Langford. Crowning a hill, on the lower slopes of which stood the C17 house of the Langfords, the house consisted of two storey seven bay main block, with a central feature of four giant recessed Corinthian columns, joined by two storey curving wings to end pavilions with towers and shallow domes. The skyline was further diversified by two massive square towers rising boldly at either end of the main block; one of several features reminiscent of Vanbrugh, who was, incidentally, Pearce’s first cousin once removed. The front was prolonged by walls of rusticated stonework ending in rusticated arches. All the stonework of the front was beautifully crisp and sharp. The garden front was less spectacular, but elegant, with two storeys of engaged columns as its central feature; it faced along a tree-lined gorge. Large two storey hall. Staircase hall with plasterwork on its walls. Fine rococo ceiling in drawing room, with busts in circular frames and putti in clouds. Small dining room ceiling also rococo, with putti in clouds in centre. Adjoining room with coved ceiling springing from Doric order; this room and the small dining room were eventually thrown together to make a larger dining room. The house was damaged by fire in nineteenth century; it was restored, but the original decoration of the hall was lost, as well as the original staircase. In 1879 and 1880, the Empress Elizabeth of Austria took Summerhill for the hunting season; it is said that her unquiet spirit found more happiness here than in any of the other numerous palaces and houses which she inhabited. After being burnt ca 1922, the house stood for 35 years or so as a ruin. Even in its ruinous state, Summer hill was one of the wonders of Ireland; in fact like Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval, it gained added drama from being a burnt out shell. The calcining of the central feature of the garden front looked like more fantastic rustication; the stonework of the side arches was more beautiful than ever mottled with red lichen; and as the entrance front came into sight, one first became aware that it was a ruin by noticing daylight showing through the front door. But ca 1957, the ruin was demolished; an act of destruction, which, at the time, passed almost unnoticed.”
Summerhill, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.Summerhill, County Meath, courtesy Mark Bence-Jones.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 115. “A superb house probably designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle who carried it out after Pearce’s death. The house was built in 1731 for Hercules Rowley M.P. The arched chimneystacks of the main block show the influence of John Vanburgh. The house was damaged by two fires in the 19C but some plasterwork by the Francini brothers survived. The house was burnt in 1922. Having stood as a magnificent ruin for many years, the stonework was sold and the ruin demolished c. 1962. Only the flanking pedimented arches and screen walls survive.”
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2005.
Langford of Summerhill (Barons Langford)
p. 126. The Rowleys settled in Ireland in the early part of the 17th century. Three brothers, John, Nathaniel and William were the first of that family to arrive on the island. It is most likely hey came to Ireland with Chichester the Lord Deputy. They probaby benefited from the distribution of lands in the Plantation of Ulster. They appear to have been granted some lands in Derry and Edward, John’s son, was based in Castle Roe near Londonderry where he was elected an MP.
John made a very good match with the daughter of an up and coming landlord, Sir Hugh Clotworthy, from neighbouring County Antrim [fn. Hugh’s son John was created Earl of Massareene by King Charles II). Sir John Rowley was John’s son and heir.
The Rowley connection with Meath began in 1671 when Sir John Rowley, MP, married Mary the only child and heir of Sir Hercules Langford of Summerhill and his wife Mary Upton.
…The only son, Hercules Rowley, married his cousin Frances Upton of Castle Upton, co Antrim, in 1705. It must have been he who inherited from Sir Hercules Langford as that man’s will was proved in 1683.
…[their son, Hercules] At the time of his death in 1794 his estate was considerable and was worth £18,000 p.a. The Langfords owned almost 10,000 acres in three different counties, 2,231 in Meath, 3,855 in Limerick and 3,659 in Dublin.
p. 127. He married his cousin the Hon. Elizabeth Ormsby Upton the daughter and heir of Clotworthy Upton who died the same year. Elizabeth also inherited the Ormsby lands in Limerick [Athlacca, Co Limerick]. In 1766 Elizabeth was created Baroness Summerhill and Viscountess Langford of Langford Lodge, Antrim with remainder to her male heirs. …
p. 128. After the death of Elizabeth the Baroness in 1791, her eldest son Hercules succeeded to become 2nd Viscount. Her husband survived three years longer and died in 1794.
Hercules (1737-96) was MP for Co Antrim until he took his seat in the House of Lords in 1791, the year his mother died. …He never married and was succeeded by his niece Frances. In the same year that her grandfather died (1794) she married her cousin, the Hon. Clotworthy Taylour. Born in 1763 he was the 4th son of Lord Headfort. He was MP for Trim and also for Meath during the later decades of the century until his elevation to the Peerage as Baron Langford in 1800. He was high Sheriff of Meath in 1796. [p. 129] After his marriage to Frances in 1794 Clotworthy assumed the name and arms of Rowley.
The second son Richard Thomas was a career Army officer….married and English lady, Charlotte Shipley..The newlyweds decided to honeymoon travelling in Egypt and the Sudan in 1835-36. From diaries and sketches recording their experience an article “A Honeymoon in Egypt and the Sudan” was written by Peter Rowley-Conwy c. 2002. …Charlotte was thought to be the first European woman ever to have visited Petra.
[a descendant of theirs became 9th Baron Langford].
p. 130. The eldest son of 1st Baron Hercules Langford the 2nd Baron (1795-1839), a DL for counties Meath and Dublin was married in 1818 to Louisa Rhodes….
