My friend Gary and I went on a tour of Howth Castle in Dublin during Heritage Week in 2025. You can arrange a tour if you contact the castle in advance, see the website https://howthcastle.ie
I envy historian Daniel, our tour guide, as he lives in the castle! Mark Bence-Jones describes the castle as a massive medieval keep, with corner towers crenellated in the Irish crow-step fashion, to which additions have been made through the centuries. [1]
Howth Castle, courtesy of Howth Castle instagram.In the middle of the photograph is the old tower house.Howth Castle, County Dublin, after Francis Wheatley, English, 1747-1801.
Timothy William Ferres tells us that the current building is not the original Howth Castle, which was on the high slopes by the village and the sea. [2]
Until recently, the castle was owned by the Gaisford-St. Lawrence family. Irish investment group Tetrarch who purchased the property in 2019 plan to build a hotel on the grounds. It had been owned by the same family, originally the St. Lawrences, ever since it was built over eight hundred years ago. Over the years, wings, turrets and towers were added, involving architects such as Francis Bindon (the Knight of Glin suggests he may have been responsible for some work around 1738), Richard Morrison (the Gothic gateway, and stables, around 1810), Francis Johnson (proposed works for the 3rd Earl of Howth), and Edward Lutyens (for Julian Gaisford-St. Lawrence).
Timothy William Ferres tells us that the St. Lawrence family was originally the Tristram family. Sir Almeric Tristram took the name St. Lawrence after praying to the saint before a battle which took place on St. Lawrence’s Day near Clontarf in Dublin. Sir Almeric landed in Howth in 1177. After the battle he was rewarded for his valour in the conflict with the lands and barony of Howth. [see 2]
In an article in the Irish Times on Saturday August 14th 2021, Elizabeth Birthistle tells us that a sword that is said to have featured in the St. Lawrence’s Day battle is to be auctioned. A “more sober assessment” of the Great Sword of Howth, she tells us, dates it to the late 15th century. Perhaps, she suggests, Nicholas St. Lawrence 3rd Baron of Howth used it in 1504 at the Battle of Knockdoe. The sword is so heavy that it must be held with two hands. It is first recorded in an inventory of 1748, and is described and illustrated in Joseph C Walker’s An Historical Essay on the Dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish. [3]
Almeric went on to fight in Ulster and then Connaught. In Connaught, he was killed by the O’Conor head of the province, along with his thirty knights and two hundred infantry. He left three sons by his wife, a sister of John de Courcy, Earl of Ulster. The eldest son, Nicholas Fitz Almeric, relinquished his father’s Ulster conquests to religious houses, and settled in Howth. [see 2]
The first construction on the site would have been of wood.
The family coat of arms depicts a mermaid and a sea lion. The mermaid is often pictured holding a mirror. There is a coat of arms on the wall of the front of the castle which was probably moved from an older part of a castle. The Howth Castle website tells us:
“A mermaid is one of the supporters of the St. Lawrence family coat of arms, alongside a sea lion. The mermaid is often portrayed holding a small glass mirror. According to legend, the mermaid was once Dame Geraldine O’Byrne, daughter of The O’Byrne of Wicklow. She fell victim to dark magic at Howth Castle and was transformed into a mermaid. One item she left behind in her bedroom was a small glass mirror. The tower she slept in was from then always known as the ‘Mermaid’s Tower’. “
An article in the Irish Times tells us that there was a tryst between Dame Geraldine O’Byrne and Tristram St. Lawrence which left the Wicklow woman heartbroken and shamed, so she transformed into a mermaid. It is said her wails of melancholy are still carried through the winds at night near the Mermaid’s Tower on the estate. [3]
The Howth Castle website tells us that:
“One Christmas, Thomas St. Lawrence, Bishop of Cork and Ross [(1755–1831), son of the 1st Earl, 15th Baron of Howth] returned to Howth Castle to find that the family had gone to stay with Lord Sligo for the holiday season. Bishop St. Lawrence was left alone in the cold and dark castle with just a housekeeper for company and his ancestors glaring at him from the portraits in the dark hallways. The housekeeper put him to bed in the ‘Mermaid’s Tower’. His room was described as if ‘designed as the locus in quo for a ghost scene. Its moth-eaten finery, antiquated and shabby – -its yellow curtains, fluttering in the air…the appearance of the room was enough to make a nervous spirit shudder.’
“He was suddenly and violently awoken in the night by the feeling of a cold, wet hand clasping his wrist and a cold hand covering his mouth. He made one large leap from his bed, lit his candle and there he found not a sinner in the room with him but one bloody yellow glove lying on his bed. Was he visited in the night by the mermaid?”
I’m confused about Barons of Howth as different sources number the Barons differently. I will follow the numbering used on The Peerage website, which refers to L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, U.K.: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 150. According to this, Christopher St. Lawrence (died around 1462) was 1st Baron Howth. He held the office of Constable of Dublin Castle from 1461.
The oldest surviving part of the castle is the gate tower in front of the main house. It dates to around 1450, the time of the 1st Baron Howth.
The Howth Castle website tells us that the Keep, the tower incorporated into the castle, also dates from the mid fifteenth century. Unfortunately I have misplaced the notes I took on my visit to the castle. Daniel pointed out the various parts of the castle as we stood on the balustrade looking out into the courtyard, telling us when each part was built. From the photograph of the painting above, the Keep is the large tower on the left of the front door, and the Gate House is slightly to the front of the building to the right. Traces remain in the gardens of the wall and turrets, which would have enclosed the area. You can’t fully see the keep from the front of the house.
Christopher’s son Robert St. Lawrence (d. 1486) 2nd Baron Howth served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland, after first serving as “Chancellor of the Green Wax,” which was the title of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland. He married Joan, second daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, so by marriage, Timothy William Ferres tells us, Lord Howth’s descendants derived descent from King Edward III, and became inheritors of the blood royal. [see 2]
Nicholas St. Lawrence (d. 1526) was 3rd Baron Howth according to the Dictionary of Irish Biography. He also served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He married three times. The first bride was Janet, daughter of Christopher Plunkett 2nd Baron Killeen. We came across the Plunketts of Killeen and Dunsany when we visited Dunsany Castle in County Meath.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that when Lambert Simnel came to Ireland in 1487 and was crowned as King Edward VI in Christchurch catheral in Dublin, Nicholas the 3rd Baron remained loyal to King Henry VII. [4] In 1504, as mentioned earlier, the 3rd Baron Howth played a significant role at the battle of Knockdoe in County Galway, where the lord deputy, 8th Earl of Kildare, defeated the MacWilliam Burkes of Clanricard and the O’Briens of Thomond. [see 4]
The family were well-connected. The third baron’s daughter Elizabeth married widower Richard Nugent, 3rd Baron Delvin, whose first wife had been the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald 8th Earl of Kildare.
The son and heir of the 3rd Baron, Christopher (d. 1542), served as Sheriff for County Dublin. Christopher the 4th Baron was father to the 5th, Edward (d. 1549), 6th (Richard, d. 1558 and married Catherine, daughter of the 9th Earl of Kildare, but they had no children) and 7th Barons of Howth.
The Hall, which is the middle of the front facade, was added to the side of the Keep in 1558 by Christopher, who is the 20th Lord of Howth according to the Howth Castle website, or the 7th Baron. He was also called “the Blind Lord,” presumably due to weak eyesight. The 1558 hall is now entered by the main door of the Castle.
Christopher St. Lawrence (d. 1589) 7th Baron Howth was educated at Lincoln’s Inn, along with his two elder brothers, the 5th and 6th barons. Christopher entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1544 and was still resident ten years later in 1554. That year he was threatened with expulsion from Lincoln’s Inn for wearing a beard, which indicates, Terry Clavin suggests in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, a rakish side to his personality. He inherited his family estate of Howth and the title on the death of his brother Richard in autumn 1558 and was sworn a member of the Irish privy council soon afterward. [5]
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that between December 1562 and February 1563 the 7th Baron represented Thomas Radcliffe 3rd Earl of Sussex’s views on the government of Ireland to Queen Elizabeth. [5]
The Dictionary tells us that from 1570 onward the 7th Baron Howth ceased to play an active role in the privy council and became increasingly estranged from the government. By 1575, concerned about his loyalty, the government briefly imprisoned him, following the arrest of his close associate Gerald Fitzgerald, 11th Earl of Kildare, upon charges of treason.
Christopher St. Lawrence (d. 1589) 7th Baron Howth compiled a book, The Book of Howth, in which he rebutted Henry Sidney’s views of Ireland.
Sir Henry Sidney (1529-1586), Lord Deputy of Ireland, after painter Arnold Van Brounkhorst, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Sidney believed that the medieval conquest of Ireland failed due to the manner in which the descendants of the Norman colonists, the so-called ‘Old English,’ embraced Gaelic customs. He regarded as especially pernicious the system of ‘coign and livery.’ Under ‘coign and livery,’ landowners maintained private armies. Sidney believed this impoverished the country and institutionalised violence. Clavin writes that Lord Howth produced the ‘Book of Howth’ to rebut this interpretation of Irish history and to provide a thinly-veiled critique of Sidney’s reliance on and promotion of English-born officials and military adventurers at the expense of the Old English community. Howth held that the abolition of ‘coign and livery’ would leave the Old English exposed to the depredations of the Gaelic Irish. [5]
Instead of “coign and livery,” the English maintained a royal army, with landowners providing for the soldiers with the “cess.” Christopher St. Lawrence 7th Baron opposed the “cess.” Sidney suggested that a tax be imposed instead of the cess. Lord Howth objected and was imprisoned for six months. He and others similarly imprisoned were released when they acknowledged that the queen was entitled to tax her subjects during times of necessity. [5]
In 1579, Christopher was convicted cruelty towards his wife and children. His wife Elizabeth Plunket was from Beaulieu in County Louth (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2021/03/17/beaulieu-county-louth/). After he whipped his thirteen year old daughter Jane to punish her, she died. He beat his wife so badly that she had to remain in bed for two weeks, and then fled to her brother. Howth was tried before the court of castle chamber on charges of manslaughter and domestic abuse. Clavin writes that: “In an unprecedented step, given Howth’s social status, the court accepted testimony providing lurid details of his dissolute private life. This may reflect either the crown’s desire to discredit a prominent opposition figure or simply the savagery of his crimes.” [5] He was imprisoned and fined, and made to pay support for his wife and children, from whom he separated, and he fell out of public life.
Amazingly, he later married for a second time, this time to Cecilia Cusack (d. 1638), daughter of an Alderman of Dublin, Henry Cusack. After Christopher died in 1589, she married John Barnewall of Monktown, Co. Meath, and after his death, John Finglas, of Westpalstown, Co. Dublin.
Another legend of the castle stems from around the time of Christopher 7th Baron. When we visited the castle, the dining room was set with a place for a guest. The tradition is to keep a place for any passing guest. This stems from a legend about Grace O’Malley (c.1530-1603), “the pirate queen.”
Grace O’Malley was nicknamed ‘Grainne Mhaol’ (Grace the Bald) because when she was a child she cut her hair when her father Eoghan refused to take her on a voyage to Spain because he believed that a ship was no place for a girl. She cropped her hair to look like a boy. [6]
Grace O’Malley, 18th century Irish school, courtesy of Fonsie Mealy auction for Howth Castle, 2021.
The story is told that in around 1575, Grace O’Malley landed in Howth on her return from a visit to Queen Elizabeth. However, the Howth website tells us that Grace O’Malley did not visit Queen Elizabeth until 1593. She was in Dublin, however, in 1576, visiting the Lord Deputy. The story tells us that Grace O’Malley proceeded to Howth Castle, expecting to be invited for dinner, and to obtain supplies for her voyage home to Mayo. However, the gates were closed against her. This breached ancient Irish hospitality.
Later, when Lord Howth’s heir was taken to see her ship, she abducted him and brought him back to Mayo. She returned him after extracting a promise from Lord Howth that his gates would never be closed at the dinner hour, and that a place would always be laid for an unexpected guest.
Nicholas the 8th Baron fought with the British against the rebels in the Nine Years War (1594–1603). He fought alongside Henry Bagenal (d. 1598) against Hugh O’Neill (c.1540–1616) 2nd Earl of Tyrone, and accompanied Lord Deputy William Russell, later 1st Baron Russell of Thornhaugh, on his campaign against the O’Byrnes in County Wicklow. In 1601 he went to London to discuss Irish affairs, and the Queen formed a high opinion of him. She was also impressed by Howth’s eldest son Christopher, later 9th Baron Howth. [7]
William Russell (d. 1613) 1st Baron of Thornhaugh, painting attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. Nicholas the 8th Baron accompanied Lord Deputy William Russell 1st Baron Russell of Thornhaugh on his campaign against the O’Byrnes in County Wicklow.
Nicholas married Margaret, daughter of Christopher Barnewall of Turvey in Dublin. She gave birth to the heir, and her daughter Margaret married Jenico Preston, 5th Viscount Gormanston. When widowed, daughter Margaret married Luke Plunkett, 1st Earl of Fingall.
In 1599, Christopher St. Lawrence 9th Baron was one of six who accompanied Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex on his unauthorised return to England, riding with the earl to the royal palace at Nonesuch, where Essex burst in to Queen Elizabeth’s bedchamber.
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1566-1601) by Marcus Geeraerts the younger (Bruges 1561/2 – London 1635/6) and Studio, dated, top left: 1599. From a full-length portrait at Woburn Abbey (Duke of Bedford), courtesy of National Trust.
Rumour circulated that Christopher St. Lawrence pledged to kill Essex’s arch-rival Sir Robert Cecil. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us:
“In late October he was summoned before the English privy council, where he denied having threatened Cecil’s life. One of the counsellors then referred to his Irishness, the clear implication being that as such he could not be trusted, at which he declared: ‘I am sorry that when I am in England, I should be esteemed an Irish Man, and in Ireland, an English Man; I have spent my blood, engaged and endangered my Liffe, often to doe Her Majestie Service, and doe beseech to have yt soe regarded’ (Collins, Letters and memorials of state, i, 138). His dignified and uncharacteristically tactful response eloquently summed up the quandary of the partially gaelicised descendants of the medieval invaders of Ireland (the Old English), who were regarded with suspicion by the Gaelic Irish and English alike. It also mollified his accusers, who, in any case, recognised that his martial prowess was urgently required in Ireland. Prior to his return to Dublin on 19 January, the queen reversed an earlier decision to cut off his salary, and commended him to the authorities in Dublin.” [8]
Christopher married Elizabeth Wentworth, daughter of Sir John Wentworth of Little Horkesley and Gosfield Hall, Essex, but by 1605 they separated, and the Privy Council ruled that he must pay for her maintenance. The St. Lawrence family inherited estates near Colchester from her family.
By 1601, while fighting in Ulster alongside the Lord Deputy Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, many of the men Christopher commanded were Gaelic Irish. Increasingly dissatisfied, Christopher St. Lawrence began to alienate leading members of the political establishment.
Charles Blount (1563-1606), 8th Baron Mountjoy, Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1775, engraver Valentine Green after Paulus Van Somer; photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
In 1605 the government began prosecuting prominent Catholics for failing to attend Church of Ireland services. Although Protestant, St. Lawrence’s family connections led him to identify with the Catholic opposition. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that he became involved in the planning of an uprising in late 1605, along with Hugh O’Neill, despite his father having previously battled against O’Neill. [8]
Hugh O’Neill (c. 1540-1616) 2nd Earl of Tyrone, courtesy of National Museums Northern Ireland. In Irish Portraits 1660-1860 by Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, we are told that this was painted during his exile in Rome.
Low on funds, and not having yet inherited Howth, he sought to join the Spanish army in Flanders, where an Irish regiment had been established in 1605. He wanted support for a rebellion against the British crown. However, perhaps realising that an uprising would fail, he turned into an informant for the government. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that he sought to consolidate ties to the establishment by arranging the marriage of his son and heir Nicholas to a daughter of the Church of Ireland bishop of Meath, George Montgomery, in 1615.
George Montgomery, Bishop of Meath (c. 1566-1621), courtesy of Fonsie Mealy auction 2021.Inside Howth Castle before the interiors auction, photograph courtesy of Irish Times, Saturday August 14th 2021.Pictured here is George Montgomery, Bishop of Meath (c. 1566-1621). On the left is a painting of George Montgomery’s wife Susan Steyning (1573-1614). In the middle is William St. Lawrence, son of William, 14th Baron Howth c 1740, Attributed to John Lewis (fl 1745-60). The auction catalogue tells us: “Born sometime around 1732, William was given the same name as his father, William St. Lawrence, 14th Baron Howth. Although William’s mother, Lucy Gorges, was twenty years younger than her husband, they were happily married and had three children; a daughter named Mary, and two sons, Thomas (who became 1st Earl of Howth), and William, the sitter in this portrait. The St. Lawrences were friends of Jonathan Swift, who was a frequent visitor to Howth Castle and also to Kilfane, their country house in Co. Kilkenny, where William Snr indulged his passion for horses and hunting…The attribution of this painting to the Dublin artist John Lewis, in Toby Bernard’s “Making the Grand Figure: Lives and Possessions in Ireland 1641-1770”, is convincing. Although not well-known as a portrait painter, Lewis was at the centre of Dublin’s theatre and cultural life in the mid eighteenth century, when he worked as a scene painter at the Smock Alley Theatre. He painted portraits of actor Peg Woffington, and dramatist Henry Brooke. While on a visit to Quilca House in Co. Cavan with Thomas Sheridan, he painted mural decorations, with images of Milton, Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift. He may have painted the portrait of William St. Lawrence after the boy’s untimely death. Although destined for a life as a professional soldier, and appointed an ensign in the army while still just fourteen years old, William’s military career was shortlived. While still a teenager, in April 1749, he died of smallpox. Dr. Peter Murray 2021.”