Hercules the second son (1828-1904) settled on the Dublin property of Marlay Park, which thankfully has not entirely disappeared. He was a part-time Army officer, a JP and a DL for Co Meath and honorary Colonel in teh 5th Battalion of the Leinster Regiment. Like many wealthy men of his time he had a pad in London and was a member of the Kildare Club on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the Carlton in London.
p. 133. Clotworthy (1825-1854) the eldest son of the 2nd Baron succeeded his father in 1839 when that man died at the relatively young age of 44. Clotworthy was only 14. In 1846 when he was just 21 years old, Clothworthy, now 3rd Baron Langford, married Louisa Conolly from Castletown, the daughter of Col Michael Edward Conolly who was MP for Kildare….They had three sons. The youngest boy was just one year old when tragedy struck the family. Louisa was drowned in a tragic accident.
p. 133. Hercules Edward (4th Baron) had to oversee the dismantling of the Langford empire in Ireland following the various land acts…Although on paper at least the family seemed to be very wealthy, the fact that they were compelled to rent the house [to Empress Sisi of Austria] meant that their annual outgoings were extremely high. It is probably that the repayment of borrowings was the biggest drain on family finances.
p. 134. WWI took a heavy toll on the families of the gentry and aristocracy. Lord Langford lost his son which was all the more poignant since his other son was mentally unstable. [see Bence-Jones Twilight of the Ascendancy.] He now had no immediate heir as his brother was old and had no family but he had a nephew in New Zealand, Clotworthy Wellington. His brother Col William Chambre looked after the estate during the last years of the 4th Baron’s life.
…In 1923 Summerhill was burned by the IRA.
p. 135. The 5th Baron died in 1922 ages only 28. The 5th Baron was succeeded by his uncle, William Chambre Rowley, 2nd son of the 3rd Baron. …
The 6th Baron sought compensation from the Free State Government for Summerhill and its contents. After three years of wrangling the Compensation Board finally agreed that a sum of £43,500 would be paid. This was less than one third of the estimated value of the house and contancts…He accepted and invested in gilt-edged stocks… moved to Middlesex…He consulted his New Zealand relatives about the possibility of rebuilding but none were overly anxious to live in Ireland….
Record ofProtected Structures
Detached four-bay two-storey house, built 1878, with gabled
central bay. Pitched slate roof with rendered chimneystacks
and timber bargeboards. Roughcast rendered walls. Squareheaded
Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.
Summerhill House was a 100 roomed country house which was the ancestral seat of the Langford Rowley family. They owned large amounts of land in counties Meath, Westmeath, Cork, Derry, Antrim, and Dublin as well as in Devon and Cornwall.
Designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and completed by Richard Cassels in the Palladian style, it consisted of a centre block and two wings, built of limestone. Four semi-columns with Corinthian capitals ornamented the front; the main order was carried up the full height of the house. A broad flight of stairs led to the entrance of the mansion. There was a large and very lofty hall, which was similar to Leinster House in Dublin, also by Cassels. The hall contained plaques and oil portraits. To the right on entering was the library. The drawing room had a southern aspect, and contained several portraits of the Rowley family. The state dining room was detached from the main block and had beautifully covered ceilings. The grand stairs led to the bedrooms.
Summerhill, County Meath, photograph courtesy Archiseek.
Destroyed by arson in the early 1920s and the ruins demolished by the 1970s. In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Nothing remains of the house.
Summerhill House 100 room mansion, baroque palace, built in 1731, the ancestral seat of The Baronets, Barons, and Viscounts Langford – Summerhill Castle. Lynch’s Castle, (above), was already a residence in the immediate vicinity, the ruins of which survive to the present. Constructed for the The Hon. Hercules Langford Rowley, 2nd Baron Langford who in 1732 married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Clotworthy Upton. In 1781 Hercules Langford Rowley built a large gothic mausoleum not far from the house, which fell into a ruinous state; some of its exterior walls survive, along with a handful of their curious arched niches. It originally contained a large memorial carved by Thomas Banks and commemorating the death of a beloved granddaughter, the Hon Mary Pakenham (Rowley’s daughter had married Lord Longford, another of whose children Catherine would in turn marry the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington). The Banks memorial was rescued from the mausoleum and moved into the main house at Summerhill. Summerhill House was damaged by fire on a number of occasions and then on 4 February 1922, it was set on fire by the Irish Republican Army and completely destroyed. In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Colonel Rowley invested the money in gilt-edged stocks and moved to Middlesex, England. Summerhill House stood as a ruin until it was totally demolished in 1970. Summerhill House was listed in “Forgotten Houses of Ireland”, as the most beautiful house in Ireland.
Summerhill House was considered to be one of the most dramatic of the Irish palladian houses. Crowning a hill to the south of Summerhill village, the house consisted of a main block with curved wings ending in a tower and pavilion. Summerhill House was designed by Edward Lovett Pearce and completed by Richard Castle, two of the greatest architects working in Ireland in the eighteenth century. Two of the ceilings were attributed to the Lafranchini brothers. Summerhill House, described by Mulligan as a ‘great palatial mansion,’ was erected about 1730 for Hercules Rowley. Bence–Jones described Summerhill as “the most dramatic of the great Irish palladian houses”. The house was burned accidentally about 1800, remodelled in the nineteenth century and burned again in 1921. The ruins were demolished in the middle of the twentieth century and some of the stones from the ruins were used at Dalgan Park, Navan, to construct a loggia. To the north of the house site stands Lynch’s castle which was converted to a folly on the estate. Near the house stood the family mausoleum.
Summerhill House
A mile long avenue to the south of the house was planned. The architect asked to design the gate houses was also working on two gate lodges for a military barracks in India and the two plans became mixed up. Those intended for India arrived in Summerhill and were erected. The houses because of their unusual roofs became known as the “Balloon Houses”. The avenue was never completed as the last third of it stood on public road and so the gate houses were not even part of the demesne.
Though Summerhill House has been demolished, the entrance and tree-lined avenue are reminders of the demesne. The curved wall and gate piers was clearly executed by skilled masons. The entrance acts as a focal point within the village of Summerhill. The village of Summerhill is based on a classical layout, associated with the development of the Summerhill House and demesne. The village consists of a long wide street with a narrow tree-lined green running down the centre. The village green, laid out c.1830 includes a medieval cross.
The ancient seat of the Lynch family had been granted to Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath, for his services provided as Scoutmaster General to Cromwell’s Army. In 1661 Bishop Jones sold the lands to Sir Hercules Langford. The name was changed from Lynch’s Knock to Summerhill.
Sir Hercules Langford died in 1683 leaving a son, Arthur, and a daughter, Mary. He died in 1716. Arthur died without an heir and the estate went to his sister Mary who had married Sir John Rowley in 1671. Sir John Rowley was one of the biggest landowners in County Londonderry.
Sir John was succeeded by his son, Hercules Rowley, MP for Co. Londonderry 1703-42 and heir to Sir Hercules Langford of Summerhill. Hercules Rowley commissioned Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in collaboration with Richard Castle to build one of the greatest and most dramatic of all the Irish Georgian houses in 1731. The house was probably erected in preparation for his marriage in 1732 to Elizabeth Upton. Hercules Rowley died in 1742 when he was succeeded by his son.
Sir Hercules Langford Rowley was M.P. for Co. Londonderry 1743-1760 and for Co. Meath 1761-94. He was a founder member of the Dublin Society in 1731, later the RDS. He was High Sheriff of Meath in 1738. In 1766 Hercules Langford Rowley was elevated to the peerage as Lord Summerhill. Hercules Langford Rowley was known as ‘the incorruptible representative for the County of Meath.’ He served in the Irish parliament for a period of fifty-one years. In 1787 he was appointed as one of the commissioners for the making of a canal from Drogheda to Trim. Johnston-Liik recorded that he died in 1794 having been an MP for over 50 years. In 1776 his wife was made Viscountess Langford and Baroness of Summerhill in her own right. Their eldest son, Hercules Rowley, became 2nd Viscount Langford in 1791 on the death of his mother. When he died unmarried about 1795 the estate went to his grand nephew, Hon Clothsworthy Taylour who was M.P. for Trim 1791-5 and for Co. Meath 1795-1800. He was created Baron Langford in 1800 having assumed the name Rowley in 1796 in order to inherit Summerhill. While he was M.P. for Trim the other M.P. for Trim was Arthur Wesley, the future Duke of Wellington. Clothsworthy voted against the Union in 1799 and for it in 1800 – the title might have had something to do with the change of mind, according to one commentator – ‘he had got his price.’
Baron Langford died in 1825 and his grandson, Clothworthy Wellington William Robert, became third Baron Langford. His son, Hercules Edward, became fourth baron in 1854 when he was just six years old. Educated at Eton he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the army.
He leased Summerhill to the Empress of Austria for hunting in 1879 and 1880 and was her guest for these periods. Elizabeth married the Emperor of Austria when she was sixteen years old. Travelling and her passion for horse riding became the principle activities by which she could escape the court. Arriving in February 1879 a room was converted to a private chapel, a gymnasium was set up and a direct telegraph line installed to Europe. She was loaned a horse and joined the local hunt. The stag they had been chasing jumped through a space into the Maynooth Seminary with the hounds, and the Empress, in pursuit. The President, Dr Walsh, came out to meet the group and on being introduced to the Empress of Austria lent her his coat or gown, invited them in for refreshment and she promised to return. The Empress managed to hunt nearly every day. In the early spring of 1880 the Empress went straight to Summerhill. On the first Sunday she went to Mass at the seminary in Maynooth and took a gift of a three foot high model of St George slaying the dragon. She was unaware that St George was the patron saint of England and when she was told of its significance she ordered shamrock covered vestments from Dublin. She spent some happy time hunting in Meath. The Empress of Austria was assassinated in 1897 by an anarchist in Geneva.
In 1883 Lord Langford held 2231 acres in Meath, 3659 in Dublin and 3855 in Limerick giving a total estate of 9745 acres.
Hercules Edward fourth baron oversaw the disposal of the Summerhill estate. He died on 29th October 1919 and was interred in Agher cemetery. He lost his son and heir in the First World War and his second son was mentally unstable. His brother, William Chambre, took charge of the estate during his last years and after his death. William became 6th baron when his nephew died in 1922.
In 1921 the house was burned to prevent it falling into the hands of the Black and Tans. Beryl Moore recorded that a large four side clock was the only thing left undamaged and it was donated to Kilmessan Church of Ireland church. On the 4th February 1921 Summerhill House was set on fire by the IRA and completely destroyed. Colonel and Mrs Rowley were away. The five servants who lived in the house were sitting together in the kitchen when they heard a knock on the back door. The English butler did not open the door and some minutes later a whistle was blown and the back door battered in. The servants escaped through a door into the basement and made there way out into the darkness. As they walked down the avenue the house was dowsed in petrol and the fire started in a number of places.
In 1922 Colonel Rowley, the 6th Baron Langford, sought compensation from the Free State Government and after three years of negotiation with the Compensation Board a sum of £43,500 was paid to the Colonel, approximately one third of the value of the house and contents destroyed in the fire. Colonel Rowley invested the money in gilt-edged stocks and moved to Middlesex, England.
In the early twenty first century the eighth holder of the title was constable of Rhuddlan castle and lord of Rhuddlan, Wales. The family reside at Bodrhyddan Hall.
In February 1879 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, popularly known then and since as Sisi, arrived in County Meath. Unhappily married, restless and inclined to melancholy, she found distraction in hunting and it was this sport which brought her to Ireland. Throughout her six-week stay in the country she followed the hounds almost daily with the Ward Union, the Meath and the Kildare Hunts, always accompanied by the most proficient horseman of his generation Captain William ‘Bay’ Middleton, widely rumoured to be her lover. Her own animals not proving suitable for the Irish terrain, local owners lent or sold the Empress their mounts although the Master of the Meath Hunt Captain Robert Fowler of Rahinstown was heard to expostulate ‘I’m not going to have any damned Empress buying my daughter’s horse.’ Nevertheless before her departure, Elisabeth presented a riding crop to Fowler: it was sold by Adam’s of Dublin in September 2010 for €28,000. During her 1879 visit and on a second occasion the following year the Empress stayed in an immense baroque palace that would not have looked out of place among the foothills outside Vienna. This was Summerhill, one of Ireland’s most remarkable houses the loss of which, as the Knight of Glin once wrote, ‘is probably the greatest tragedy in the history of Irish domestic architecture.’