Christopher acted as a secret agent for the Crown, while pretending to be part of the rebellion against the Crown. He was afraid of being discovered as a traitor. The Dictionary of Biography has a long entry about his and his double dealings. He died in 1619 at Howth and was buried at Howth abbey on 30 January 1620. He and his wife had two sons and a daughter; he was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas. [8]
Nicholas St. Lawrence (d. 1643/44) 10th Baron Howth added the top floor above the hall of Howth Castle sometime prior to 1641. He and his wife Jane née Montgomery had two daughters: Alison, who married Thomas Luttrell of Luttrellstown Castle (now a wedding venue), and Elizabeth.
Luttrellstown Castle, courtesy of Luttrellstown Castle Resort for Failte Ireland 2019, Ireland’s Content Pool. [9]
Nicholas’s brother Thomas (d. 1649) succeeded as 11th Baron. Thomas’s son, William St. Lawrence (1628-1671), succeeded as 12th Baron Howth. The 12th Baron was appointed Custos Rotulorum for Dublin in 1661, and sat in the Irish House of Lords.
Nicholas the 10th Baron’s daughter Elizabeth married, as her second husband, her cousin William St. Lawrence 12th Baron Howth. She gave birth to the 13th Baron Howth.
Thomas St. Lawrence (1659-1727) 13th Baron Howth inherited the title when he was only twelve years old. Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory was appointed by his father as his legal guardian.
Thomas Butler (1634-1680) 6th Earl of Ossory, studio of Sir Peter Lely, circa 1678, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 371. Second son of the Duke and Duchess of Ormond and father of 2nd Duke of Ormonde. He was appointed as Thomas St. Lawrence (1659-1727) 13th Baron Howth’s legal guardian.
Thomas St. Lawrence married Mary, daughter of Henry Barnewall, 2nd Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland, County Dublin. After first backing King James II, in 1697 he signed the declaration in favour of King William III.
His son William (1688-1748) succeeded as 14th Baron, and carried out extensive work on Howth Castle, completing the project in 1738. A painting dating from this period commemorates the work.
Dating from around 1740, this bird’s eye view of Howth Demesne commemorates the extensive rebuilding of Howth Castle, a project completed in 1738 under the direction of William St. Lawrence, 14th Baron of Howth. Attributed to William Van der Hagen (fl. 1720-1745) or Joseph Tudor (d. 1759). Photograph courtesy of Sales Catalogue, Fonsie Mealy auction of Howth Castle contents, 2021.
Mark Bence-Jones writes that the castle is “Basically a massive medieval keep, with corner towers crenellated in the Irish crow-step fashion, to which additions have been made through the centuries. The keep is joined by a hall range to a tower with similar turrets which probably dates from early C16; in front of this tower stands a C15 gatehouse tower, joined to it by a battlemented wall which forms one side of the entrance court.” [see 1]
Mark Bence-Jones describes the central part of the front of the house:
“The hall range, in the centre, now has Georgian sash windows and in front of it runs a handsome balustraded terrace with a broad flight of steps leading up to the entrance door, which has a pedimented and rusticated Doric doorcase. These Classical features date from 1738, when the castle was enlarged and modernized by William St. Lawrence, 14th Lord Howth, who frequently entertained his friend Dean Swift here.” [see 1]
Mark Bence-Jones describes: “The hall has eighteenth century doorcases with shouldered architraves, an early nineteenth century Gothic frieze and a medieval stone fireplace with a surround by Lutyens.” [see 1] The hall was added to the medieval tower in 1558 by Christopher, who is the 20th Lord of Howth according to the Howth Castle website, or the 7th Baron. It was later adapted by Edwin Lutyens in around 1911.
In Irish Houses and Gardens. From the Archives of Country Life, Sean O’Reilly writes about the article written about Howth Castle by Weaver for Country Life:
“It is Lutyens’s selective retention and sensitive recovery of surviving original fabric from a variety of eras that distinguishes his work at Howth. The entrance hall, at the head of a wide flight of stairs, displays best his ability to empathise. While the photographs, by an unknown photographer and by Henson, convey his success, Weaver’s summary clarifies the architect’s methodology: ‘The general work of reparation in the interior revealed in the hall fireplace an old elliptical arch which enabled the original open hearth to be used once more. Above it Mr Macdonald Gill had painted, under Mr Lutyens’ direction, a charming conventional map of Howth and the neighbouring sea and a dial which records the movement of a wind gauge.’ ” [11]
The chimneypiece in the entrance hall was developed from existing Georgian and Victorian features, Seán O’Reilly tells us, with medieval fabric recovered during renovation, providing a mix of styles typical of Lutyens’ restorations. I wish I could find my notes to tell you more about the map painted by MacDonald Gill! I will just have to return so historian Daniel can tell me again.
We were lucky enough to visit the castle when it hosted an exhibition of paintings by Peter Pearson, which feature in a book: Of Sea and Stone: Paintings 1974-2014.
William the 14th Baron (1688-1748) married Lucy, younger daughter of Lieutenant-General Richard Gorges of Kilbrew, County Meath. Her mother was Nicola Sophia Hamilton, who before marrying Richard Gorges, had been married to Tristram Beresford, 3rd Baronet of Coleraine.
The Howth Castle website reminds us of a story that our guide on our visit to Curraghmore in County Waterford told us:
“For many years in the Drawing Room of the castle hung the portrait of a handsome woman. To the back of the portrait was attached an unsigned and undated note stating that the painting once had a black ribbon round the wrist but that this had been removed during cleaning. The woman is Nicola Hamilton born 1667 who married firstly Sir Tristram Beresford and subsequently General Richard Gorges. The younger daughter of this marriage was Lucy Gorges, wife of the 27th Lord Howth, Swift’s ‘blue-eyed nymph’.”
Nicola Hamilton (1666-1713) by 17th century Irish portraitist, Garrett Morphy, courtesy of Howth Castle instagram.
“The legend is that when she was quite young, she made an agreement with John Le Poer, Earl of Tyrone that whoever died first would come back and appear to the other. On dying Lord Tyrone came to her in the night, assured her of the truth of the Christian Revelation and made various predictions, that her first husband would soon die, that her son would marry the Tyrone heiress, and that she herself would die in her forty-seventh year, all of which came true. To convince her of the reality of his presence, he grasped her wrist causing her an injury and permanent scar which she concealed beneath a black ribbon.
“The ease with which the ribbon was removed from the portrait does little to enhance the veracity of the story.“
Nicola’s son was Marcus Beresford (1694-1763) 4th Baronet of Coleraine and as the ghost predicted, he married Catherine Le Poer of Curraghmore, daughter and heiress of James, 3rd Earl of Tyrone.
William St. Lawrence 14th Baron of Howth spent much time at another house he owned in Ireland, Kilfane in County Kilkenny. [12] He sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Ratoath between 1716 and 1727, and became a member of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1739.
William 14th Baron came to know Jonathan Swift through his wife. Swift became a regular visitor to Howth Castle and they exchanged numerous letters. At Howth’s request, Swift had his portrait painted by Francis Bindon.
Jonathan Swift by Francis Bindon, courtesy of Howth auction by Fonsie Mealy, 2021.
The painting of Jonathan Swift by Francis Bindon was offered at auction in 2021. A very similar painting by Bindon is owned by the Deanery of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. An obituary notice about Bindon in Faulkner’s Journal from 1765 describes Bindon as “one of the best painters and architects this nation has ever produced” and a copy of the Swift picture, painted by Robert Home, hangs in the Examination Hall at Trinity College, Dublin.
Portrait of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) by Francis Bindon owned by St. Patrick’s Cathedral Deanery.
In 1736, Lady Lucy Howth’s brother Hamilton Gorges killed Lord Howth’s brother Henry St. Lawrence in a duel. Gorges was tried for murder but acquitted.
William 14th Baron and Lucy’s son Thomas (1730-1801) succeeded as 15th Baron. He was educated in Trinity College Dublin, and succeeded to the title when he was eighteen years old, after his father’s death. He became a barrister, and was elected as a “Bencher,” or Master of the Bench of King’s Inn in Dublin in 1767.
In 1750 he married Isabella, daughter of Henry King, 3rd Baronet of Boyle Abbey in County Roscommon.
Isabella King, daughter of Henry King 3rd Baronet of Boyle Abbey in County Roscommon and wife of Thomas, 1st Earl of Howth courtesy Adam’s 6 Oct 2009 Robert Hunter (c.1715/20-c.1803).
In 1767 Thomas was created Viscount St. Lawrence and then Earl of Howth. He was appointed to Ireland’s Privy Council in 1768. Timothy William Ferres tells us that in consideration of his own and his ancestors’ services, he obtained, in 1776, a pension of £500 a year.
His daughter Elizabeth married Dudley Alexander Sydney Cosby, 1st and last Baron Sydney and Stradbally, whom we came across when we visited Stradbally Hall in County Laois (see my entry https://irishhistorichouses.com/2021/10/14/stradbally-hall-stradbally-co-laois/ ). A younger son, Thomas St. Lawrence (1755-1831), became Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross. He’s the one who supposedly heard the mermaid in the tower!
Thomas’s son William (1752-1822) succeeded as 2nd Earl. William married firstly, in 1777, Mary Bermingham, 2nd daughter and co-heiress of Thomas, 1st Earl of Louth. Mary gave birth to several daughters.
Harriet St. Lawrence (d. 1830), daughter of William 2nd Earl of Howth. She married Arthur French St. George (1780-1844).
A daughter of the 2nd Earl of Howth, Isabella (d. 1837), married William Richard Annesley, 3rd Earl Annesley of Castlewellan, County Down.
Mary née Bermingham died in 1773 and William 2nd Earl of Howth then married Margaret Burke, daughter of William Burke of Glinsk, County Galway.
Howth Harbour was constructed from 1807, and in 1821, King George IV visited Ireland, landing at Howth pier.
Margaret the second wife, Countess of Howth, gave birth to a daughter Catherine, who married Charles Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan, son of the 8th Earl of Cork. She also gave birth to the heir, Thomas (1803-1874), who succeeded as 3rd Earl of Howth in 1822.
Thomas the 3rd Earl served as Vice-Admiral of the Province of Leinster, and Lord-Lieutenant of County Dublin. He married Emily, daughter of John Thomas de Burgh, the 1st Marquess of Clanricarde.
Emily, Countess of Howth, courtesy Fonsie Mealy Howth Castle sale.
Around 1840, Richard Morrison drew up plans for alterations in the castle, which were only partially executed, including Gothicizing the stables. [see 2]
Emily gave birth to several children, including the heir, but died of measles at the age of thirty-five, in 1842.
Emily and Thomas had a daughter, Emily (d. 1868), who married Thomas Gaisford (d. 1898). Another daughter, Margaret Frances, married Charles Compton William Domvile, 2nd Baronet of Templeogue and Santry.
The 3rd Earl married for a second time in 1851, to Henriette Elizabeth Digby Barfoot. She had a daughter, Henrietta Eliza, who married Benjamin Lee Guinness (1842-1900), and two other children.
In 1855 the 3rd Earl had the Kenelm Lee Guinness Tower built at the end of the east range at the front of the castle. Kenelm was the son of Henrietta née St. Lawrence and Benjamin Lee Guinness. The tower must have been named later, as Kenelm was born in 1887.
Thomas and Emily’s son William Ulick Tristram (1827-1909) succeeded as 4th Earl in 1874. He served as Captain in the 7th Hussars 1847-50. He was High Sheriff of County Dublin in 1854 and State Steward to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1855 until 1866. In the English House of Commons he served as Liberal MP for Galway Borough from 1868 until 1874.
He had no children and the titles died with him.
The property passed to his sister Emily’s family, and her son added St. Lawrence to his surname to become Julian Charles Gaisford-St. Lawrence (d. 1932). In 1911 he hired Edwin Lutyens to renovate and enlarge the castle.
The most substantial addition was the three bay two storey Gaisford Tower, with basement and dormer attic, at the end of the west wing, which he built to house his library. This tower picked up many of the motifs distinguishing the earlier fabric, from its irregular massing to the use of stepped battlements with pyramidal pinnacles, all moulding it into the meandering fabric of the earlier buildings. [see 11] Other work included the steps to the east of the new tower, a loggia with bathrooms above between the old hall and the west wing and a sunken garden. He also added square plan corner turrets to the south-west and north-east facades, incorporating fabric of earlier structures, 1738 and ca 1840. [see 2]
New facade on the west wing introduced by Lutyens, with library tower on the left, photograph courtesy of Howth Castle instagram.Plan of Howth Castle, courtesy Archiseek.Drawings by Lutyens for Howth Castle.
Mark Bence-Jones writes:
“On the other side of the hall range, a long two storey wing containing the drawing room extends at right angles to it, ending in another tower similar to the keep, with Irish battlemented corner turrets. This last tower was added 1910 for Cmdr Julian Gaisford-St. Lawrence, who inherited Howth from his maternal uncle, 4th and last Earl of Howth, and assumed the additional surname of St Lawrence; it was designed by Sir Edward Lutyens, who also added a corridor with corbelled oriels at the back of the drawing room wing and a loggia at the junction of the wing with the hall range; as well as carrying out some alterations to the interior.”
This architectural sketch by Lutyens shows in the middle drawing, the balustraded terrace to the front door, the hall, with “smoking room” on the right and dining room on the left.The Gaisford Tower, I think, containing the library, by Lutyens. Photograph courtesy of Archiseek. [13]Drawings by Lutyens for Howth Castle.
From the front hall, to the right, when facing the fireplace, is the dining room. It has surviving eighteeth century panelling.
Bence-Jones writes that Lutyens restored the dining room to its original size after it had been partitioned off into several smaller rooms. It has a modillion cornice and eighteenth century style panelling with fluted Corinthian pilasters.
Mark Bence-Jones writes: “The drawing room has a heavily moulded mid-C18 ceiling, probably copied from William Kent’s Works of Inigo Jones; the walls are divided into panels with arched mouldings, a treatment which is repeated in one of the bedrooms.”
Before entering the library we entered another room, the Boudoir, which contains an old map of the estate. At its height, the Howth Estate covered about 15,000 acres. This estate stretched from Howth to Killester and partially through North County Dublin and Meath.
Mark Bence-Jones tells us: “Lutyens also made a simple and dignified Catholic chapel in early C19 range on one side of the entrance court; it has a barrel-vaulted ceiling and an apse behind the altar.”
The addition to the east wing by Lutyens in around 1911 contains the chapel. Unfortunately we did not get to see inside this wing.
Drawings by Lutyens for Howth Castle, the east wing.The Chapel, Howth Castle, photograph courtesy of Archiseek. [13]
Bence-Jones also tells us that the castle has famous gardens, with a formal garden laid out around 1720, gigantic beech hedges, an early eighteenth century canal, and plantings of rhododendrons. I will have to return to see the gardens!
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[1] p. 155. Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
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. 32. “(Thomson-Moore/IFR) A large three storey house of early C18 appearance with a front of 11 bays, the two end bays on either side projecting forwards. Central feature rather similar to that of Furness, Co Kildare, and Clermont, Co Wicklow, consisting of a frontispiece of paired engaged Doric columns and entablature, surmounted by an aedicule of two engaged Ionic columns and a pediment framing the central first floor window. In C19, the house was given a high-pitched roof in the French chateau style, with dormers.”
Thomas Moore of Barne, courtesy of Adam’s auction 15th Oct 2019. The son of Richard Moore and Henrietta Taylour, the sitter married Charlotte Spencer of Co. Down in 1777 but died in 1780 without issue.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
Detached U-plan eleven-bay three-storey country house, built c. 1730 but possibly incorporating a seventeenth-century house, with advanced two-bay ends, slightly lower central rear two-bay return, and dormer attic storey in French chateau style roof, latter added c. 1870. Rear has slightly lower two-bay three-storey return to west end with bowed rear gable, single-storey pitched roof addition between this and central return, and flat-roofed three-storey addition and single-storey lean-to and pitched roof additions to east end. Steep sprocketed hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, cast-iron finials to front gables of advanced ends, ornate rendered chimneystacks, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Decorative timber cornice with dentils to front and side elevations. Pebbledashed walls with smooth rendered eaves course. Cut limestone wheel guards to advanced bays. Dormer windows have hipped slate roofs with lead finials, timber dentils and square-headed paired timber casement windows. Square-headed window openings throughout, diminishing in size, blind to inner return walls of advanced ends and to part of west addition, timber sliding sash windows elsewhere, with cut sandstone sills, one-over-one pane to lower floors of front elevation, two-over-two pane to top floor, six-over-six pane to side and rear elevations, with three-over-six pane to top floor of west return to rear. Round spoked timber window to rear wall of main block. Variety of timber sliding sash and replacement uPVC windows to rear additions. Ornate render detail to entrance comprising paired engaged Tuscan columns with high bases and supporting an entablature surmounted by an aedicule of engaged ionic columns and dentillated pediment framing central first floor window. Square-headed timber panelled door to entrance opening. Shutters to interiors of windows. Courtyard of outbuildings to rear and to west, range of former workers’ houses to west and walled garden to north. Random rubble sandstone boundary walls with dressed limestone piers and wrought-iron double leaf gates to site.