Summerhill was constructed for the Hon. Hercules Langford Rowley who in 1732 married his cousin Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Clotworthy Upton. It is generally agreed that work on the house began around this date, perhaps to commemorate the union. Also, although impossible to prove absolutely, the most widespread supposition is that Summerhill’s architect was Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. There are echoes in its design of Vanbrugh in whose office Pearce is thought to have trained. Indeed writing of the building in 1752 the Anglican clergyman and future Bishop of Meath Richard Pococke specifically described it as ‘a commanding Eminence, the house is like a Grand Palace, but in the Vanbrugh Style.’ There was already a residence in the immediate vicinity, the ruins of which survive to the present. Known as Lynch’s Castle, it is a late 16th century tower house probably occupied up to the time of Summerhill’s construction. The position selected for Rowley’s new house could scarcely have been better – the 19th century English architect C.R. Cockerell thought ‘few sites more magnificently chosen – the close of a long incline so that the gradual approach along a tree-lined avenue created the impression of impending drama. Finally one reached the entrance front, a massive two-storey, seven-bay block the central feature of which were four towering Corinthian columns, the whole executed in crisply cut limestone. On either side two-storey quadrants swept away from the house towards equally vast pavilions topped by towers and shallow domes.
We must imagine the original interiors of Summerhill to have been as superb as its exterior since little record of them survive. The house was seriously damaged by fire in the early 19th century and thereafter successive generations of the Rowley owners – it had passed to a branch of the Taylours of Headfort, the first of whom was elevated to the peerage as Baron Langford in 1800 after voting in favour of the Act of Union – never seem to have had sufficient funds to oversee a comprehensive refurbishment. In fact in 1851 the estate was offered for sale. However, some work was done on the house, including a new main staircase, in the 1870s, not long before Summerhill was taken by the Empress Elisabeth. A handful of photographs, reproduced in the invaluable Irish Georgian Society Records of 1913 and shown above give us an idea of the house’s decoration, not least that of the double-height entrance hall with its then-compulsory potted palms (just as the wall above the stairs carries an equally inevitable reproduction of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna). We know the drawing room and small dining room both contained elaborate plasterwork and there were clearly some splendid chimneypieces. The IGS Records also lists many significant paintings in the main rooms. Before the end of the 19th century the large gothic mausoleum likewise built by Hercules Langford Rowley in 1781 not far from the house had fallen into a ruinous state; some of its exterior walls survive, along with a handful of their curious arched niches. Originally it contained a large memorial carved by Thomas Banks and commemorating the death of a beloved granddaughter, the Hon Mary Pakenham (Rowley’s daughter had married Lord Longford, another of whose children Catherine would in turn marry the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington). The Banks memorial was rescued from the mausoleum and moved into the main house at Summerhill, there seemingly safe from any damage.
On the night of 4th February 1922 the Rowleys were away but five staff remained in the house. When a knock came on the back door, the butler refused to open it but shortly afterwards he heard the door being knocked down. He and the others escaped through an exit in the basement and walked towards the farm; turning around, they saw flames rapidly spreading through the house which by morning was left a smoking shell. It has never been ascertained who was responsible for the burning of Summerhill or why it was attacked in this way, but most likely as elsewhere during the same period it was perceived as representing the old regime and therefore a target for republicans. Afterwards, like other house owners whose property had suffered a similar fate, the Rowleys applied to the new Free State government for compensation, asking for £100,000 to rebuild Summerhill; initially they were offered £65,000 but by April 1923 this had been cut to £16,775 with the condition that at least £12,000 of the sum had to be spent on building some kind of residence on the site, otherwise only £2,000 would be given. The compensation figure was later raised to £27,500 with no obligation to build but by then the Rowleys left the country (one member of the family had already declared ‘Nothing would induce me to live in Ireland if I was paid to do so…’). For the next thirty-five years Summerhill stood an empty shell. The late Mark Bence-Jones who saw the house during this period later wrote, ‘Even in its ruinous state, Summerhill was one of the wonders of Ireland; in fact like Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval, it gained added drama from being a burnt-out shell. The calcining of the central feature of the garden front looked like more fantastic rustication; the stonework of the side arches was more beautiful than ever mottled with red lichen; and as the entrance front came into sight, one first became aware that it was a ruin by noticing daylight showing through the front door.’ In 1947 Maurice Craig visited the site. His wonderfully atmospheric photographs from that time corroborate Bence-Jones’ description.
Seaton Delaval still stands, but Summerhill is no more. In 1957 the house was demolished, apparently without any objection. Today the site is occupied by a bungalow of the most diminutive proportions surrounded by evergreens which thereby obscure the view which made this spot so special. The difference in scale and style between the original house and its replacement would be hilarious was the loss of Summerhill not so tragic. The village at its former entrance gates gives visitors no indication that close by stood one of Ireland’s greatest architectural beauties. Indeed one suspects local residents themselves are mostly unaware of what they have lost since there is scant evidence of concern for the welfare of other old buildings in the vicinity. If Summerhill still stood it could be a significant tourist attraction, bringing visitors to this part of the country, not least from Austria and surrounding countries where the Empress Elisabeth enjoys near-cult status. In other words, what went with the house was not just an important piece of Ireland’s architectural heritage but also the opportunity for local employment and income. It is typical, if perhaps the worst instance, of Ireland’s failure to appreciate the potential of her historic buildings, as well as their inherent aesthetic qualities. I think it was Bence-Jones who once called Summerhill Ireland’s Versailles but a more apt comparison would be with Marly, another vanished treasure now known only through a handful of images. As Shelley wrote in 1818, ‘”Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare…’
Now providing access to Dolly’s Grove, County Meath, this limestone triumphal arch seemingly once stood at the entrance to Summerhill in the same county. Among Ireland’s very finest country houses Summerhill was built in the 1730s but is no more, having been burnt in February 1922, after which its dramatic shell survived another thirty-five years before being demolished (for more on the house, see My Name is Ozymandias, April 1st 2013). Summerhill’s design has traditionally been attributed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and some of his stylistic tics, such as blind niches and oculi, can be seen here in the Dolly’s Grove arch suggesting the architect was responsible for this piece of work also.