Appraisal
This impressive country house, the former residence of S. Moore Esq., has many interesting early eighteenth-century and later nineteenth-century features. Of particular interest is the ornate door arrangement, a similar version of which is visible at Furness, Co. Kildare which is attributed to Francis Bindon circa 1731. The roof, a late nineteenth-century addition in the French Chateau style, adds a whimsical grandeur to the otherwise uniform, symmetrical façade. The outbuildings to the rear and west and the walled garden to the east, complete an attractive group, the history of which spans four centuries.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
The seat of the Moore family in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. In 1786 Wilson refers to it as the seat of Thomas Moore In 1840 the Ordnance Survey Letter Books note that it had “a garden nursery and ornamental ground”. It was held by Stephen Moore in fee in the mid 19th century and valued at £49+. Randal K. Moore was resident in 1906 and Mr and Mrs Murray Moore in the early 1940s when the house contained a very fine library and antique art collection. Barn is still extant.
A family who were established in the Clonmel area of county Tipperary from the early 17th century. Richard Moore had two sons, the Earls of Mount Cashell descend from the elder, Stephen, and the Moores of Barne from the younger, Thomas. In 1833 Stephen Charles Moore of Barne married Anna, eldest daughter of Colonel Kingsmill Pennefather and they had three sons and three daughters. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation the Moore estate was mainly located in the parishes of Inishlounaght and Newchapel, barony of Iffa and Offa East. In the 1870s Stephen Moore of Barne owned 1,813 acres in county Tipperary and 167 acres in county Cork. His mother may be the Mrs Anne Moore of Silverspring, Clonmel, who owned 771 acres. The Right Honourable Richard Moore, uncle of Stephen Charles Moore, held land in the parishes of Graystown and St Johnbaptist, barony of Slievardagh, in the mid 19th century. The estate of Richard Roxborough Moore at Roxborough and Chancellorstown, barony of Iffa and Offa and at Graystown, barony of Slievardagh, were advertised for sale in June 1859.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
For sale July 2023
€2,500,000 12 beds1572.8 m2
Imposing 17th Century house set in a commanding position on about 105 acres Barne House is an impressive period property occupying a commanding and elevated position amongst formal gardens, a feature lake and surrounding parkland.
In eleven bays, the three-storey mansion house, with a dormer attic storey, sits below a French Château-style roof which is believed to have been a late addition to the building in circa 1870 and incorporates a U-shaped design in its layout.
External features of the house include a steep sprocketed hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, ornate rendered chimneystacks, cast iron finials, ornate render detail to the entrance comprising paired engaged columns and a dentillated pediment framing the central first floor window. Accessed off the N24 Waterford to Limerick national road via a stone walled entrance flanked by piers with wrought-iron gates and railings, Barne House is approached along a sweeping driveway with mature parkland on either side and a feature lake to the west before ascending to the formal gardens and a parking area. With a south-facing position, the house has an outstanding outlook over the lake and beyond towards the rolling farmland and the Knockmealdown Mountains on the horizon.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
The accommodation adapts to provide contained day to day family living whilst reserving generously proportioned reception rooms for entertaining and guest bedrooms for larger family gatherings. A key characteristic of the house is the extent and flexibility of the accommodation, with the empty rooms on the second and third floors offering the potential to provide further accommodation or be used for another purpose.
The house is entered through the elaborate front door which is attributed to the highly regarded architect Francis Bindon. It opens to a reception hall with a striking central staircase and a mezzanine above. The ground floor is mainly devoted to entertaining with formal reception rooms including a dining room and drawing room (both accessed off the central reception hall) while the west and east wings comprise a games room, morning room and library/study. Notable internal period features include sash windows, shutters, picture rails, architraves, cornicing, decorative fireplaces and hardwood floors. Doors flanking the staircase in the reception hall open to inner passages which provide access to a spacious dining kitchen and a range of service rooms and stores one would expect of a house of this scale and period.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
On the first floor are 8 bedrooms, with a further 4 bedrooms and a Lady’s drawing room on the second floor. The third floor/attic level was originally used for accommodating staff and along with the east wing of the second floor requires renovation works to bring it back to its former glory. The internal accommodation extends to approximately 16,930 square feet (1,572 square metres) as shown on the accompanying floorplans.
Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.Barne, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of Savills, 2023.
Outbuildings To the rear of the house is a historic courtyard, which would have originally been the coaching yard. The range of traditional outbuildings surrounding the courtyard provided staff accommodation, cobbled floor stabling, tack room, butchery and dairy buttery. The back avenue, accessed via the L3205 road, includes a further range of attractive outbuildings including stables, accommodation, bathroom, hayloft and storage. In total, the traditional outbuildings extend to approximately 9,942 square feet (924 square metres). Gardens & Grounds The impressive estate grounds surrounding Barne House include extensive formal gardens to the front which are laid to lawn and overlook the striking feature lake. The historic parkland beyond comprises outstanding specimen trees and mature woodland which provide privacy, colour and amenity. There is also a walled garden located to the rear of Barne House which is believed to date from circa 1870. The wall remains intact and is characterised by a stone outer leaf and brick inner leaf. To the rear of the house and adjacent to the walled garden is a tennis court, set amongst parkland laid with rhododendron, camellia and rose gardens. Farm Buildings A range of farm buildings are situated beyond the traditional outbuildings and are entered from the L3205 road, adjacent to the west entrance to Barne House. The farm buildings provide a workshop, machinery storage and include a former grain dryer store. Substantial traditional stone walls surrounding the entrance provide privacy and security. Please refer to the floorplans for a layout of the farm buildings. The estate benefits from a three-phase electricity supply. Land Lot 1 comprises a combination of tillage, parkland and woodland, extending to about 105 acres in total. The tillage land is in two divisions situated to the north and east of the house, separated by an area of parkland. The estate is located in an area known as the Golden Vale, given it has some of the most renowned land in Ireland for farming and being rich in agricultural diversity, with fertile light loam soil that lies over limestone. As such, the area is well served by grain merchants, agricultural machinery suppliers, milk processors and livestock markets. The estate is located close to the medieval town of Clonmel(6 km) which overlooks the River Suir, acting as the boundary between the counties of Tipperary and Waterford. The town offers an array of amenities including several shopping centres, excellent restaurants, hotels, traditional pubs, shops, boutique stores and a hospital. The historic town of Cashel, located 20 km north-west of the property, is home to the famous Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland’s most visited tourist attractions and the recently opened five-star Cashel Palace Hotel. Cashel provides a further range of amenities including restaurants, bars, supermarkets, professional services, schools and a hospital. There are few places in the world with a bloodstock breeding and racing tradition as rich as that in County Tipperary. It is home to some of the most iconic stud farms and training establishments in Europe, while the county features popular racecourses at Thurles, Tipperary and Clonmel. Tipperary is one of the leading economic contributors to the Irish breeding and racing industry with all core industry sectors well represented including the thoroughbred breeding industry for which Tipperary is best known. The estate is served by excellent transport links nearby including the M8 motorway (Junction 10) which is only 10 kilometres distant and connects Dublin to Cork via the M7 interchange. The area is also well-located for airports, including Cork Airport (95 km), Shannon Airport (101 km) and Dublin Airport (189 km). There is no shortage of exceptional golf courses nearby including Clonmel Golf Club (11 kilometres) and Cahir Park Golf Club (13 kilometres). The Championship Dundrum House Hotel Golf Club designed by 1995 Ryder Cup hero Philip Walton is located 30 kilometres from the property. The Jack Nicklaus designed Mount Juliet Estate is 50 kilometres from Barne Estate. There is excellent trout and salmon fishing nearby on the River Suir and the Blackwater River, while hill walkers will enjoy the range of peaks in the Galtee Mountains and nearby Slievenamon. Both national and secondary education is available in Clonmel. The area is also well served for private education including Rockwell College, Glenstal Abbey, Presentation Secondary School and Ursuline Secondary School, which offers education for both day pupils and full-time boarding.
Features
Imposing 17th century house set in a commanding position
4 principal reception rooms, 12 bedrooms and extensive ancillary accommodation
Formal gardens, tennis court, walled garden and tree-lined driveway
Idyllic parkland surroundings, including a feature lake
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. 107. “(McVeagh/LGI1958) An imposing three storey stone house of ca 1745, attributed to Francis Bindon, built for Barry Barry. Seven bay entrance front with three bay central breakfront; round-headed window framed by pilasters and segmental entablatures in the centre of each of two upper storeys; ground floor windows with rusticated surrounds, shouldered architraves round windows in upper storeys. Later enclosed porch with fanlight and Ionic columns and pilasters. Curved bow in one side elevation, but not in the other. Two storey hall with the staircase rising behind a bridge-gallery; a rare feature in Irish country houses at this date, though there is another example of it only a couple of miles away across the Westmeath border at Ballinlough Castle. As at Ballinlough, both the stair and gallery have slender wooden balusters; and there is C18 panelling on the walls. The doorcases, both upstairs and down, have heavy triangular or segmented pediments; and the ceiling is decorated with somewhat bucolic plasterwork. Drewstown was bought 1780s by Major Joseph M’Veagh, who married Margery, daughter of Governor Alexander Wynch of Madras, a wealthy East Indian “Nabob”. It remained in the M’Veagh or McVeagh family until 1950.”
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Detached seven-bay three-storey country house, built c.1745, with three-bay central breakfront and later single-storey porch addition. Curved full-height projecting bay to east elevation. Hipped slate roof with carved limestone parapet and rendered chimneystacks. Ashlar limestone walls with quoins. Carved limestone and block-and-start surrounds to window openings. Timber panelled door with fanlight, flanked by engaged Ionic columns and pilaster, with cornice above.
Appraisal
This imposing country house is attributed to Francis Bindon and was built for Barry Barry. Architectural design and detailing are apparent in the execution of this imposing house. The architectural form of the building is articulated by the masonry detailing, which defines the breakfront, parapet and window surrounds. The later porch addition adds further artistic interest to the building, with finely carved columns, pilasters and fanlight.
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Ranges of former stables set around a central courtyard, comprising of range to the west c.1745, range to the north c.1850 and range to the east c.1870. Pitched slate roofs. Stone walls with dressings to the openings. Timber sash windows with stone sills. Related outbuildings and remains of former walled garden to the site.
Appraisal
These three ranges of former stables and outbuildings were built at various times, which is apparent form their design and detailing. The retention of many original features and materials makes a significant contribution to the architectural heritage significance of the group. The related outbuildings to the site and the remains of the former walled garden enhance the setting of these buildings. These outbuildings form part of an interesting group with Drewstown House and entrance gates.
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Two pairs of ashlar limestone gate piers, built c.1745, with cast-iron double and single gates. Chamfered ashlar limestone with carved detailing and caps. Set in dressed limestone walls.
Appraisal
These entrance gates form part of an interesting group with Drewstown House, outbuildings and the remains of the walled garden. Of apparent architectural design, these piers were clearly executed by skilled masons and exhibit finely carved detailing. Located at a road junction, these entrance gates make a notable and positive contribution to the surrounding area.
Drewstown, County Meath, courtesy National Inventory.
Record of Protected Structures:
Drewstown, townland: Drewstown Great, town: Fordstown. Country house/school
Detached seven-bay three-storey country house, built c.1745, with later single-storey porch addition. attributed to Francis Bindon and was built for Barry Barry. incl gates.
Attributed to Francis Bindon by the Knight of Glin in the 1960s, Drewstown is a slightly gauche, oddly proportioned country house almost certainly designed by an amateur. Whether of not that amateur is Bindon is a point for discussion. Like much of Bindon’s work, the architectural form of the facade is articulated by the masonry detailing, which defines the breakfront, parapet and window surrounds. There is a fine galleried and panelled entrance hallway albeit with some slightly awkwardly sited doors.
In 1952 when the house and some of the estate was sold to an American mission agency which first ran an orphanage and then a biblically-based boarding school on the site. It is now a retreat centre.
Exactly fifty years ago this month, writing inthe Irish Georgian Society’s Bulletin, the late Knight of Glin proposed that Francis Bindon had been responsible for the design of Drewstown, County Meath. Aside from the presence of certain stylistic details, of which more in due course, one of his reasons for this attribution, given in a footnote, was ‘Verbal information from George McVeagh of Dublin whose family owned the house from c.1780-1950.’ The Knight also noted, as have others, that the house was built for a certain Barry Barry: in the 1993 guide to North Leinster written by Christine Casey and Alistair Rowan, the authors state ‘Little is known of its reputed builder, Barry Barry, who was evidently a man of some sophistication.’ Barry Barry was indeed a man of sophisticated taste, since in due course he would commission work from James Wyatt, but he was not the owner of Drewstown at the time it was built. Barry Barry was born the Hon Barry Maxwell, second son of John Maxwell, first Baron Farnham. In 1757 he married Margaret King whose father Robert owned Drewstown and to which, it appears, she was the co-heiress. But his mother had also been an heiress, her name being Judith Barry of Newtownbarry (now Bunclody), County Wexford. In 1771, when his mother died and presumably for the advantage of an inheritance, Barry Maxwell changed his name to Barry Barry. At that stage it must have seemed unlikely he would inherit the main Maxwell estate in County Cavan. However, in 1778 his elder brother’s only son died, as did the elder brother just a year later. Accordingly the Farnham estate passed to Barry Barry who reverted back to his original surname of Maxwell, and in due course – like his late sibling – he was created Earl of Farnham. Tellingly the Drewstown estate was sold to the McVeagh family the year after he had come into possession of that in Cavan where he asked Wyatt to work on the house. One can see why, until now, confusion has arisen so at least in this respect there is clarification.
To revert to Drewstown, the Knight’s attribution of its design to Francis Bindon is one of a number he made in 1967. Astonishingly these have never since been reconsidered. Bindon’s name has occurred here many times before (as recently as last Saturday), and in regard to such houses as Bessborough, County Kilkenny (In the Borough of Bess, November 25th 2013), New Hall, County Clare (New Blood for New Hall, August 25th 20014), Woodstock, County Kilkenny (Of Wondrous Beauty Did the Vision Seem, May 13th 2013) and St John’s Square, Limerick (When New Becomes Old, March 24th 2014). The Irish Architectural Archive’s Dictionary of Irish Architects features twenty-one entries for Bindon, the majority of them once more relying on the Knight’s attributions. Yet one must wonder whether Bindon was capable of producing as much as has been proposed, given that he was also a portrait painter, a Member of Parliament and a landowner in Counties Limerick and Clare. We do not know the date of Bindon’s birth but he is recorded as being in Italy in 1716, the year in which his brother Samuel married Anne, daughter of Thomas Coote of Cootehill, County Cavan and aunt of the architect Edward Lovett Pearce. As an architect he was an amateur, in the sense that it was not his full-time profession. In his work in this field, he was associated with Pearce and also with Richard Castle, while as a painter he produced portraits of friends such as Jonathan Swift (no less than four such likenesses) and in Dublin was given the freedom of the Guild of St Luke (to which all painters belonged) in 1733. Some years later he received an official pension of £100 and was reported to have died ‘suddenly in his chariot on his way to the country’ in June 1765.
Here is the Knight’s fifty-year old description of Drewstown, with an explanation why he believed the house to have been designed by Bindon: ‘There, in the detailing, we see the usual concern with moulded block architraves, for the ground floor of the seven-bay entrance is composed with them. A later porch makes the front more awkward than needs be, though as a whole the windows are uncomfortably placed. The richly voluted and pilastered central first floor widow with its segmental entablature carries up to a further pilastered and segmcntally capped attic window which in typical Bindon manner breaks through the frieze of the house. A bow window forms the main ornament on the East front which faces the lake in not dissimilar fashion to Castle’s Rochfort, Co. Westmeath. As an exterior it is best viewed from the south-east for here the contrast of bow and breakfront make a not unsatisfying, solidly plump and peaceful image. The front door opens immediately into a galleried panelled hall with a grand staircase at one end. Heavy segmental and triangular pedimented doors lead off into the other rooms, all of which are relatively plain. The plasterwork in the hall is somewhat crude though the Apollo and rays surrounded by trophies over the stairs are pleasingly executed. As an interior feature this galleried hall is an important hallmark for it rarely occurs in houses of this date in Ireland and it seems always to be associated with buildings that are attributable to Francis Bindon…’
Today leading nowhere, here is the former main entrance to Drewstown, County Meath. The paired ashlar limestone gate piers date from c.1745 and proclaimed the importance of this estate, now sadly diminished (the lodge on the other side of the wall is an overgrown ruin) but thankfully with the important Georgian house at its centre still standing.
Drewstown house situated on the road between Athboy and Oldcastle was home to the McVeagh family. Described by Casey and Rowan as an eccentric mid 18th century house of some pretension the house was constructed about 1745 to plans by Francis Bindon for Barry Barry, the then owner. The plan of the house was very old fashioned. There are some signs that the designer was not familiar with large-scale domestic design. Similar problems at nearby Ballinlough Castle suggest the same architect for both. A three storey house the staircase rises behind a bridge gallery, which is a rarity in Irish houses. A stained glass window dating to 1872 lights the entrance hall. Almost all the early Georgian joinery in the entrance hall survives. To the east of the house is the lake with a pretty rock work bridge and the remnants of the plantings of a picturesque walled garden. There is another lake to the front of the house. One was the White lake and the other was the Black lake. The ranges of former stables set around a central courtyard, date from 1745, 1850 and 1870. The gates of Drewstown with their limestone piers dating from 1745 are notable as they stand at a road junction.