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. 104. “(Meredyth, Bt, of Greenhills, PB1909; Somerville, Athlumney, B/PB 1920) A house grandly remodelled in red brick ca 1730 for Arthur Meredyth, probably by Richard Castle. Three storey over a high basement with a parapet-attic of blind windows above the cornice. Seven bay front, three bay breakfronted centre, with Castle’s favourite sequence of a blind oculus above a niche above the entrance doorway, which is pedimented and pillared. Two bay side elevation, with Venetian windows in both principal storeys, triple windows above and triple blind windows in the attic and also in the basement; which, instead of being brick faced with stone, is of stone faced with brick. The principal front is flanked by two tall pedimented pavilions. Passed by inheritance to the Somerville (Athlumney) family; occupied by a farmer as early as 1837. Now a ruin. – supplement: In 1920s, Dollardstown, somewhat decayed, was the home of Mrs Hannah Laffan, mother of Brandan Bracken (afterwards Viscount Bracken), who spoke of the house as ‘that old barracks.’”
Henry Meredyth (d. 1789) by Charles Jervas courtesy Dulwich Portrait Gallery, London.Henry Meredyth came from an old Irish family with estates in County Meath. His great grandfather was Richard Meredyth, Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, who held the Deanery of St. Patrick’s Dublin. His father was Thomas Meredyth of Newton, County Meath who was M.P for Navan and who married Catherine daughter of John Baldwin of Corolanty, Kings County in 1704. Henry Meredyth was a barrister in Dublin and in 1748 married Frances daughter of Charles Patrick Plunket of Killonstown, County Louth.
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“The name Dollardstown derives from Adam and Paganus Dullard who in 1175 were granted lands in this part of the country by the Anglo-Norman Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath. In the late seventeenth century, Dollardstown was acquired by Arthur Meredith, whose forbear the Welsh-born cleric Richard Meredyth in 1584 moved to Irelnd where he became Bishop of Leighlin and Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin. It seems likely that the house at Dollardstown was at least in part of seventeenth-century origin, but after the estate was inherited by Arthur Meredith’s son (also called Arthur) in 1732 he rebuilt the property, apparently to the designs of Richard Castle. From the 1830s onwards, it seems that Dollardstown passed through various hands: in the last century, it was home to the mother of Financial Times founder and politician Brendan Bracken following her marriage to Patrick Laffan who then owned the house: she described it as “that old barracks.” Of seven bays and three storeys, the house had tall free-standing pavilions on either side: one of these still survives. An architectural curiosity was taht both side elevations had paired Venetian windows on ground and first floors. Inside, the main rooms had plaster panelling and there was a fine staircase. All remained in place as late as the 1950s when the house still had its roof…demolished in 1986…”
The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy: County Meath. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, published by Irish Family Names, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St, Dublin 4, 2005.
Aylmer of Balrath, p. 1. During the reign of Henry VI, Richard Aylmer of Lyons, a Keeper of the Peace for both Dublin and Kildare, was appointed Sovereign of the Borough of Tassagard, a position that put him in charge of protecting the settler community from attack by the neighbouring O’Toole and O’Byrne septs. Richard’s grandson Bartholomew served as High Sheriff of County Kildare in 1495 and married a daughter of the wealthy Meath magnate, Sir Christopher Chevers. The family subsequently rose to become one of the most prominent families in Meath and Kildare and, from 1530 onwards, key figures in the Dublin administration. By the close of Henry VIIIs reign, the Aylmer’s landholding extended from Kildare to Meath to Dublin. Before teh end of the 16th century they had established two independent branches at Donadea in north Kildare and at Dollardstown in Co Meath. The first Aylmer of real significance, in terms of land acquisition, was John Aylmer who married Helen Tyrell of Lyons, an heiress, at the end of teh 14th C and so the family acquired Lyons manor. He may have been a successful merchant and was descended from a family that had been prominent in the Lyons area since the Norman invasion.
p. 2. In the 13th and 14th centuries they intermarried not along with the Tyrell family of Westmeath but with three major Meath families – the Petits of Piercetown, the Bathes of Dollardstown and the Chevers of Macetown. In the 15th century, the Tews of Dublin, Suttons of Kepok, Luttrells of Luttrellstown and Dillons of Fingal came into the fold.
p. 3. Sir Gerald Aylmer [c. 1485-1560] was a shrewd and ambitious man. He studied law in his youth and catching the eye of Thomas Cromwell, was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. As a leading figure in the Dublin administration, Sir Gerald co-orchestrated the military campaign that defeated Silken Thomas. He personally commanded the force that burned Maynooth in 1534. When Silken thomas and his five captured uncles were sent to London, Sir Gerald went as their escort. Initially Gerald was a keen supporter of Lord Deputy Leonard Grey and assisted him during the campaign against the O’Neills of Ulster. In 1539, Grey knighted him on teh battlefield for his valour and granted him the manor and lordship of Dollardsotnw in County Meath, seized from Gerald’s great-uncle, Attorney General Bathe, who was implicated in the Kildare Rebellion. Gerald’s elder brother, Richard Aylmer of Lyons, chief sergeant of Kildare in 1535, also fared well in Lord Deputy Grey’s loyalty payout, receiving the lucrative manor house of Donadea.
Indeed Lrd Grey’s intimate circle divided the spoils so that the Earl of Ormond was granted Kildare’s manor at Kilkea, Sir Thomas Eustace secured Kilcock, Thomas Cusack secured Ardmulgham and Grey himself, Maynooth. Richard’s landholdings included 46 acres held by the glebe of Oughterard Rectory from the Abbot of Thomas Court Abbey in Dublin. He also held three gardens in Kill and the tithes of Fenaghes in the parish of Cloncurry. He was also in receipt of the tithes of Whitechurch and its glebe-land, the property of St John’s Hospital in Naas. With the dissolution of the monasteries, Richard as able to swiftly sweep these outlying properties into his own estate.
p. 4. However, he did not actually benefit from the breakup of the large Kildare churches save for the short-term purchase of the Dominican house in Naas, which he passed on to his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Luttrell within a few years.
p. 5. His son Bartholomew, who maried Elinor Warren of Navan, was appointed Clerk of the Peace for Counties Kildare and Meath in 1553 and given the post of Clerk of the Crown. He died soon afterwards and was succeeded by his eldest son James. James later married his second cousin Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Aylmer of Lyons and he inherited all the lands from his grandfather, Sir Gerald of Dollardstown who died in 1560….From him descended the Aylmers of Dollardstown.
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 113. “A superb house remodelled c. 1730 for Arthur Meredyth probably to the design of Richard Castle but incorporating a late 17C house. Very fine interior plasterwork and main staircase. The house was still roofed in the 1950s and having stood as a ruin for many years was demolished in 1986. The cut stone doorcase and other details were saved and are now in a private collection in County Cork.”
Dollardstown House stood near Beauparc, just off the road from Navan. Casey and Rowan described Dollardstown as a large and impressive stone and redbrick house designed in 1734 for Arthur Meredyth by Richard Castle, which stood as a derelict ivy grown shell until 1986 when it was completely demolished. Maurice Craig said Dollardstown was a remodelling in red brick, probably by Richard Castle of an earlier late seventeenth century house. On each side of the main house were tower-like wings. There is photo in Maurice Craig’s book. The three storey over high basement house had very fine interior plasterwork. The house was still roofed in the 1950s but demolished in 1986. The cut stone doorcase and other details were saved.
The local names of Dollardstown and Painestown derive from Adam Dullard and his relative Paganus Dullard who were given grants of land by Hugh de Lacy in 1175. Sir Gerald Aylmer was granted Dollardstown in the reign of Henry VIII.
Arthur Meredith held 382 acres of Dollardstown, barony of Duleek, and the 200 of Cristown, barony of Kells, from the Crown in 1683. Born in1639 Arthur was High Sheriff of Meath and M.P. for Navan from 1692 to 1713. He purchased 1070 acres in Co. Meath from the Commissioners for Sale of Forfeited Estates between 1702 and 1703. Dying on 1732 at age 93 years he was buried at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.
His son, Arthur Francis Meredith born about 1706, served as MP for Meath from 1751 to 1761. High Sheriff of Meath in 1736 he married Mary Waller and lived at Dollardstown.
Richard Jones M.P. for Killybegs 1761-8 and M.P. Newtown Limavady 1768-76 resided at Dollardstown.
Arthur’s daughter and heiress, Mary, married Sir Richard Gorges in 1775. Richard Gorges was the only son of Hamilton Gorges who was from the Kilbrew Gorges. He took the name, Meredith, and was created a Baronet in 1787, by the name of Richard Gorges Meredith. He received the third penny of tolls and customs of Navan and half toll of corn. Mary died in 1809. Sir Richard’s only daughter and heiress, Mary Anne Meredyth, married Sir Marcus Somerville in 1801. Sir Marcus was M.P. for Co. Meath in Irish Parliament in 1800 and in London Parliament 1801-31. Their son, William Meredyth Somerville, born about 1802 became 1st Baron Meredyth of Dollardstown and 1st Baron Athlumney. He lived at nearby Somerville House. In the 1830s Dollardstown House, described as a spacious mansion was occupied by a farmer.
Dollardstown was resided in by the O’Brien family and the Shields family. A copper mine operated at Dollardstown in the early twentieth century. The poet, Francis Ledwidge, was a miner there. After the O’Briens died out the house was lived in by the Laffin family. A native of Tipperary, Patrick Laffan acquired Dollardstown when it was being divided by the Land Commission. Patrick Laffin had married a widow, Hannah Brackan, the mother of Brendan Bracken. The house was somewhat dilapidated and Hannah Laffan described the house as ‘that old barracks.’ Brendan Bracken attended Mass at Yellow Furze while living at Dollardstown.
Brendan Bracken was born in Templemore, Co. Tipperary in 1901 to Joseph K. Bracken and Hannah Ryan. Joseph died when Brendan was three and his mother married Patrick Laffan. Bracken made a successful career from 1922 as a magazine publisher and newspaper editor in London. Bracken founded the modern Financial Times in 1945. He was an ardent opponent of the appeasement of Adolf Hitler and a supporter of Winston Churchill. Brendan Bracken, was Minister of Information under Winston Churchill during the Second World War. He was briefly First Lord of the Admirality in 1945. He was created Viscount Bracken in 1952, the title became extinct on his death in 1958.
Patrick Laffan was a member of the Farmer’s Party and was elected to Meath County Council in 1925. Patrick Laffan also represented Fianna Fail on Meath County Council. His second wife, Catherine Moran, was a native of Trim. A son, Pat Laffan, became a distinguished Abbey actor. Pat Laffan featured in “The Snapper” and Fr. Ted. Pat Laffan was director of the Peacock Theatre and also directed in the Gate Theatre. He has appeared in around 40 films.
After the death of Mr. Laffan in the 1950s, the property was purchased by Dan Connell. The house was then been demolished. A stone carving bearing an image of Our Lady and dating to the 16th century was uncovered in recent years in Dollardstown on the lands of the Connell family.