The name Drewstown is said to be derived from a druid’s altar in the estate. The Plunket family held Drewstown in the middle ages. The Tandys then acquired the lands. In 1684 James Naper of Loughcrew married Elizabeth, daughter of James Tandy, of Drewstown. The lands at Drewstown were inherited in 1685 by the Napper family as a result of a marriage with a Tandy heiress. The United Irishman and rebel, James Napper Tandy, was descended from the Tandys of Drewstown and the Nappers of Loughcrew. James was a grandson of John Tandy of Drewstown.
Barry Barry is traditionally said to be the person who erected Drewstown house in 1745. The English agriculturalist and improver, Arthur Young, visited Drewstown when the Maxwell family were in occupation in 1776.
Drewstown was purchased in the 1780s by Major Joseph McVeagh, who married Margery, daughter of Governor Alexander Wynch. Wynch was Governor of Madras from 1773 to 1775. Joseph McVeagh was High Sheriff of Meath in 1790. He was succeeded by his son, Ferdiand.
An officer in the Inniskilling Fusiliers Ferdinand Meath McVeagh was High Sheriff of Meath in 1817. Ferdinand McVeagh married Charlotte Brooke and he died in 1866. They had a son Ferdinand McVeagh who was born in 1813. Their daughter, Flora Harriet, married Francis Ralph Sadlier, a clergyman who was the last Protestant curate of the parish of Kilallon. In 1837 Drewstown, the residence of F. McVeigh, Esq., was described as a handsome house in a highly improved demesne.
In 1847 Ferdinand McVeagh married Marie Rotherham of nearby Triermore in Athboy church. After the wedding the couple returned to Triermore where there was a splendid dinner, the evening concluded with a dance. The poor were not forgotten on this happy occasion, a substantial dinner being provided for them by Mr. Rotherham.
In 1876 Ferdinand McVeigh of Drewstown held 2,270 acres in County Meath. Ferdinand died in 1888 and his wife Maria in 1890 and they were buried at Athboy churchyard.
George Joseph McVeigh, born in Dublin about 1866, held Drewstown in the early years of the twentieth century. His son was Major Ferdinand Annesley McVeagh who served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers during World War I. Trevor George McVeagh, born at Drewstown in 1906, played cricket for Ireland between 1926 and 1934. A superb natural athlete he also played hockey, squash and tennis player. He died in Dublin in 1968.
The house remained in the hands of the McVeagh family until 1950. The McVeagh family moved from Drewstown to Galtrim Lodge.
In 1952 Drewstown House was purchased for use as a Christian Orphanage, then in the early 1960’s it was used as a Christian secondary boarding school. Since 1989 Drewstown has been used as a Christian camping and conference centre. Drewstown House is a centre made available to the public and to groups whose purpose is to advance the Christian faith. It is operated by the Drewstown House Trust.
Castle Park, County Limerick, 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. 74. “(Delmege/IFR) A two storey five bay mid-C18 house, regarded by the Knight of Glin as possibly by Francis Bindon. Floating pediment with lunette window supported – in a characteristically Bindon manner – on the keystone of the Venetian window below it; which is itself above a tripartite pedimented doorcase with banded piers. At one end of the house is a three sided bow and a single-storey wing; at the other end, a screen wall joins it to the stump of an old tower-house, which is treated as a pavilion. The roof of the house is concealed by a high parapet like a blind attic which is higher than the pediment; and which was finished off with Irish battlements early in C19, at the same time as the wing, the screen wall and the old tower were similarly crenellated. Sold 1969.”
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
Castle Park, County Limerick, courtesy National Inventory.
Castle Park, BALLYGRENNAN, County Limerick
Detached five-bay two-storey country house, built c. 1750, comprising floating pediment to front (south) elevation, full-height canted bay to east elevation having extension adjoining remodelled tower house to east with crenellated curtain wall. Two-bay four-storey extension to rear (north) elevation. Now in disuse. Rendered parapet with limestone eaves course, rendered chimneystacks and remains of limestone crenellations to roofline. Rendered walls having limestone quoins, plinth course and cornice. Square-headed window openings with limestone sills, some with remains of timber sliding sash windows. Venetian window to first floor having limestone surround, keystone to central opening and limestone sill. Lunette to pediment with limestone surround, keystone and sill. Square-headed opening with carved limestone surround comprising pilasters, pediment and scrolled consoles over spoked fanlight over timber panelled double-leaf doors with flanking square-headed sidelights having limestone surrounds. Square-plan remodelled tower house to east having rendered walls with limestone quoins. Square-headed window openings having limestone sills. Pair of square-profile limestone piers with sweeping rendered walls having crenellated limestone copings and plinth courses.
Appraisal
This substantial house, attributed to Francis Bindon, displays characteristic features of his work such as the lunette resting on the Venetian window’s keystone. Built in different phases, the house retains its eighteenth-century façade with earlier fabric to the rear elevation. Castle Park is distinguished by its finely carved limestone dressings, which are indicative of the skill of eighteenth-century craftsmen. Battlements were added in the nineteenth century, when the castle style of architecture was in vogue.
Castle Park, County Limerick, courtesy National Inventory.Castle Park, County Limerick, courtesy National Inventory.Castle Park, County Limerick, courtesy National Inventory.Castle Park, County Limerick, courtesy National Inventory.
The original building was a residence of the O’Briens of Thomond. Wilson, writing in 1786 refers to Castle-Park as the seat of Mr. Smith. In 1789 it became Ormsby property and was named Blackland Castle. The home of William Maunsell in 1814. In 1833 it became the property of Christopher Delmege who rebuilt most of it. The Ordnance Survey Field Name Book describes it as “a splendid edifice 4 story high overlooking the Shannon and estimated at £2,000.” The house was valued at £55 in the early 1850s and Christopher Delmege held it from the Marquess of Lansdowne. It was the seat of James O’Grady Delmege in 1894. Occupied by James Lyons, Limerick city coroner in the late 20th century, the house was gutted by fire in 2001 and for sale in 2007 for 40 million euro (Irish Independent 20 Dec 2007). Caste Park remains derelict.
Castle Blunden, 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. 62. “(Blunden, Bt/PB) A highly romantic mid-C18 house with water on both sides of it so that it seems to float; the water being two lakes probably formed out of the moat of the earlier house or castle here. It was built either for John Blunden, MP or for his son, Sir John Blunden, 1st Bt. Of three storeys over a vaulted basement; six bay front, central niche with statue below square armorial panel and above single-storey pedimented Doric portico. Quoins; rusticated surrounds to all the windows and the niche. Slightly sprocketed roof. Teh back of the house consists of two gables with a projections between them containing the principal and secondary staircases. The decoration of the interior is late C18 and was probably carried out by the 2nd Bt after his marriage to a bride who, according to Dorothea Herbert, brought him (a clear £8000 a year.) Hall with frieze of rams heads. Drawing room with ceiling of Adamesque plasterwork. Before 2nd Bt married, he and his sisters kept the house constantly filled with young people; in the evenings, there were boating parties on one of the lakes, when, according to Dorothea, the girls would step from the windows into the pleasure boat “whilst six or seven fiddles serenaded us on the water.” The young men of teh party would also serenade the girls at night outsdie their bedroom, and sometimes “burst in” catching them “en chemise.” A wing has recently been added to the house, designed by Mr Jeremy Williams, containing an additional sitting room.”
Castle Blunden, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.Castle Blunden, County Kilkenny, courtesy National Inventory.
Detached seven-bay three-storey over basement Classical-style country house, c.1750, on a symmetrical plan with (single-storey) prostyle tetrastyle pedimented Roman Doric portico to centre ground floor, two-bay three-storey side elevations, and three-bay full-height central return to west. Hipped slate roof on a U-shaped plan (ending in gables to rear (west) elevation; hipped to return) with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, slightly sproketed eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves having iron brackets. Part ivy-clad unpainted rendered, ruled and lined walls over random rubble stone construction with cut-limestone dressings including quoins to corners, stringcourses to each floor, round-headed recessed niche to centre first floor having cut-limestone block-and-start surround incorporating keystone, and heraldic plaque to centre top floor with cut-limestone surround. Square-headed window openings (round-headed window opening to return) with cut-limestone sills, cut-limestone block-and-start surrounds having keystones (plain surrounds to basement having keystones), six-over-six and three-over-six (top floor) timber sash windows having four-over-eight timber sash windows to basement with wrought iron bars. Square-headed door opening under prostyle tetrastyle pedimented Roman Doric portico (having cut-limestone columns with responsive pilasters supporting entablature, frieze having central panel, and carved limestone surround to pediment having modillions) with carved cut-limestone surround, and glazed timber panelled double doors. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with gravel forecourt, and landscaped grounds to site.
Appraisal
Representing an important element of the mid eighteenth-century architectural legacy of County Kilkenny a Classically-composed substantial country house built to designs attributed to Francis Bindon (c.1698-1765) in a manner reminiscent of the contemporary (1737) Bonnettstown Hall (12401909/KK-19-09) nearby has been very well maintained to present an early aspect with the original composition attributes surviving in place together with most of the historic fabric both to the exterior and to the interior. Sparsely-detailed the external expression of the house is enlivened by limestone dressings including a somewhat squat portico displaying high quality stone masonry. Forming the centrepiece of a large-scale estate (including 12401905, 15, 19 – 20/KK-19-05, 15, 19 – 20) the resulting ensemble having long-standing connections with the Blunden family makes a pleasant contribution to the visual appeal of the local landscape.
A few miles from the cathedral city of Kilkenny, Castle Blunden stands on an elevated site in the midst of mature parkland. Dating from the 1750s, and still owned by the Blunden family, this pretty seven-bay building is typical of County Kilkenny houses from the mid-Georgian period. The house is rendered, with a profusion of cut limestone decoration and details, and a handsome sprocketed roof, while the later Doric porch compliments the symmetry of the facade. The basement is concealed by a ramped gravel approach, which makes the house appear both lower and wider than is actually the case, while the small lakes to either side add to the overall air of enchantment.
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Their father, Sir William Blunden, a British naval officer and farmer, established Rionore, a bespoke jewellery business in Kilkenny along with Sir Basil Gouldiong, which was then taken over by the distinguished jewellery designer Rudolf Heltzel and still operates today…
Their great grand aunt was the eminent artist Sarah Purser – known for her stained glass and portraits. Purser once joked of her portraiture that she “went through the British aristocracy like the measles”…. The Blunden family have been in Kilkenny since the 17th century and their home, Castle Blunden, was constructed in the mid-1800s. “The family integrated and survived through the 18th century by marrying heiresses, and through the 19th century’s turbulent times by being honest and decent – keeping their heads down and playing chess,” say the twins….
The castle and estate have since passed the sisters to the first-born male heir through the primogenitor line.
When their father, Sir William, died in 1985, the estate went to his brother Sir Philip, as the girls had no brother.
Their mother, Lady Pamela Purser Blunden, continued to live at Castle Blunden until her death in 2017, and now the castle, estate and title have passed to the heir apparent, their nephew Patrick.
The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy: Kilkenny. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2004.
Blunden of Castle Blunden.
See the chapter on the Blundens of Castle Blunden in Art Kavanagh’s The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy of Kilkenny.
p. 15. Sir John 1st and his wife Lady Susanna had a large family including five daughters and in order to assist in finding suitable marriage partners for those ladies many lavish parties were held at Castle Blunden. Guests who had travelled far would stay the night and the young unmarrieds would share the barrack room, modesty being maintained by means of a curtain hanging across the room to segregate the sexes.
p. 16. According to Burke’s Peerage Overington Blunden was given a grant of lands in Kilkenny in 1667. He was granted Clanmore or Glanmore “to be forever called Blunden’s Castle”. The lands originally belonged to the Shee family. He was also granted other lands in Kilkenny as well as lands in Co Laois and Co Waterfrod. …Overington was granted the lands in lieu of the money he had adventured. He was originally from Southwark in Surrey and was by profession a whitster or cloth bleacher. …When they took possession of the Kilkenny lands they lived in the tower house which was to the rear of the present house which was not built until almost 100 years later.
THE BLUNDEN BARONETS OWNED 1,846 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KILKENNY
JOHN BLUNDEN (c1718-83), only surviving son of John Blunden, of Castle Blunden, Barrister, MP for County Kilkenny, 1727-52, married Martha, daughter of Agmondesham Cuffe, and sister of John, 1st Baron Desart, and had issue (with several daughters),
JOHN, his heir; William Pitt, father of the 3rd Baronet; Overington. (General in the army; MP).
Mr Blunden was created a baronet in 1766, denominated of Castle Blunden, County Kilkenny.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN BLUNDEN, 2nd Baronet (1767-1818), High Sheriff of County Kilkenny, 1805 and 1813, Mayor of Kilkenny, 1802, who married twice, though both marriages were without issue, when the title passed to his nephew,
SIR JOHN BLUNDEN, 3rd Baronet (1814-90), DL, Barrister, High Sheriff of Kilkenny City, 1843-4, County Kilkenny, 1847, who wedded, in 1839, Elizabeth, daughter of Major John Knox, of Dublin, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor; John Overington; Edward Herbert; Maurice Robert; Arthur Henry; Abraham; Kate; Harriette; Nicola Sophia.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR WILLIAM BLUNDEN, 4th Baronet (1840-1923), Surgeon, High Sheriff of County Kilkenny, 1904, who espoused, in 1879, Florence Caroline, daughter of Henry Shuttleworth, and had issue,
JOHN, his successor; Eric Overington; Muriel.
Sir William was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN BLUNDEN, 5th Baronet (1880-1923), who wedded, in 1918, Phyllis Dorothy, daughter of Philip Crampton Creagh, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor; PHILIP OVERINGTON, 7th Baronet.
Sir John was succeeded by his elder son,
SIR WILLIAM BLUNDEN, 6th Baronet (1919-85), Lieutenant-Commander RN, who married, in 1945, Pamela Mary, daughter of John Purser, and had issue,
Sir William died without male issue, when the title passed to his brother,
SIR PHILIP OVERINGTON BLUNDEN, as 7th Baronet (1922-2007), who wedded, in 1945, Jeanette Francesca Alexandra, daughter of Captain D Macdonald RNR, of Portree, Isle of Skye, and had issue,
HUBERT CHISHOLM, his successor; John Maurice Patrick; Marguerite Eugenie.
Sir Philip was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR HUBERT CHISHOLM BLUNDEN, 8th and present Baronet (1948-), of The Cottage, Carrigloe, Cobh, County Cork, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, who married, in 1975, Ellish O’Brien, and has issue,
EDMUND, b 1982; Amelia, b 1977.
CASTLE BLUNDEN, County Kilkenny, is a mid-18th century house built either for John Blunden MP, or for his son, Sir John Blunden, 1st Baronet.
It comprises three storeys over a vaulted basement, with a six-bay front enclosing a central niche containing a statue below an armorial panel.
The interior decoration is late 18th century in style, likely decorated by the 2nd Baronet, whose wife afforded him “a clear £8,000 a year.”
The hall boasts a frieze of rams’ heads; and the plasterwork in the drawing-room has an “Adamesque” ceiling.
Castle Blunden stands in a most idyllic setting, with water on both sides of it, probably formed originally from a moat (from an earlier castle).
Castle Blunden Detached seven-bay three-storey over basement Classical-style country house, c.1750 built to designs attributed to Francis Bindon (c.1698-1765)
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“the Blundens of Castle Blunden are descended from Overington Blunden, an English soldier who came to Ireland in teh seventeenth century and in 1667 was granted lands by the crown in County Kilkenny, Tipperary, Offaly and Waterford. Castle Blunden dates from around the middle of the following century, and was most likely built, or at least commenced by John Blunden who sat as a Member of the Irish Parliament for Kilkenny City from 1727 until his death in 1766. Its design attributed to amateur architect Francis Bindon, Caslte Blunden is of seven bays and three storeys, its facade enlivened by an unusually wide pedimented portico supported by four Roman Doric columns. Above this is a niche containing a somewhat diminuitve figure of a Roman general and then below the eaves a stone panel features the family coat of arms.”
Bessborough, Piltown, Co Kilkenny (Kidalton College)
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, 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.
“(Ponsonby, Bessborough, E/PB) A large house by Francis Bindon, consisting of a centre block of two storeys over basement joined to two storey wings by curved sweeps. Built 1744 for Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Earl of Bessborough, replacing an earlier house; the “Bess” in whose honour the estate received its name – which was singled out by Swift in his scornful attack on the custom of naming houses and estates after peoples’ wives – having been the wife of a seventeenth century Ponsonby. Entrance front of nine bays; three bay pedimented breakfont with niche above pedimented Doric doorway; balustraded roof parapet with urns; rusticated basement; perron and double stairway with ironwork railings in front of entrance door. Ingeniously contrived Gibbsian doorways in the curved sweeps, their pediments being above the cornice; niches on either side of them. Six bay garden front with four bay breakfront; Venetian windows in upper storey above round-headed windows. Later wing at side. Hall with screen of Ionic columns of Kilkenny marble, their shafts being monolithic. Saloon with ceiling of rococo plasterwork and chimneypieces with female herms copied from William Kent. The entrance front, never a very inspired composition, was not improved by the removal of the perron and substitution of a porch at basement level early in the present century, so as to enable the hall to be used as a sitting room; the architect of this work being Sir Thomas M. Deane. The house was burnt 1923. It was afterwards rebuilt to the design of H.S. Goodhart-Rendel; but in the end the family never went back to live in it, and it stood empty until it was sold in 1944. It now belongs to a religious order, and has been added to and altered; the urns have been removed from the parapet and are now at Belline.”