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. 222. “Browne, Kilmaine, B/PB) An early C18 house of two storeys over basement which replaced an old castle. Seven bay entrance front; pedimented porch on two columns, up broad flight of steps. Five bay side elevation, Small windows with thick glazing bars. Balustraded roof parapet, which was removed when the house was re-roofed 1860s. Doors with shouldered architraves in hall. Oval of mid C18 rococo plasterwork in centre of drawing room ceiling, surrounded by early C19 reeded mouldings entwined with foliage and fan decoration in corners. Mid C18 plasterwork frieze in dining room, with putti, cornucopias, swags and fruit. After he succeeded 1907, 5th Lord Kilmaine enlarged the house by building a free standing wing at an angle to it, so as not to take light from the windows; and joined to it by a curved bridge. Fine stables, built ca 1737 by Sir John Browne, 5th Bt, MP, father of 1st Lord Kilmaine. Well-planted park laid out by 1st Lord Kilmaine 1770s, divided by a large outcrop of rock (in the Irish aill, hence the name The Neale). The park contains a stepped pyramid designed by Lord Charlemont, an octagonal Doric temple and another C18 folly, probably made up of fragments of medieval carving with a strange inscription, known as “The Gods of the Neale.” 5th Lord Kilmaine sold The Neale to a former tenant of the estate 1925. The house was demolished ca 1939, the follies remain.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
Remains of country house, built 1737; extant 1777; “improved” 1908, comprising: Detached four-bay two-storey wing on an L-shaped plan with single-bay (west) or two-bay (east) two-storey side elevations. Occupied, 1911. Sold, 1925. Mostly demolished, 1939. Vacant, 1945. Now in ruins. Remains of hipped slate roof on an L-shaped plan on collared timber construction with clay ridge tiles, ivy-covered rendered yellow brick Running bond chimney stacks with capping now missing, and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods on dragged cut-limestone “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice with downpipes now missing. Part ivy-covered fine roughcast walls over coursed rubble limestone construction with drag edged dragged cut-limestone quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with some retaining drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed yellow brick block-and-start surrounds with no fittings surviving. Square-headed door opening (north) with cut-limestone threshold, and drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start surround centred on triple keystone with no fittings surviving. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds.
Appraisal
An increasingly-ruined wing not only surviving as a relic of an eighteenth-century country house annotated as “The Neale [of] Browne Baronet” by Taylor and Skinner (1778 pl. 217), but also clearly illustrating the continued development or “improvement” of the country house for John Edward Deane Browne (1878-1946), fifth Baron Kilmaine, to a design attributed to Cecil Arthur Fowler (b. 1876) of Kilkenny and Sligo (IAA).
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“[Temple] This is one of a number of follies created at Neale Park, County Mayo, longtime seat of a branch of the Browne family, created Barons Kilmaine in 1789. Known as the Temple of the Winds, it is of relatively late date, some of teh other buildings in the park dating to the eighteenth century: there is, for example a stepped pyramid some thirty feet high erected by the first Lord Kilmaine, seemingly to a design of his brother-in-law, the architecture loving first Earl of Charlemont. Dating from 1865, the hexagonal temple rests on the vaults of an earlier, unfinished tower and it is unclear whether the later structure was ever completed, since it lacks a roof….1925 when Neale Park was sold and the demesne divided up: the greater part of the house was demolished in 1939 and teh surviving wing is now a roofless shell.”
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
Freestanding monument, dated 1750; extant 1838, on a square plan. “Restored”, 1990. Set in unkempt grounds shared with Neale House. Additional photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A stepped pyramid erected by John Browne MP (d. 1762), de jure fifth Baronet Browne of The Neale, to a design attributed to James Caulfield (1728-99), first Earl of Charlemont (Bence-Jones 1988, 222), as a memorial to George Browne MP (d. 1737), de jure fourth Baronet Browne of The Neale: meanwhile, observations pertaining to ‘the nucleus of a cairn…maybe that erected over Slainge himself’ (Wilde 1867, 240-1) pinpoint the archaeological potential of the composition.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
Freestanding folly, erected 1865; extant 1894, on a hexagonal plan with dragged cut-limestone Doric columns supporting “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice on “Triglyph”-detailed frieze on entablature. Set on mound in unkempt grounds shared with Neale House. Additional photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A “Temple of the Winds” folly erected by John Cavendish Browne (1794-1873), third Baron Kilmaine, atop the vaulted footings of an unfinished tower begun (1785) by John Browne MP (1726-94), first Baron Kilmaine.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
Freestanding folly, dated 1753; extant 1782. Set in woodland in grounds shared with Neale House. Photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A beguiling folly widely regarded as an intriguing component of the eighteenth-century built heritage of south County Mayo [National Monument 0359]: the inscription, ‘so nonsensical and complicated that one must reach the conclusion…that the entire object is merely the product of the peculiar humour of some former Lord Kilmaine’ (ITA 1945), reads: “The Irish Characters On The Above Stone Import/That In This Cave We Have By Us The Gods Of/Cons Bordtieiss Lett Us Follow Their Stepps Sick/Of Love With Full Confidenc In Loo Lave Adda/Yackene The Shepherd Of Ireland Of His Eraan Di/These Images Were Found In A Cave Behind The Place They/Now Stand And Were The Ancient Gods Of The Neale Which Took Its/Name From Them They Were Called Diane Ffeale Or The Gods/Of Felicity From Which The Place In Irish Was Called Ne Heale/In English The Neale LL Reignd AM 2577 PD 927 Ante c1496 And/Was Then 60 Œdna Reignd AM 2994 And 64 Of Edna Was ???? Con Moil Was Ye Son Of Heber Who/Divided This Kingdom With His Brother And Had The/Western Parts Of This Island For His Lott All Which Was/Originally Called From Con Conought Or Cons Portion/And His Son Loo Laveadda Who Founded The Druids Was/Thought To Have Drawn All His Knowledge From The Sun/Thus The Irish History NB The Smaller Letters On The Upper/Part Of The Great Plinth Import That It Was Erected By Edna/Loos Gods Were Adopted By Con And Edna Of The Line Of Heber Established/Their Worship Here/1753”.
The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.The Neale, County Mayo, courtesy National Inventory.