John Ponsonby (1713 – 1787) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, courtesy of The Library Collection auction 26 April 2023 at Adams. He was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He was the son of Brabazon Ponsonby (1679-1758) 1st Earl of Bessborough, 2nd Viscount Duncannon, of the fort of Duncannon, Co. Wexford. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Cavendish 3rd Duke of Devonshire.
For more on John Ponsonby (1713-1787), Speaker of the House, of Bessborough, see Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and its First Residents, 1720-80.
Oil painting on canvas, William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough (1704-1793), attributed to Jeremiah Davison (Scotland c.1695 ? London after 1750) or George Knapton (London 1698 ? Kensington 1778), circa 1743/50. Oval, half-length portrait, turned slightly to the left, gazing at spectator, wearing oriental costume, composed of a red tunic, blue cloak edged with white fur and a red and white turban. Courtesy of National Trust Hardwick House. He married Caroline Cavendish, daughter of 3rd Duke of Devonshire.William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough, (1705-1793), observing a copy of the Borghese Vase Date 1794 by Engraver Robert Dunkarton, English, 1744-1811 After John Singleton Copley, American, 1738-1815.Frederick Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, (1758-1844), later 3rd Earl of Bessborough Date 1786, Engraver Joseph Grozer, British, fl.1784-1797 After Joshua Reynolds, English, 1723-1792.The Hon. Richard Ponsonby (1772-1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, British (English) School, circa 1830. A half-length portrait of a man, known as “handsome Dick Ponsonby”, turned go the right, gazing at the spectator, wearing surplice and white bands. He was a son of William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Imokilly (1744-1806) who was a son of John Ponsonby (1713 – 1787). Courtesy of National Trust imagesLady Caroline Lamb née Ponsonby (1785-1828) by Eliza H. Trotter, NPG 3312.She was a daughter of the 3rd Earl, and she married William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.John William Brabazon Ponsonby (1781-1847) 4th Earl of Bessborough, County Kilkenny.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.
Attached nine-bay two-storey over raised basement Classical-style country house with dormer attic, built 1744-55, originally detached on a symmetrical plan with three-bay full-height pedimented breakfront, four-bay three-storey side elevations having two-bay full-height breakfronts, and six-bay three-storey Garden (south) Front having four-bay three-storey breakfront. Renovated, pre-1899, with three-bay single-storey flat-roofed projecting porch added to centre ground floor. Burnt, 1923. Reconstructed, 1929, to accommodate use as convent. Converted to use as agricultural college, post-1944. Hipped slate roofs on a quadrangular plan behind parapet with clay and rolled lead ridge tiles, cut-limestone chimney stacks (some on axis with ridge), lead-lined shallow barrel roofs to dormer attic windows, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat roof to porch not visible behind parapet. Limestone ashlar walls with rustication to ground floor (including to porch having piers supporting frieze, cornice, and balustraded parapet with urns on pedestals), stringcourse over, stringcourse to second floor, round-headed recessed niche to centre top floor breakfront with cut-limestone surround framing statuary, carved (moulded) surround to pediment, and carved (moulded) cornice supporting balustraded parapet. Square-headed window openings with cut-limestone sills, rusticated voussoirs to ground floor, carved surrounds to upper floors, and six-over-six timber sash windows. Square-headed opening (original door opening) to centre first floor breakfront with limestone ashlar pedimented Doric surround, and glazed timber double doors. Bulls-eye window opening to pediment with carved surround, and fixed-pane timber fitting. Some round-headed window openings to breakfront to Garden (south) Front (forming Venetian openings to top floor) with cut-limestone sills, channelled voussoirs to ground floor, carved surrounds to Venetian openings, six-over-six and three-over-six (top floor) timber sash windows having one-over-two sidelights to Venetian openings. Camber-headed window openings to dormer attic with timber casement windows. Round-headed openings to porch (in round-headed recesses to outer bays) with cut-limestone voussoirs having double keystones, timber panelled double doors having overlight, and six-over-nine timber sash sidelights. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with tarmacadam forecourt, and landscaped grounds to Garden (south) Front incorporating terraces having flights of cut-stone steps with balustraded parapets supporting urns. (ii) Pair of attached single-bay (seven-bay deep) two-storey Classical-style blocks, pre-1944, perpendicular to east and to west with single-bay full-height pedimented breakfronts, and three-bay two-storey lower linking wings on L-shaped plans. Hipped slate roofs behind parapets with clay ridge tiles, rendered squat chimney stacks, copper-clad vents to ridge, and concealed cast-iron rainwater goods. Roofs to linking wings not visible behind parapets. Rock-faced limestone ashlar walls with cut-limestone stringcourse to first floor supporting limestone ashlar Doric frontispiece (incorporating breakfront) having engaged columns, flanking outer pilasters, frieze, moulded cornice, moulded surround to pediment, and balustraded parapet. Square-headed window openings to ground floor with round-headed window openings to first floor having cut-limestone sills, limestone ashlar block-and-start surrounds to first floor, and six-over-six timber sash windows having fanlights to first floor (fixed-pane fittings to Doric frontispiece on panel having foliate swag motif). Square-headed window openings to linking wings (some round-headed window openings) with cut-limestone sills, limestone ashlar block-and-start surrounds, and six-over-six timber sash windows having fanlights to round-headed openings.
Appraisal
A very fine substantial house built to designs prepared by Francis Bindon (c.1698-1765) for Brabazon Ponsonby (1679-1768), first Earl of Bessborough, and subsequently reconstructed in the early twentieth century to designs prepared by Harold (Harry) Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (1887-1959) following an extensive fire retaining a porch added in the late nineteenth century by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane (1827-99). Various cut-limestone details displaying expert stone masonry contribute significantly to the Classical elegance of the composition. Of particular importance for the relationship with Ponsonby family the house is of additional significance for the associations with ‘The Troubles’ (1922-3). Subsequently adapted to an alternative use a small number of additional ranges have been planned in a manner complementing the appearance of the original portion: however, further extensive development over the course of the mid to late twentieth century has included a number of accretions that have compromised some of the setting quality of the site. Nevertheless, the house remains an impressive feature in the landscape forming an important element of the architectural heritage of Piltown and the environs.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.
Gateway, c.1750, comprising pair of sandstone ashlar piers on cruciform plans with raised bands having stringcourses supporting friezes, carved cut-sandstone cornice capping supporting acorn finials, wrought iron open work panels supporting decorative wrought iron double gates, wrought iron open work panels framing decorative wrought iron flanking pedestrian gates, limestone ashlar outer piers with cut-limestone capping supporting urn finials, limestone ashlar screen wall with cut-limestone coping, limestone ashlar piers with cut-limestone capping supporting urn finials, sections of wrought iron railings, and limestone ashlar terminating piers with cut-limestone capping supporting ball finials. Road fronted at entrance to grounds of Bessborough House (Kildalton College).
Appraisal
Constructed in locally-sourced Country Kilkenny limestone and sandstone an elegantly-composed formal gateway known as “The Grand Gates” exhibits particularly fine craftsmanship with robust Classically-derived dressings identifying the architectural design value of the composition. Decorative iron work fashioned at the R. and B. Graham Foundry further enlivens the aesthetic appeal of a commanding gateway forming an imposing landmark at the entrance to the grounds of the Bessborough House (Kildalton College) (12325001/KK-39-25-01) estate.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy National Inventory.
Gateway, c.1750, comprising pair of rusticated limestone ashlar piers with cut-limestone capping supporting blocking course having ball finials over, decorative iron double gates, and random rubble stone flanking boundary wall to perimeter of site. Road fronted at entrance to grounds of Bessborough House (Kildalton College).
Appraisal
An appealing gateway forming a secondary entrance on to the grounds of the Bessborough House (Kildalton College) estate allowing a direct route to the centre of Piltown. The construction of the piers including heavy rustication in the Classical manner exhibits high quality stone masonry while decorative wrought iron gates further enhance the artistic design value of the composition.
The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy: Kilkenny. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2004.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy Archiseek.Bessborough, County Kilkenny, now Kidalton College, courtesy Archiseek.
Large Palladian house with wings, designed by Francis Bindon around 1744 on the site of an earlier house. Later addition of a porch by Sir Thomas Manly Deane, who also moved the principal entrance to the ground floor, and converted the original hall into a sitting room. The cigarette card illustration shows the entrance front prior to this. In 1923 the house was burnt and severely damaged. A thorough and complete reconstruction followed and was completed by 1929. Now known as Kildalton College, an agricultural college run by Teagesc.
featured in Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution of Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson. Dublin University Press, 1915.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, in Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution of Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson.
“This large mansion, the seat of the Earl of Bessborough, is situated in the south of County Kilkenny, not far from the village of Pilltown, and lies in a well-planted desmesne of over 500 acres. It is built of hewn blue limestone, and rectangular in shape, as may be seen in Plate IX, being 100 feet in length, and in depth 80 feet.
But this picture, we hasten to point out, does not represent the front exactly as it is now, for some years since the flight of stone steps which appears therein was removed, the principal entrance being changed to the ground-floor, and the original hall turned into a sitting-room. These alterations were carried out by Sir Thomas M. Deane, who also added a porch of the same stone that the house is built with. Thus the convenience of the house has been increased to the detriment of its Georgian appearance.
Bessborough, County Kilkenny, in Georgian Mansions in Ireland with some account of the evolution of Georgian Architecture and Decoration by Thomas U. Sadleir and Page L. Dickinson.
This sitting-room, a large apartment hung with pictures, was originally decorated with plaster panels, but these, from being painted over, have lost their character as ornament. Two Ionic columns, monoliths, 10 feet 6 inches high, of black Kilkenny marble, polished, support an entablature. The drawing-room, opening off the original hall, but with a south aspect, is a handsome apartment, remarkable for its elaborate white marble mantel, which we illustrate at plate X. Its peculiarity, which was referred to in Vol. V of the Georgian Society at p. 60, is that the figures at either side are portraits. They represent two members of the Ponsonby family: Lady Catherine, wife of the fifth Duke of St. Albans, and Lady Charlotte, wife of the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam, both daughters of the second Earl. The rococo ceiling is worthy of note, and there is a deep frieze with medallions. This room contains a number of interesting pictures… It only remains to mention the well-proportioned dining-room, also on the first floor, and a small sitting-room, with a corner fireplace and handsome mantel. …[p. 22] Unlike most Georgian mansions, the stairs are not an important feature, and serve no purpose save of utility. One of teh bedrooms contains a fine oak Jacobean bedstead.
p. 22. The history of this estate can be traced from an early period. It was called Kilmodalla, that is the Church of Saint Modailbh, and in the thirteenth century became the property of the Anglo-Norman family of D’Aton, of Dauton, from whom it received the name of Kildaton, sometimes incorrectly written Kildalton.
Edmund Daton, of Kildaton, was attainted for participation in the rebellion of 1641, and in the time of the Commonwealth his estate was granted to Col. John Ponsonby, whose title to this and other lands, in all 19,979 statute acres, situated in the Counties of Carlow, Kerry, Donegal, Limerick, Waterford and Kilkenny, was confirmed by the Act of Settlement. Ponsonby was a Cumberland gentleman, who had raised a regiment of horse for service in Ireland, and had acted as Governor of Dundalk. [Kavanagh, the Aristocracy of Kilkenny, p. 169, tells us John Ponsonby was from Hale Hall in Cumberland.] On the fall of Richard Cromwell he declared in favour of a monarchy, and was in consequence high in favour at the Restoration, being included in the Act of Indemnity, and on 19th February 1660-1661, dubbed a knight by the Lords Justices. It is singular that Sir John, who was a man of property in England, and in fact the head of his house, should have elected to settle in Ireland. He was at the time a widower with a family, one of whom inherited Hale Hall, his estate in Cumberland, and is said to have come over at the solicitation of his brother Henry, who had obtained a grant of Crotto and other lands in Kerry.
[Kavanagh writes that when the war of Cromwell was concluded, he was appointed a Commissioner for the taking of depositions concerning atrocities committed against Protestants during the 1641-9 rebellion, and was made Sheriff of Wicklow and Kildare. Her was knighted by Cromwell and granted teh forfeited estate of Edmond Dalton of Kidalton and lands that formerly belonged to the Walshes particularly in the Fiddown area. …The Datons or Daltons as they were later called came to Ireland with the first Normans in 1171. They settled in Westmeath but later purchased a large estate in South Kilkenny, where they were living when the Cromwellians arrived. After their lands were confiscated some of the daltons may have moved to Connaught, but a number remained behind as tenants to the new landowners. Tjere was a number of Daltons in the Inistioge area in the 18th century farming large holdings.]
It was he who gave the name Bessborough, or Bessie’s Borough, in honour of his second wife, Elizabeth, widow, first, of Sir Richard Wingfield of Powerscourt, Co Wicklow, secondly, of Edward Trevor, and daughter of Henry, first Lord Folliott, probably on building a house to replace the castle of the Datons. In after years this circumstance came to the knowledge of Dean Swift, who makes use of it in his essay “On Barbarous Denominations in Ireland,” in which he vents his raillery on the landed proprietors. “The utmost extent,” he says, “of their genious lies in naming their country habitation by a hill, a mount, a brook, a burrow, a castle, a bawn, a ford, and the like ingenious conceits. Yet those are exceeded by others, whereof some have contrived anagrammatical appellations, from half their own and their wives’ names joined together: other, only from the lady; as, for instance, a person whose wife’s name was Elizabeth, calls his seat by the name Bess-borough.” Sir John was in residence in 1664, when he paid tax for five hearths. He acted in a most considerate and praiseworthy manner by the dispossessed owner, Edmund Daton, for he not only gave him shelter in his house, but maintained him there as his guest till his death.
By purchasing land, and investing largely in soldiers’ debentures, Ponsonby acquired a considerable fortune. He died in 1668, and was succeeded at Bessborough by his son Henry [the eldest son of his second marriage], who, on Nov 5th 1679, received the honour of knighthood. He doubtless fled to England to escape persecution during the vice-royalty of Tyrconnell, for he was resident there in 1689 when attainted by the Irish Parliament of King James II. On Sir Henry’s death, without issue, a few years later, the estates devolved on his next brother, Col. William Ponsonby, who accordingly made this his residence. He had been a Cornet of Horse in the Royal Army, from which he was removed for being a Protestant in 1686; and subsequently distinguished himself in command of Independent Companies in the memorable defence of Derry. He was prominent in affairs, represented County Kilkenny in five successive parliaments (1692-1721), and in 1715 as sworn of the Privy Council. In 1721 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Bessborough, of Bessborough, and in the following year advanced to the dignity of Viscount Duncannon, of Duncannot Fort, in the County of Wexford. He married Mary, daughter of the Hon. Randal Moore, fourth son of Charles, second Viscount Drogheda (by Lady Jane Brabazon, daughter of Edward, second Earl of Meath), and had issue three sons and six daughters.
[Kavanagh, p. 171. A son, Henry, married Frances, daughter of Chambre Brabazon 5th Earl of Meath, “by whom he had a son, Chambre Brabazon. Chambre was married three times and by his second wife he had Sarah Ponsonby, one of the Ladies of Llangollen. Fn. Sarah ran away with her friend Eleanor Butler the daughter of the Ormonde heir. Sarah was the object of unwanted affection from her godmother’s husband, Sir William Fownes. Eleanor, a Protestant, was being persecuted by her Catholic stepmother. Sir William Barker of Kilcooley gave Sarah £580 which helped to keep them for a number of years. When Eleanor’s father succeeded as teh Earl of Ormonde he was persuaded by William Barker to make provision for Eleanor which he did. The two girls never married and stayed together at Llangollen in Wales until their deaths. They became a very celebrated couple and received visites from very distinguished peopel including Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Walter Scott, De Quincy, Wordsworth, Southey and many others.”]
Lord Duncannon died at Bessborough on 17 Nov 1724, and was buried three days later, “with Escocheons,” [Funeral entry in Office of Arms, Dublin Castle], in the family burying-place in Fiddown Church.
Brabazon, second Viscount Duncannon, who succeeded to the title and estate on his father’s death, had been an officer in the 27th, or Inniskilling Regiment, in which he was Captain of the Granadier Company. By his marriage with Sarah, daughter of John Margetson of Bishopscourt, County Kildare, and widow of Hugh Colville, of Newtown, County Down, he acquired a considerable fortune, including landed property in County Kildare and in Leicestershire, as well as the pocket borough of Newtown Ards, for which he sat in the Irish Parliament from 1704-1714.
[Kavanagh book, p. 171: “The following story is told of the marriage of Sir William’s eldest son, Brabazon Ponsonby, future MP and Earl of Bessborough, which took place around 1703. Brabazon soon found himself in pecuniary difficulties from which he attempted to extricate himself by proposing to marry a rich widow then living in Dubln, a Mrs Colville, granddaughter of Archbishop Margetson. Mrs Colvill woudl have none of him and refused to listen to his importunities. Brabazon, however, resolved on a plan for making her his wife. She was awakened one morning by a bank playing epithalamic airs outside her lodgings (the custom being to serenade newly married couples), and flying to the window, opened it, and beheld a great crowd cheering; at the same moment, the next window was thrown open [p.172], and Captain Brabazon Ponsonby appeared in a night dress, smiling and thanking the people for their congratulations. He had hired a neighbouring apartment and the band, and by this ruse proclaimed that he was married to Mrs Colvill. In vain she denied the assertion; public opinion, resting on such convincing proofs, was too strong for her, and she finally gave way and bestowed her hand and her fortune on th gallant officer, who left the Army.” His second wife Elizabeth Sankey was twice widowed and also an heiress]
From 1715 until he succeeded to the peerage he was one of the members for the County of Kildare. In 1726 he was called to the Privy Council, being subsequently appointed a Commissioner of Revenue. In Nov 1733, six months after his first wife’s death, he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of John Sankey, and widow, first of Sir John King, and secondly of John, Lord Tullamore. During the Lord Lieutenancy of the third Duke of Devonshire, and a few months after his eldest son had married the Duke’s eldest daughter, he was, by patent dated 6th October 1739, created Earl of Bessborough in the peerage of Ireland. Ten years later he received an English peerage as Baron Ponsonby, of Sysonby, in County of Leicester, taking his title from the estate in England which his first wife had inherited from her father.
p. 25. Til 1743 he sees to have lived principally at Bishopscourt, where in the autumn of that year he had the honour of entertaining the Lord Lieutenant, who had lately become connected with the family by another tie, his daughter, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, having married John Ponsonby, the Earl’s second son [afterwards the Right Hon. John Ponsonby, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and long leader of the patriotic party, who died in 1787. He was father of the first Lord Ponsonby, and of the Rt. Hon. George Ponsonby, Lord Chancellor of Ireland]. In 1744 he pulled down the “large old house” at Bessborough, and erected the present mansion from designs by Francis Bindon. As soon as it was completed, he took up his residence, making over Bishopscourt to his younger son John, who eventually inherited that estate. [This property remained in the possession of the family till sold to the 3rd Earl of Clonmel in 1838.] We have unfortunately no detailed account of the house during the lifetime of the 1st Earl. The Primate, who stayed there in January 1753, contents himself with telling Lord George Sackville that “everything was perfectly right and extremely agreeable.”
[Kavanagh, p. 173: Brabazon’s second son, John Ponsonby, was perhaps the most talented and outstanding man of hte family. Born in 1713 he entered Parliament in 1739. Five years later he replaced his father as Commissioner for the Revenue. In the year just prior to that prestigious appointment he married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of 3rd Duke of Devonshire [who was Lord Lieutenant]. In order to reinforce his position as a most reliable government supporter, John raised four companies of horse for service against the the Scots rebels in 1745. In 1746 he was appointed a Privy Counsellor which carried with it the title of Rt. Honourable. Ten years later he reached the pinnacle of his power when he was appointed as Speaker of the House of Commons (in Ireland). IN addition to this he became an “undertaker” for the government. This meant that he undertook to manage the business of the government in the Irish Parliament in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant. In return he was given power to appoint people to high offices, acted as Lord Justice, was consulted about policies and given the necessary means to enable him to bring in a majority for hte government when bills needed to be passed. He retained this positino until 1770. After this time the practice was discontinued as Lords Lieutenants were obliged to remain in Ireland as residents.”
p. 174. “John and his wife Lady Elizabeth had five sons and four daughters…His sons were William, John, George, Richard and Frederick. William and George were MPs and were very prominent in their support of the Catholic emancipatino movement, supporting the Catholic Relief Acts according as they were presented in Parliament. George was the more prominent of the two and led the Whig party in the English Parliament after th Union. William tried for the position of Speaker in 1790 but was defeated by John Foster. George was Chancellor of Ireland in 1806. …George had an illegitimate son, George Conolly Ponsonby, who distinguished himself in the Army. He fought in India and Afghanistan. He attained the rank of Major General. He settled his family in Germany and died there in 1866.]
Lord Bessborough, who held the offices of Mariscal of the Admiralty in Ireland, and Vice-Admiral of Munster, was twice one of the Lords Justices. He died here at 3pm on Tuesday, the 4th July, 1758, after a brief illness, caused by swallowing cherry-stones, aged 79.
William, second Earl of Bessborough, who now succeeded his father, lived almost entirely in England. [In October 1773, he associated himself with the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquess of Rockingham, the Earl of Upper Ossory, and Lord Milton, in protesting against the Irish Absentee Tax. Their objection was based on the possession of estates in both countries, and that they should not be penalized for spending the greater part of their time residing in the capital of the UK for the purpose of attending to their duties as peers.] A highly cultivated man, an enthusiastic collector, and a patron of the fine arts, he was long prominent both in society and in politics. He had travelled extensively, and had not only made the usual European tour then essential to the man of fashion, but had even penetrated to Greece, which he visited in 1738, taking with him J.E.Liotard, the eminent French painter. [p. 26] In the following year, soon after his return home, he married, during the vice-royalty of her father, Lady Caroline Cavendish, daughter of William, third Duke of Devonshire. On 8th June 1741, he writes from Chatsworth to inform the Lords Justices of his appointment as Principal Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant; in the following November he was sworn as Privy Councillor in Ireland. Prior to his father’s death, Lord Duncannon, as he was then, sat in the Irish House, representing Newtown Ards from 1725-1727, and County Kilkenny 1727-1758. He also sat in the English Parliament, representing Derby, a pocket borough of the Cavendish family, 1741-54; Saltash, 1754-56, and Harwich, 1756-58. In politics a Whig, he more than once held office, first for ten years, as a Lord of the Admiralty; then a Lord of the Treasury, 1756-59; and twice Joint Postmaster-General.
[Kavanagh p. 176: “The 3rd Earl probably lived most of his life abroad or in Dublinbut he maintained the house at Bessborough. He bought a fine mansion, called Belline that he been built by Peter Walsh in Pilltown in the late 18C, for his agent. Prior to the agent taking up residence it was made available by the Earl of William Lamb, the son of Lord Melbourne, the husband of the Earl’s only daughter, Caroline. He brought her there at the urgings of her frantic family.
Caroline, who was born in 1788 and married to a besotted William Lamb in 1806. Caroline and William had only one son who survived childhood and he was not mentally capable. The marriage became unstable and 9p. 177) Caroline embarked on a very public affair with Lord Byron, much to the embarressment of her family and the annoyance of her husband. Affairs were very much in vogue but had to be discreet. Byron was just 24 at the time, three years her junior and on the verge of becoming the darling of society having just published Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage. He was feted everywhere. They began a much recognised and indiscreet affair that lasted a tempestuous four months. Byron ended the affair much to Caroline’s displeasure.
She then spent the next four years pursuing him. Byron avoided her, seeking refuge ifor some time with his new mistress, Lady Oxford, and eventually marrying a cousin of Caroline’s husband, Annabella Milbanke. As the enforced exile in Belline had no positive effect on Caroline her family frankly told Lamb to divorce her, but this he refused to do. The marriage continued until 1825. During the intervening period Caroline turned to novel writing and the characters of her first novel called Glenarvon were easily recognisable as leading society figures of the period, including Byron. She wrote two further novels, Graham Hamilton, publ, 1822, and Ada Reiss, pub. 1823. She died in 1828.]
Lady Bessborough, who was a god-daughter of George II, died in 1760 of the same disorder , as Horace Walpole tells us, which had some years previously carried off four of her children. The Earl was a great favourite at Court, particularly with Princess Amedlia, the most attractive of the daughters of George II, and many of his letters relating to her will are preserved in the British Museum. He was so pleased at her condescension in coming to dine with him one night that he greeted her warmly with both hands, on which she exclaimed, “My Lord, you are very good, but I wish you would not paw me so!” When he was finally left alone, on the marriage of his younger daughter, the Princess was anxious that he should not remain a widower, and suggested that Lady Anne Howard would make a suitable bridge. But the Earl, so far from countenancing the idea, took upon himself to propose to the Princess, at which she “laughed to such a degree than she could hardly stand.” [from the Journal of Mary Coke. This does not appear to have caused a quarrel between them, for she appointed him one of her executors, and left him a legacy of £1000 stock].
He also admired Lady Mary Coke, the diariest, who describes him as “very entertaining.” …
p. 27. As one of the first collectors in this country of gems, marbles, and works of art, he ws well qualified to become an original member of the Dilettanti, he was also member of the Accademia di Disegno at Florence, and in 1768 was elected a Trustee of the British Museum. …
Although an absentee, Lord Bessborough did not neglect his Irish seat, and his artistic taste doubtless suggested the beautiful carved mantel in the drawing-room, with its representations of his two daughters…A visitor said “it felt as warm and comfortable as if the family had left it the day before, and it has not been inhabited these forty years.”
…He died on May 1793, at the age of 88, being then “Father of the Dilettanti.” [A portrait of the Earl, in Turkish dress, by Knapton, is in the possession of the Society of the Dilettanti.] p. 28. A monument to him and his wife, with busts by Nollenkens, is in All Saints’ Church, Derby, where they were buried in the mausoleum of the Cavendish family.
p. 28. Frederick, third Earl of Bessborough, his father’s only surviving son, also usually resided in England. He was educated in Christ Church College, Oxford, and entered Parliament in 1780 as M.P. for Knaresborough, which he represented until he succeeded to the peerage, beign twice appointed a Lord of the Admiralty. He tok a decided part in opposing the Union. He was a man of the most amiable and mild manners, who, without affecting the character of an orator, was an able and much-appreciated speaker. As a landlord, he showed the utmost consideration to his tenants and, inheriting the cultured tastes of his father, he was an amateur artist. Lord Bessborough married on 27 Nov 1780, Henrietta Frances, second daughter of John, first Earl Spencer, by whom he had issue, with a daughter and three sons [the daughter was the well-known Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of William, second Viscount Melbourne, and a remarkable woman. She was a devoted admirer of Byron, who is said to be the hero in her novel, Genarvon.] During his declining year he lived chiefly with his youngest son at Canford House, Dorset [the Hon. William Francis Spencer Ponsonby, who was raised to the peerage in 1838 as Baron de Mauley]. He died there on 3rd Feb 1844 aged 86.
His eldest son and successor, John William, fourth Earl of Bessborough, was the distinguished Whig statesman who died at Dublin Castle, while Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on 22 May 1847.
[Kavanagh, p. 178. 4th Earl was reputed to have been an excellent (and resident) landlord. Liek his illustrious forebears he was closely allied to the Whig party and was liberal minded. It was he who first introduced Daniel O’Connell to the House of Commons in 1829 after he had been elected, as the first Catholic, thus gaining Emancipation.
His was a poisoned chalice. He occupied the post of Lord Lieutenant during the Famine. This dreadful disaster was compounded by political unrest which manifested itself in the Young Ireland movement. Ever since 1829, O’Connell had been seeking Repeal of the Union, using all the peaceful means at his disposal, especially mass meetings. But younger more radical men became more violent in their language and some of their number advocated a peasant led social revolution. These wre the Young Irelanders. [fn. Some of the persons involved were Smith O’Brien, a member of the gentry from County Limerick and an MP for Ennis, Charles Gavan Duffy, a Monaghan born Catholic journalist and publisher of The Nation, Thomas Davis, the Cork born son of an English Army surgeon, and John Blake Dillon a Mayo born Catholic barrister.
The Lord Leiut. Threw himself wholeheartedly and vigorously into the efforts devised by the government to combat the effects of the famine. ]
His fifth son, the Rev. Walter William Ponsonby, who succeeded when the peerage had been held successively by his two elder brothers, was father of Edward, 8th Earl of Bessborough, the present proprietor of the estates.”
The above engraving of Bessborough, County Kilkenny is taken from John Preston Neale’s Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland, and Irelandpublished in six volumes between 1818-1824. It shows the house as originally designed by Francis Bindon around 1744 and without any of its later alterations and additions. As was mentioned last week, the Ponsonby family spent relatively little time on their Irish estate. When William Tighe published his Statistical survey of the County of Kilkenny in 1802 he observed ‘The principal absentee proprietor is the Earl of Bessborough, who possesses 17,000 acres in the county, about 2,000 of which are let forever…Though not inhabited for forty years, the house is kept in excellent order.’ It would appear that the second Earl of Bessborough, who while on his Grand Tour had travelled as far as Greece and Turkey in the company of the Swiss artist Jean-Etienne Liotard (who painted him in Turkish costume) preferred to live in England where he enjoyed a successful political career. At Roehampton outside London he commissioned a new house from Sir William Chambers which was then filled with an exceptional collection of classical statuary. Only after his father’s death in 1893 did the third earl visit Bessborough for the first time but he too was an infrequent visitor. When staying in the house with the latter’s heir in 1828 Thomas Creevey wrote that following the first earl’s death two years after building’s completion in 1755, ‘His son left Ireland when 18 years old and having never seen it more, died in 1792. Upon that event his Son, the present Lord Bessborough, made his first visit to the place, and he is not certain whether it was two or three days he staid here, but it was one or the other. In 1808, he and Lady Bessborough came on a tour to the Lakes of Killarney and having taken their own house in their way either going or coming, they were so pleased with it as to stay here a week, and once more in 1812, having come over to see the young Duke of Devonshire at Lismore, when his Father died, they were here a month. So that from 1757 to 1825, 68 years, the family was (here) 5 weeks and two days.’
In 1826 the fourth earl, when still going by the courtesy title of Lord Duncannon, came over to Ireland with his wife and eleven children and, astonishingly, remained here until his death twenty-one years later: during the year before this occurred he served as Lord Lieutenant, the first resident Irish landlord to hold that office for a generation. Creevey’s letters to his step-daughter Elizabeth Ord tell us a great deal about life in Bessborough at the time. Of Lady Duncannon he wrote, ‘Her life here is devoted to looking after everybody, and in making them clean and comfortable in their persons, cloaths, cottages and everything…I wish you could have seen us walking up Piltown [the local village] last Saturday. Good old Irish usage…is to place the dirt and filth of the house at the entrance instead of behind it, and this was reformed at every house but one as we walked thro’ and Duncannon having called the old woman out told her he would not have the filth remain in that place…to which she was pleased to reply, “Well, my dear, if you do but walk by next Tuesday not a bit of the dirt shall you see remaining”.’ One suspects that the Duncannons were what might be described as benign despots, ruling over their tenants with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Creevey reported ‘My Lady’s mode of travelling is on a little pony, she sitting sideways in a chair saddle; one of the little girls was on another pony. My Lord and I sauntered on foot by her side. She got off and went into different cottages as we went. She gives prizes for the cleanest cottages…She put her Cottagers in mind of it, but there is a simplicity and interest and kindness in every communication of hers with the people here, on their part a natural unreserved confidential kind of return…’ No doubt worn out by her efforts to improve the lives of those around her, Lady Duncannon died in 1834 at the age of 46. Three of her seven sons became successively Earls of Bessborough, the sixth earl chairing the 1880 commission which investigated the problems of landlord and tenant in Ireland. His younger brother, the seventh earl, had previously been a Church of England clergyman.
Although Bessborough was occupied more than had previously been the case, it was never a permanent home for the Ponsonbys who continued to spend much of their time in England. In Twilight of the Ascendancy (1993) Mark Bence-Jones reports that the family was in residence for eight weeks each summer and another four at Christmas, but while there they entertained extensively and on one occasion had Queen Victoria’s son the Duke of Connaught and his wife to stay. Bence-Jones notes that the royal party was treated to a concert during which another of the houseguests sang Percy French’s ballad ‘The Mountains of Mourne’; she was supposed to do so in her bare feet but instead wore bedroom slippers. During this period Bessborough was also notable for its amateur dramatic performances, a popular pastime in the Edwardian era; the future ninth Earl of Bessborough was a keen actor and even brought over a professional director from London. Nevertheless, like his forbears he was inclined to spend the greater part of his time on the other side of the Irish Sea. Prior to his father’s death in 1920 he had qualified as a barrister and served as an MP as well as becoming a successful businessman (and in the early 1930s he would be appointed Governor General of Canada). When the War of Independence broke out in this country he organised to have much of the contents of Bessborough removed from the house and brought to England. It was a wise decision since in February 1923 during the Civil War Bessborough was gutted by fire, along with another house in the same county, Desart Court. The damage to Bessborough was estimated at £30,000.
The year after Bessborough was burnt, the ninth earl bought Stansted Park in West Sussex and commissioned Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, an old friend from their days together at Cambridge, to carry out alterations to the house. Goodhart-Rendel was a gentleman architect who had inherited Hatchlands in Surrey, which he gave to the National Trust in 1945. Writing of him in October 1942, James Lees-Milne noted, ‘He told me the order of his chief interests in life is 1. the Roman Catholic Church, 2. the Brigade of Guards and 2. Architecture.’ It was thanks to Lees-Milne that Hatchlands came to be given to the NT and today the house is occupied by that wondrous Irish polymath Alec Cobbe in whose own family property Newbridge, County Dublin (now under the authority of the local council) hangs a portrait of his own ancestor Archbishop Charles Cobbe; this was painted by another gentleman-architect Francis Bindon, in turn responsible for the original design of Bessborough. Completing this circle, after he had carried out the job at Stansted Park, Goodhart-Rendel was invited by the ninth earl to oversee the rebuilding of Bessborough, which he duly did from 1925 onwards. In an article on Stansted Park written for Country Life in February 1982, Clive Aslet quotes Goodhart-Rendel’s comment that Lord Bessborough, when it came to reconstructing his family house, ‘relied on my memory for the character of what new internal detail we were able to put in.’ In fact, it does not appear that the house benefitted from much internal detail since the rooms are noticeably plain, the only striking space being the double-height entrance hall with a large staircase that runs up to a screened corridor and has a first-floor gallery on the opposite wall (see the three photographs immediately above). One also has the impression that the central block alone was rebuilt and not the quadrants or wings. The reason for this want of detail is most likely that the Ponsonbys never again lived at Bessborough and by the end of the 1930s they had entirely disposed of their County Kilkenny estate. Soon afterwards it was bought by a religious order, the Oblate Fathers who established a seminary there, adding large and aggressively workaday wings to either side of the house; understandably the architect of these extensions is unknown. In 1971 the estate was bought by the Irish Department of Agriculture and today Bessborough, now called Kildalton, serves as an agricultural college at the centre of a large working farm. Other than some fine planting in the immediate parkland, there is little to recall the house’s former existence, so let us end today as we did last week with a page from a visiting book. This one was kept by Lady Olwen Ponsonby who in 1901 married the third Lord Oranmore and Browne. The page below features signatures of guests at a house party at Bessborough in September 1909 and includes that of Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel immediately below a charming drawing he made of the front of the old house. Consider it serving as a memento mori not just for the old Bessborough but for many other such places in Ireland.