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. 242. “(Blennerhassett/IFR; Fitzgerald, Knight of Glin/IFR) A house of 1730, probably by one of the Rothery family of architects. Three storeys over basement; doorway with entablature on console brackets; moderately high-pitched roof. Interior panelling, now removed. Passed by inheritance from the Blennerhassett family to D.F.L. Fitzgerald, 27th Knight of Glin, who sold it.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached five-bay three-storey over basement country house, built c. 1730, having two-bay two-storey addition to east elevation and two-bay single-storey ruined rubble limestone block to west. Hipped slate roof with render over brick chimneystacks and cut limestone eaves course. Flat roof to addition. Roughcast rendered walls. Square-headed opening to second floor having remains of six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows and limestone sills. Square-headed opening to first and ground floors with remains of two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows and limestone sills. Those to rear having four-over-four pane timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed basement windows to front having tooled limestone surrounds, those to rear with tooled limestone surrounds and limestone mullions. Square-headed opening having carved limestone surround with scrolled consoles and carved entablature over timber battened door. Flight of limestone steps to entrance with cast-iron railings set in limestone plinths. Square-headed opening to west elevation, basement with timber panelled door. Square-headed opening to addition having timber battened door. Cobblestones to interior basement corridor. Limestone flagstones to some basement rooms, concrete floors to others. Cellar to basement having brick floor and render over brick segmental-headed niches. Rubble limestone walls to east courtyard having square-headed door opening and cobblestones to yard. Four-bay single-storey outbuilding to east courtyard. No roof. Rubble limestone walls. Square-headed window and door openings. Detached five-bay two-storey outbuilding to east with pitched slate roof. Rubble limestone walls. Square-headed window openings having brick voussoirs and limestone sills. Square-headed door openings with brick voussoirs. Segmental-headed carriage arch with brick voussoirs. Pair of square-profile ashlar limestone piers to south.
Appraisal
This is an appealing example of a well proportioned eighteenth-century country house, built by John Rothery for Gerald Blennerhassett’s family. Its substantial size and classical style give this building an imposing presence, which is enhanced by its setting in a mature parkland. It retains much historic fabric such as its sash windows and cut limestone details including the door surround and steps to entrance. The continuity of ownership by the Blennerhassett family ended in 1904 when Desmond Fitzgerald, the Knight of Glin, inherited the building. The attendant farm buildings add context to the house.
Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.Riddlestown Park, County Limerick, courtesy of National Inventory.
The seat of a branch of the Blennerhassett family, built circa 1730, it passed by inheritance to the Knight of Glin. In 1786 Wilson wrote that it was was the seat of Mr. Blennerhasset. Described by Lewis in 1837 as ”the ancient mansion of Gerald Blennerhassett” on the banks of the Deel. It was held in fee by Gerald Blennerhasset at the time of Griffith’s Valuation when it was valued at £22. Passed to the Knight of Glin in the early 20th century and then sold. It is still extant.
See family tree Gerald Blennerhasset and his son Arthur Blennerhassett who died 1775. Clara Elizabeth Blennerhasset (b. 1843) who married George Fosbery passed it to the Knights of Glin after her death, and they sold it. Her mother was Geraldine Anne FitzGerald, daughter of the 24th Knight of Glin.
St. David’s, County Kildare by Robert French, Lawrence Collection NLI L_ROY)07832.
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. 253. “An old castle with Goergian sash windows and quatrefoil openings and C19 battlements. Formerly the Glebe House of St. David’s Church, Naas.”
St. David’s, Naas, County Kildare, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Detached three-bay two- and three-storey house, c.1730, on an irregular plan retaining early aspect incorporating fabric of tower house, c.1600, comprising three-bay two-storey range with single-bay two-storey projecting bay to front (south-east) on an L-shaped plan having two-bay single-storey bay with half-dormer attic at angles to north-east, single-bay two-storey side elevation to north-east continuing into single-bay three-stage/storey medieval tower house to north-west on a square plan with single-bay two-storey flanking bay to rear elevation to west having single-bay single-storey projecting bay to north-west. Hipped and gable-ended roofs with slate (behind battlemented parapet to tower). Clay ridge tiles. Rendered and roughcast chimney stacks. Square rooflights. Rendered coping to gables. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast walls over rubble stone construction. Painted. Part slate-hung to tower. Roughcast battlemented parapet wall to tower with cut-stone coping. Square-headed openings (some pointed-arch openings to tower with quatrefoil opening to top floor to tower to north-west). Stone sills. 3/6, 6/6 and 8/8 timber sash windows with 2/2 sidelights to one tripartite window opening. Replacement glazed timber panelled door, c.1980. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in grounds shared with Saint John’s Church with part of south-west elevation forming boundary wall fronting on to lane to south-west. Detached two-bay double-height outbuilding, c.1730, to south-east with elliptical-headed integral carriageway. Reroofed, c.1940. Gable-ended roof. Replacement corrugated-iron, c.1940. Iron ridge tiles. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast walls. Painted. Square-headed door opening. Timber panelled door. Elliptical-headed integral carriageway. Timber double doors with timber overpanel. Section of stone cobbling, c.1730, to site.
Appraisal
Saint David’s Castle is an attractive house that is a little-known feature of the architectural heritage of Naas, being set well back from the line of Main Street and screened from view from Church Lane. The house is of considerable social and historical interest as one of the earliest and longest-standing private residences in the locality – the tower house dates to a period pre-1700 and is therefore of archaeological significance. Renovated and extended in the early eighteenth century to present the appearance of a gentleman’s residence, the house retains many of the features and materials dating from this phase of work. The house retains multi-pane timber sash fenestration of various dimensions, with some openings of other profiles, while the interior retains features such as timber panelled shutters to the window openings. A slate roof remains intact, having cast-iron rainwater goods, and the early aspect of the house is marred only by the insertion of an unsympathetic replacement door. The house is attractively set in grounds shared with Saint David’s Church (11814125/KD-19-14-125) as is accompanied by an outbuilding of much character, while being fronted by a section of stone cobbling that is evidence of a now almost-lost traditional practise.
Also known as King John’s Castle, and is the last surviving example of the many fortified houses in the town of Naas. Converted into a dwelling in the 18th century. It is a large building of three stories, it comprises a tower, with a winding stone staircase, a dungeon. In 1409 Henry IV granted to Naas its first charter as a Corporation and a few years later it was given power to collect tolls at all the entrances to the town, the moneys to go towards fortifying the town with walls and gates. King John’s Castle was rebuilt and incorporated into the town wall structure at this time.
Irish Historic Houses 