Believed to date from September 1908 this photograph, which has appeared on several sites of late, shows the indoor servants at Bessborough, County Kilkenny. The house lay at the centre of an estate owned by the Ponsonby family. The first of their number to settle in Ireland was yet another of those English soldier adventurers who came to this country in such abundance during the late 16th and 17th centuries. Originally from Cumberland, Colonel Sir John Ponsonby was a member of Oliver Cromwell’s army who found himself rewarded for military service here with a parcel of land. He subsequently acquired several more, the largest being an estate by the river Suir in the south of the county hitherto owned by the Anglo-Norman D’Altons after whom it was called Kildalton. Here he settled and having built himself a residence, he re-named the place Bessie-Borough, later Bessborough after his second wife Elizabeth Folliott. Subsequent generations increased their landholdings in both Kilkenny and the neighbouring counties of Carlow and Kildare and by the mid-18th century were in possession of almost 30,000 acres. Furthermore, following the example of Sir John who had served as a local MP in the Irish Parliament and especially in the aftermath of the Williamite Wars (in which the Ponsonbys had been decisively opposed to the Roman Catholic James II) they became more engaged in politics. William Ponsonby, third son of Sir John, was created Baron Bessborough in 1721 and Viscount Duncannon two years later; in turn his son Brabazon Ponsonby became first Earl of Bessborough in 1739.
The main block of Bessborough as we see it today dates from c.1744 and was commissioned by the first Earl to mark his new status. Although it is known that Sir Edward Lovett Pearce wrote a memorial about the building’s setting some time before his death in 1733, the design is attributed to Francis Bindon, a gentleman architect from County Clare, also notable as a portraitist (he painted no less than four likenesses of his friend Dean Swift). Bindon was related by marriage to Pearce and collaborated with Richard Castle on several projects, so his credentials are admirable. Nevertheless, one must be honest and admit that Bessborough was never one of his best works, the handling of the central structure being somewhat heavy. Writing in The Beauties of Ireland (1825) John Norris Brewer pertinently observed ‘The mansion of Bessborough is a spacious structure of square proportions, composed of hewn stone, but the efforts of the architect were directed to amplitude, and convenience of internal arrangement, rather than to beauty of exterior aspect. The house extends in front 100 feet, and in depth about 80. Viewed as an architectural object, its prevailing characteristic is that of massy respectability.’ Likewise in an essay on Bindon published in the Irish Georgian Society Bulletin for spring 1967, the Knight of Glin, evidently struggling to find something good to say about Bessborough (he described the garden front as being ‘an uninspiring six-bay breakfront composition with a pair of Venetian windows clumsily adrift on the first floor’) commented ‘The redeeming architectural feature of the house is to be found in the fine handling of the shallow quadrants leading to the flanking pavilions…The facing sides of the pavilions have niches and surmounting lunettes.’ The photographs above show the front of the house before and after it was altered at the end of the 19th century when the double-staircase leading to the raised entrance was removed and the ground was lowered to permit access via a porte-cochere; this work was undertaken by architect Sir Thomas Manly Deane.
Others found Bessborough more appealing, certainly members of the Ponsonby family even though during the second half of the 18th century they were hardly ever there. The first time the third Earl of Bessborough, who had been raised in England, saw his inheritance was in the aftermath of his father’s death in March 1793. Four months later he wrote to his wife ‘I came here yesterday and am indeed very much pleased with the place…The mountains are beautiful over fine wood, and the verdure is the finest that can be seen…The house is large and very comfortable, but as you may suppose very old-fashioned. There are about 10 or 11 good bedchambers. You would make it very cheerful with cutting down the windows & I believe I should agree.’ His proposals were never carried out, not least because another fifteen years were to pass before Henrietta, Lady Bessborough – the beautiful sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire – came to see her husband’s Irish home, although she was equally delighted with it then, writing ‘I like this place extremely; with a very little expense it might be made magnificent, and it is beautiful…’ Likewise when staying in the house in September 1828 with the next generation of Ponsonbys, that indefatigable diarist and letter-writer Thomas Creevey advised his step-daughter Elizabeth Ord, ‘This is a charming place. I ought to say, as to its position and surrounding scenery – magnificent.’ Above are two photographs of the garden front of the rear. Note the two-storey extension to the left of the main block, which may date from the same time as the alterations to the front. However, as the second picture shows, at the very start of the last century, this development was improved by the addition of a balustrade stone terrace with double steps leading down to the garden.
We have relatively little information about the interiors of Bessborough, although they were, as both the largely absentee third countess and Thomas Creevey duly noted, certainly magnificent. The entrance hall – which became a sitting room after Deane’s alterations – featured a screen of four Ionic columns of solid Kilkenny marble each ten and a half feet tall. Sadleir and Dickinson’s 1915 Georgian Mansions in Ireland includes a couple of photographs of the saloon or drawing room, both shown above. One features a detail of the splendid rococo plasterwork with which the ceiling was decorated. The other shows the chimney piece, a design supposedly taken from William Kent although Sadleir and Dickinson propose the female herms in profile are portraits of the second earl’s two daughters, the Ladies Catherine and Charlotte Ponsonby who married the fifth Duke of St Albans and the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam respectively. Even though the house was not much occupied during this period, it was well-maintained. When staying at Curraghmore, County Waterford in 1785 Lady Portarlington wrote, ‘Another day we went to Bessborough, which is a charming place, with very fine old timber and a very good house with some charming pictures, and it felt as warm and comfortable as if the family had left it the day before, and it has not been inhabited these forty years.’ There remains a great deal more to tell about Bessborough, its destruction, reconstruction and subsequent history, so rather in the manner of Country Life, today’s piece finishes with the words: To be concluded next week. Meanwhile, below is a photograph of Bessborough with surrounding signatures of members of a house party there, taken from a visiting book kept by one of the Mulholland family (of Ballywalter, County Down) at the start of the last century.
The Ponsonbys of Bishopscourt, Co Kildare, and Bessborough, Co Kilkenny, were a family of staunch protestant Whigs descended from Sir John Ponsonby, a cavalry officer from Cumberland who was appointed by Cromwell to make a record of all atrocities committed on Protestants during the 1641-49 Rebellion. He was awarded an estate in Kilkenny at Kildalton which he renamed Bessborough after his wife Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Folliott.
WILLIAM PONSONBY, VISCOUNT DUNCANNON
Sir John Ponsonby’s second son William served with the Williamite army at the Siege of Derry. Elected MP for Kilkenny City in 1692, Sir William retained the seat for nearly thirty years when, in 1721, he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Bessborough. Two years later, he became Viscount Duncanon.[i]
THE 1st EARL OF BESSBOROUGH (1679-1758)
Upon his death in 1724, Sir William was succeeded as 2nd Viscount by his eldest son, Brabazon Ponsonby (1679-1758) who had secured a wealthy heiress as his bride in 1703. The 2nd Viscount played an ingenious hand when he threw his lot in with the 3rd Duke of Devonshire, the rising star of British Whig politics. When the Duke began his seven year tenure as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1737, the 2nd Viscount convinced him to take his son William Ponsonby on as Private Secretary. In 1739, William married the Duke’s 20-year-old daughter, Lady Caroline Cavendish. That same year, the 2nd Viscount superseded Lord Shannon to become Commissioner of the Revenue and was further elevated to the Earldom of Bessborough. In 1743, the Earl’s ambitious younger son John ‘Speaker’ Ponsonby married another of the Devonshire daughters, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish.
THE DEVONSHIRE – BURLINGTON MARRIAGE OF 1748
By 1745, the Earl of Bessborough was a happy man. He had a secure seat in the Irish House of Lords and his family would retain control of the Revenue Board until Lord Townsend’s dismissal of Speaker Ponsonby as First Commissioner of the Revenue in 1770.[ii] His second son John (later the Speaker) further earned the trust of the government when he raised four companies of horse for service against the Jacobite rebels in Scotland in 1745. John was appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland the following year and quickly began to consolidate the foundations laid by his father to make the Ponsonbys one of the principal parliamentary families in 18th century Ireland.
But, if Speaker Boyle was already wary of the Ponsonbys, his heckles were considerably raised when, in 1748, the Duke of Devonshire ‘s heir (the Marquess of Hartington) married the ailing Earl of Burlington’s heiress. On one hand, this bode well as the Duchess-in-waiting was the Speaker’s niece. On the other hand, the Duke-in-waiting was a brother-in-law of not one but two of the dastardly Ponsonby boys. Moreover, it meant that Lord Burlington’s sister (aka Speaker Boyle’s wife) would no longer succeed to any of the fortune. Sure enough, when Lord Burlington died in 1753, Lady Hartington (the future Duchess) secured the whole shebang, including Lismore Castle in Waterford and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.[iii]
THE PONSONBYS IN ATTACK
The Ponsonbys were dog-like in their bid to bring down the Boyles, pushing for control of Cork City itself and angling for control of all the old Burlington boroughs. [iv] But they had no real power at constituency level, owning just one seat in their native Kilkenny plus control of the borough of Newtonards, Co Down, which they acquired amid much notoriety in 1744. Their political influence rested almost entirely on connections and borrowed strength – and it was always to do so. The pendulum swung Boyle’s way in 1751 when the Ponsonbys unsuccessfully challenged Speaker Boyle at a bye-election in Cork City.[v] But by April 1755 it was back with the Ponsonbys when their brother-in-law, Lord Hartington, became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Hartington succeeded his father as Duke of Devonshire in December 1755 and, the following year, replaced the Duke of Newcastle to become Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland.
THE TRUCE & THE EARLDON OF SHANNON
The Duke of Devonshire had no time for the Ponsonby-Boyle vendetta. The achievement of peace in 1756 involved protracted negotiations after which Boyle stepped down as Speaker on condition that he be elevated through three ranks of the Peerage to the Earldom of Shannon. He was further granted an annual pension of £2,000 for 31 years, payable by the Crown. His son was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, for which one disgruntled contemporary felt he was ‘as fit …as the Primate or one of his own daughters’.
JOHN ‘SPEAKER’ PONSONBY (1713-1787)
Lord Bessborough’s second son, John Ponsonby, was duly appointed Speaker with a hefty annual salary of £4,000. He simultaneously became an ‘undertaker’ for the government by which he controversially undertook to manage the business of government in the Irish Parliament in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant. This gave him power to appoint people to high offices, as well as act as Lord Justice, and do anything he deemed necessary to bring about a government majority when bills needed to be passed.
THE EARLS OF BESSBOROUGH
Upon the death of the 1st Earl of Bessborough in 1758, the Speaker’s elder brother William Ponsonby (1704-93) succeeded as 2nd Earl. He had been MP for Kilkenny since 1727 and served variously as Lord of the Treasury, Lord of the Admiralty and as Joint Postmaster General. But his principle interests were collecting art and seducing women (including George II’s daughter, Princess Amelia). He and his son were largely absentee landlords but they would continue to exert considerable political influence throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The 3rd Earl’s daughter Caroline married future Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and enjoyed a very public affair with Lord Byron.[vi] The 4th Earl served as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, as Home Secretary, as Lord Privy Seal and as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when the Famine broke but died, a day after his friend Daniel O’Connell in May 1847. The 9th Earl of Bessborough was Governor General of Canada from 1931-35. The 10th Earl was a Minister of State in Ted Heath’s cabinet. The 12th and present Earl lives in Hampshire. The family seat of Bessborough in Co Kilkenny was burned in 1922.
THE PONSONBY-SHANNON MARRIAGE OF 1763
The Ponsonby, Boyle and Devonshire dynasties were further united by a political marriage of 1763 when Richard Boyle (Lord Shannon’s son and heir) married Speaker Ponsonby’s daughter Catherine. The following year, Richard succeeded as 2nd Earl of Shannon. An uneasy alliance between the two families duly ensued although Lord Shannon and his father-in-law continued to disagree and bicker in private. The castle noted that, though their families were married, the two men ‘do not consult or act together politically’.
THE DOWNFALL OF THE PONSONBYS
In a letter to Anthony Foster from 15 August 1765, Speaker Ponsonby expressed himself with characteristic indiscretion: ‘What matters it to us who are Ministers in England? Let us stick to our own circle and manage our own little game as well as we can’. But the Speaker underestimated the charismatic Lord Townshend who became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1767. In 1770, both the Ponsonby and Boyle dynasties took a serious blow when Lord Townshend dismissed Speaker Ponsonby from his lucrative position as Commissioner of the Revenue, and dismissed Lord Shannon from his post as Master-General of the Ordnance. In a state of panic, Ponsonby resigned as Speaker and so lost any remaining influence he might have had. He spent the remainder of his life trying, in vain, to be reelected. His honest but indolent son Billy (aka Lord Shannon’s brother-in-law William Brabazon Ponsonby) tried to follow in his father’s footsteps but lost his way entirely, being defeated in 1790 when he attempted to wrestle the Speakership from John Foster.[vii] The Speaker’s second son George became a prominent advocate of Catholic Relief and led the British Whig party in opposition from 1808-1817.
FOOTNOTES
[i] William Ponsonby was created Viscount Duncannon (of the fort of Duncannon in the County of Wexford), and Baron Bessborough (of Bessborough in the County of Kilkenny) in the Peerage of Ireland in 1723 and 1721 respectively.
[ii] In 1749 Lord Bessborough was given the additional title of Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby, in the County of Leicester, which entitled him to a seat in the British House of Lords.
[iii] The 4th Duke duly recruited Capability Brown to landscape the gardens. Their son and heir, the 5th Duke, was played by Ralph Fiennes in the recent movie ‘The Duchess’.
[iv] The Ponsonby’s first broadside had been fired in 1737 when they purchased the seignory of Inchiquin, right in the heart of Lord Shannon’s East Cork empire.
[v] Their candidate was Sir Henry Cavendish, a kinsman of the Duke of Devonshire who had been collector of the Revenue in Cork from 1743-47
[vi] The 3rd Earl’s son Major General Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, a great Waterloo hero, was father to Sir Henry Ponsonby, private Secretary to Queen Victoria.
[vii] His son William was the General Sir William Ponsonby who so memorably killed leading the cavalry charge at Waterloo. During the 1790s, the General’s older brother John, 2nd Baron Ponsonby, enjoyed an affair with society beauty Lady Elizabeth Conyngham, wife of the Marquess of Conyngham and later mistress to George IV.
THE EARLS OF BESSBOROUGH WERE THE SECOND LARGEST LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY KILKENNY, WITH 23,967 ACRES
This ancient and noble family derives its origin from Picardy, in France. Their ancestor accompanied William, Duke of Normandy, in his expedition to England, and his descendants established their residence at Haile, near Whitehaven, in Cumberland.
They assumed their surname from the lordship of Ponsonby, in Cumberland. The office of Barber to the King was reputedly conferred upon them in 1177 by HENRY II, about the same time as the Earl of Arran’s ancestor was appointed Butler. Their coat-of-arms includes three combs.
JOHN PONSONBY, of Haugh Heale, Cumberland, and had a son,
SIMON PONSONBY, of Haile, who married Anna Englesfield, of Alenburgh Hall, Cumberland, and had a son,
HENRY PONSONBY, of Haile, who wedded, in 1605, Dorothy, daughter of Henry Sands, of Rottington, Cumberland, and had two sons, of whom the elder,
SIR JOHN PONSONBY (1608-78), Knight, of Haile, and of Bessborough (formerly Kidalton), County Kilkenny, Colonel of a regiment of horse in the service of CROMWELL, who wedded Dorothy, daughter of John Briscoe, of Crofton, Cumberland, and had by her a son, JOHN, ancestor of MILES PONSONBY, of Haile.
Sir John married secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, 1st Baron Folliott, and widow of Richard, son and heir of Sir Edward Wingfield, and by her had issue, from which derives the family of which we are about to treat.
Colonel Ponsonby, removing himself into Ireland, was appointed one of the commissioners for taking the depositions of the Protestants, concerning murders said to have been committed during the war, and was Sheriff of counties Wicklow and Kilkenny in 1654.
He represented the latter county in the first parliament called after the Restoration; had two grants of lands under the acts of settlement, and, by accumulating debentures, left a very considerable fortune.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR HENRY PONSONBY, Knight, of Bessborough, at whose decease, in the reign of WILLIAM III, without issue, the estates devolved upon his brother,
THE RT HON WILLIAM PONSONBY (1659-1724), of Bessborough, MP for County Kilkenny in the reigns of ANNE and GEORGE I,who was sworn of the Privy Council in 1715, and elevated to the peerage, in 1721, in the dignity of Baron Bessborough. of Bessborough, County Kilkenny.
His lordship was advanced to a viscountcy, in 1723, as Viscount Duncannon, of Duncannon, County Wexford.
He married Mary, sister of Brabazon Moore, of Ardee, County Louth, and had, with six daughters, three sons,
BRABAZON, his heir; Henry, major-general; Folliott.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
BRABAZON, 2nd Viscount (1679-1758), who was advanced to an earldom, in 1739, as EARL OF BESSBOROUGH; and created a peer of Great Britain, 1749, as Baron Ponsonby of Sysonsby, Leicestershire.
His lordship wedded firstly, Sarah, widow of Hugh Colville, and daughter of James Margetson (son and heir of the Most Rev James Margetson, Lord Archbishop of Armagh), and had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor; John, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons; Richard; Sarah, m to Edward, 5th Earl of Drogheda; Anne, m to Benjamin Burton; Elizabeth, m to Rt Hon Sir W Fownes Bt; Letitia, m to Hervey, Viscount Mountmorres.
The 1st Earl espoused secondly, in 1733, Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heir of John Sankey, of Tenelick, County Longford (and widow of Sir John King, and of John Moore, Lord Tullamore), but by that lady had no issue.
He was succeeded by his elder son,
WILLIAM, 2nd Earl (1704-93), who married, in 1739, Lady Caroline Cavendish, eldest daughter of William, Duke of Devonshire, and had surviving issue,
FREDERICK, his successor; Catherine, m to Aubrey, 5th Duke of St Albans; Charlotte, m to William, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.
His lordship was succeeded by his only son,
FREDERICK, 3rd Earl (1758-1844), who wedded, in 1780, Henrietta Frances, second daughter of John, 1st Earl Spencer, and had issue,
JOHN WILLIAM, 4th Earl (1781-1847), LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND, 1846-7, who espoused, in 1805, the Lady Maria Fane, daughter of John, 10th Earl of Westmorland, and had issue,
JOHN GEORGE BRABAZON, his successor; William Wentworth Brabazon; FREDERICK GEORGE BRABAZON, 6th Earl; George Arthur Brabazon; WALTER WILLIAM BRABAZON, 7th Earl; Spender Cecil (Rt Hon Sir); Gerald Henry Brabazon; Maria Jane Elizabeth; Kathleen Louisa Georgina; Georgiana Sarah; Augusta Lavinia Priscilla.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
JOHN GEORGE BRABAZON (1809-80), 5th Earl, who wedded twice, though the marriages were without issue, and the family honours devolved upon his brother,
FREDERICK GEORGE BRABAZON (1815-95), 6th Earl, DL, who died unmarried, when the titles devolved upon his brother,
THE REV WALTER WILLIAM BRABAZON (1821-1906), 7th Earl, who married, in 1850, the Lady Louisa Susan Cornwallis Eliot, daughter of Edward, 3rd Earl of St Germans, and had issue,
EDWARD, his successor; Cyril Walter; Granville; Arthur Cornwallis; Walter Gerald; Ethel Jemima; Sara Kathleen; Maria.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
EDWARD, 8th Earl (1851-1920), KP CB CVO JP DL, who wedded, in 1875, Blanche Vere, daughter of Sir Josiah John Guest, 1st Baronet, and had issue,
VERE BRABAZON, his successor; Cyril Myles Brabazon; Bertie Brabazon; Olwen Verena; Helena Blanche Irene; Gweneth Frida.
The heir apparent is the present holder’s son, Frederick Arthur William Ponsonby, styled Viscount Duncannon.
BESSBOROUGH HOUSE is located in Kildalton near Piltown in County Kilkenny.
It was first built in 1745 by Francis Bindon for the 1st Earl of Bessborough.
Bessborough House, as stated by Mark Bence-Jones, consists of a centre block of two storeys over a basement joined to two-storey wings by curved sweeps.
The entrance front has nine bays; a three-bay pedimented breakfront with a niche above the pedimented Doric doorway.
The roof parapet has urns, while the basement is rusticated; perron and double stairway with ironwork railings in front of the entrance door.
The Hall has a screen of Ionic columns made of Kilkenny marble.
The Saloon has a ceiling of Rococo plasterwork; and a notable chimney-piece.
Bessborough House had to be rebuilt in 1929 following a catastrophic fire in 1923, and the Bessboroughs never returned to it as a consequence.
In 1940, the Oblate Fathers established a seminary at Bessborough House.
The Oblates worked their own bakery, and farmed dairy cows, poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep. They grew potatoes, grain and other crops.
They also had a very good orchard.
Alas, the great mansion has been altered and added-to since the Ponsonbys left: The urns have been removed from the parapet and are now at Belline.
From 1941 to 1971, 360 priests were ordained in Bessborough House, Kildalton.
By 1970, numbers joining the order had fallen and the Oblates decided to sell the property.
It was bought for £250,000 by the Irish Department of Agriculture in 1971.
It was then opened as an agricultural and horticultural college and renamed Kildalton College.
Other seats ~ Parkstead House, Surrey; Sysonby, Leicestershire; Stansted Park, West Sussex.
Castle Morres, County Kilkenny, entrance front c. 1900, photograph collection Mrs. de Montmorency, 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.
p. 73. “de Montmorency, Bt/PB; De Montmorency/IFR) a magnificent mid-18C house by Francis Bindon. Of two storeys over basement, nine by front…sold post world War I, partially demolished ca 1940; ruin recently demolished.
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. 89. “A large mid18C house designed by Francis Bindon for the Morres family. Very fine interior with good plasterwork. Altered in the early 19C by Daniel Robertson of Kilkenny. Partially demolished following a demolition sale in 1940. Ruin recently demolished.
Castle Morres, County Kilkenny entrance hall chimneypiece c. 1912, photograph: G.D. Croker, 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.Castle Morres, County Kilkenny, entrance hall chimneypiece 1977, photograph: William Garner, 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 first Viscount Mountmorris commissioned Castle Morres as one of the largest stately homes in the country and it was built in approximately 1751. Sold in the 1920s to the Land Commission, it was deroofed in the 1930s, and the ruin finally demolished in 1978. Only a gatelodge attributed to Daniel Robertson remains.
A gate lodge at the entrance to the former Castle Morres estate in County Kilkenny. The main house here, built for the de Montmorency family, dated from the mid-18th century, its design attributed to Francis Bindon: the remains of the building were demolished in 1978. This lodge was constructed later, at some point in the second quarter of the 19th century and is presumed to have been the work of Daniel Robertson.
The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy: Kilkenny. Volume 1. Art Kavanagh, 2004.
De Montmorency.
p. 116. According to Lodge the family descended from Hervey de Monte Marisco, who accompanied Strongbow to Ireland in 1170. They received grants of land in Wexford, Tipperary and Kerry. Many of these lands were later conveyed to the Ormondes through marriage connections.
p. 117. The family seems to have persisted in Tipperary wher the name became Morres. The Kilkenny family descended from Herny the secodn son of John Morres of Knockagh in co Tipperary. This John was the grandson of Sir John Morres who was created a baronet in 1632. Hervey was born in 1625 and saw few prospects at home and probably in a spirit of adventure left and joined Cromwell’s army.
THE DE MONTMORENCYS OWNED 4,808 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KILKENNY
MAJOR HERVEY RANDALL SAVILLE PRATT DL (1782-1859), third son of the Rev Joseph Pratt, of Cabra Castle, County Cavan, by the Hon Sarah de Montmorency his wife, daughter of Harvey, 1st Viscount Mountmorres, of Castle Morres, County Kilkenny, wedded, in 1811, Rose Lloyd, daughter of the Rt Rev John Kearney, Lord Bishop of Ossory, and had issue,
JOHN, his heir; Joseph; Hervey Mervyn; Raymond; Anne Sarah; Letitia; Elizabeth; Sarah; Fanny.
Mr Pratt, who, upon the death of his father, succeeded his mother in the Kilkenny estates, which she and her sister, the Marchioness of Antrim, had jointly inherited as co-heirs of their brother Hervey Redmond, 2nd Viscount Mountmorres.
He assumed, in 1831, the surname and arms of DE MONTMORENCY.
Mr de Montmorency was succeeded by his eldest son,
JOHN PRATT DE MONTMORENCY (1815-68), of Castle Morres, who married, in 1838, Henrietta O’Grady, daughter of Standish, 1st Viscount Guillamore, and had issue,
HERVEY JOHN, his heir; WALLER, successor to his brother; Mervyn Standish, barrister; Raymond Oliver; Katherine Maria; Rose Emily.
Mr de Montmorency was succeeded by his eldest son,
HERVEY JOHN DE MONTMORENCY JP (1840-73), of Castle Morres, High Sheriff of County Kilkenny, 1872, late 2nd Dragoon Guards, who espoused, in 1867, Grace, daughter of Sir Thomas Fraser Grove Bt, of Ferne, Wiltshire, leaving issue, a daughter, Henrietta Kathleen.
He was succeeded by his brother,
THE VEN WALLER DE MONTMORENCY JP (1841-1924), of Castle Morres, Archdeacon of Ossory, who wedded, in 1872, Mary, daughter of the Rt Rev James Thomas O’Brien, Lord Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, and had issue,
JOHN PRATT, his heir; Geoffey FitzHervey, b 1876.
The Archdeacon was succeeded by his elder son,
CAPTAIN JOHN PRATT DE MONTMORENCY CMG DL RN (1873-1960), High Sheriff of County Kilkenny, 1921, who espoused firstly, in 1908, Margaret Elinor, eldest daughter of Colonel Samuel Pym; and secondly, in 1934, Norah, daughter of Colonel Mervyn de Montmorency, by whom he had issue,
Jane Avril, b 1936; Sarah Anne, 1943-97.
CASTLE MORRES, Kilmaganny, County Kilkenny, was a splendid mid-18th century mansion by Francis Binden.
It comprised three storeys over a basement, with a nine-bay front.
There were single wings on either side of the centre block.
There was a three-bay central break-front with quoins and a rusticated ground floor.
The roof parapet had balustrades.
A balustraded perron and double stairway led to the doorway, which had Ionic columns and pediment.
There was a magnificent black marble chimney-piece in the hall, resplendent with a military trophy under a scroll pediment; and an eagle spreading its wings above.
Captain John Pratt de Montmorency sold Castle Morres to the Irish Land Commission in 1926.
In the 1930s its roof was removed; and the once great mansion house suffered its ultimate fate in 1978 when it was demolished.
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. 35. “(Stratford, Aldborough, E/DEP) One of the largest of C18 gable-ended houses, built 1743 for John Stratford, MP, afterwards 1st Earl of Aldborough, to the design of Richard Castle in collaboration with the amateur architect, Francis Bindon…The house was still intanct and furnished 1837, but was afterwards abandoned by the family, who fell on evil days before the extinction of the earldom 1875. It has long been a ruin. The rotunda temple and two obelisks survive in nearby fields.”
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. 85. A large three storey gable ended house designed by Richard Castle and Francis Bindon. Abandoned in the mid 19C. The ruins have been demolished. Superb stables and follies remain.
THE EARLS OF ALDBOROUGH OWNED 964 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KILDARE
It is said that the family of STRATFORDcan be traced from the time of ALFRED THE GREAT; but our account shall commence in 1660 with ROBERT STRATFORD, a younger branch of the house of MEREVALE, and the first who settled in Ireland, one of the original burgesses in the charter constituting Baltinglass a borough. Robert Stratford, MP for County Wicklow, 1692-3, married, in 1662, a daughter of Oliver Walsh, of Ballykilcavan, Queen’s County, by whom he had issue,
EDWARD, his successor; Francis, Consul at Bordeaux, dsp; Grace; Mary; Elizabeth; Abigail; Jane; Anne; Catherine.
Mr Stratford died in 1699, and was succeeded by his elder son,
EDWARD STRATFORD (1664-1740), who purchased Great Belan, and other lands in County Kildare, from the Viscount Fitzhardinge.
This gentleman was a staunch supporter of the Revolution, and entertained WILLIAM III at Belan.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Euseby Baisley, of Ricketstown, County Carlow, and had, with a daughter,
Robert; Eusebius; JOHN, of whom presently.
The youngest son,
JOHN STRATFORD (c1697-1777), MP for Baltinglass, 1721-59, during the reigns of the first three GEORGES, was raised to the peerage, in 1763, in the dignity of Baron Baltinglass.
He was advanced to a viscountcy, in 1776, as Viscount Aldborough.
His lordship was further advanced, in 1777, to the dignities of Viscount Amiens and EARL OF ALDBOROUGH.
He married Martha, daughter and co-heir of the Ven. Benjamin O’Neale, Archdeacon of Leighlin, by whom he had six sons and nine daughters.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
EDWARD, 2nd Earl (1736-1801), who espoused firstly, Barbara, daughter of the Hon Nicholas Herbert, of Great Glemham, in Suffolk; and secondly, in 1788, Elizabeth, only daughter 1st Baron Henniker, though the marriage was without issue.
His lordship was succeeded by his brother,
JOHN, 3rd Earl (1740-1823), MP for Baltinglass, 1763-75, who wedded, in 1777, Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon and Rev Frederick Hamilton, and great-granddaughter of William, 3rd Duke of Hamilton; by whom he had three daughters,
Louisa; Elizabeth; Emily.
His lordship died without male issue, and was succeeded by his brother,
BENJAMIN O’NEALE, 4th Earl (1746-1833), MP for Baltinglass, 1777, who married, in 1774, Martha, only child and heiress of John Burton, and niece and heiress of Mason Gerard, by whom he had issue,
MASON GERARD, his successor; Eliza; Sophia.
His lordship was succeeded by his only son,
MASON GERARD, 5th Earl (1784-1849), who wedded, in 1804 (divorced 1826) Cornelia Jane, a daughter of Charles Henry Tandy, of Waterford, by whom his lordship had an only child,
BENJAMIN O’NEALE, 6th Earl (1808-75), Captain, 15th Light Dragoons, who died unmarried, at Alicante, Spain, when the titles expired.
BELAN HOUSE, near Ballitore, County Kildare, was said to have been one of the biggest 18th century gable-ended houses in Ireland It was built in 1743 for the 1st Earl of Aldborough by Richard Castle, in collaboration with Francis Bindon.
Belan comprised three storeys; an eleven-bay front; three centre bays and the two outer bays breaking forward.
A central Venetian window was above the tripartite doorway.
The roof parapet had recessed panelling and urns.
There was also an elegant stable block; and a domed Doric rotunda in the park.
Belan House remained intact, though uninhabitable, until 1837, when the family left owing to impecunious circumstances.
During the lifetime of the 4th Earl, owing to his reckless gambling and extravagant mode of living, the property became heavily mortgaged.
After 1823, the estate became neglected.
During Lord Aldborough’s absence abroad, it is said that the family lawyer, a man named Lewis, illegally obtained a long lease of Belan and, together with a friend of his named Mercer, brought about the dismantlement of the house and demesne by gradually auctioning off every stick and stone they could move.
The cut-stone work of the parapet and other parts of the house were sold, and used in the erection of public buildings in Athy; the furniture and chimney pieces were parted with, and the statuary in the grounds suffered a similar fate; the doors and shutters are said to have been used for flooring the stable lofts at Newtown House, near Bolton Castle.
For miles around there is hardly a place which does not possess some fragments of Belan’s former grandeur.
At Bolton Castle, in the garden, is a block of composite, bearing the Aldborough crest.
The great iron gates within view of the hall door at Carton House originally hung at the Belan gate lodge.
The only trace now showing the extent of Belan demesne in former times are three stone obelisks.
STRATFORD HOUSE, Stratford Place, the family’s London residence, is now the premises of the Oriental Club.
The building was constructed in the 1770s for the 2nd Earl, who paid £4,000 for the site (formerly occupied by the Lord Mayor of London’s Banqueting House) along with the Robert Adam-inspired building.
The House was variously remoulded over the years with new plumbing and a second storey on the east and west wings in the 1890s.
However it was in 1908 when Lord Derby bought the lease that the most extensive alterations were set in motion.
He purchased additional property in Marylebone Lane, removed the stables and built a Banqueting Hall with a grand ballroom above (the last privately owned ballroom to be built in this country).
It was a spectacular room of Italian design which was converted when the house was acquired by the Oriental Club.
When Stratford House was purchased by the Oriental Club in 1960, it was necessary to make certain alterations, as the needs of a Club were different to those of a town house of the nobility.
The ballroom was converted into two floors of bedrooms, additional lifts were installed and alterations to the Banqueting Hall were made, which is now the Dining Room.
The recent addition of eight new bedrooms continues the Oriental Club’s tradition of providing a welcoming and comfortable home-from-home for its Members in the centre of London.
First published in August, 2013. Aldborough arms courtesy of European Heraldry.
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
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. 237. “(Daly/IFR and sub Blake/IFR) A three storey house built in late 1750s and attributed by Knight of Glin to Francis Bindon. Breakfront centre with oculus flanked by two small windows above Diocletian window above pedimented and fanlighted tripartite doorway. C19 eaved roof. Hall with staircase and gallery; turned wooden balusters, plasterwork ceiling of a style characteristic of Co Galway, with foliage and trophies; rather similar to the plasterwork at Castle ffrench. Now the home of Mr Charles Bishop.”
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
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. 262. “(Trench/IFR) a house of two storeys over a basement, built 1745 by Col Francis Sadleir, who used to climb the scaffolding during the building and read accounts of that year’s Jacobite rising to the workmen. Attributed by the Knight of Glin to Francis Bindon, stylistically as well as on account of Col Sadleir’s connection to Bindon and to Bindon’s chief patron, Lord Bessborough. Seven bay entrance front, all the windows and the round-headed doorway having block architraves and large keystones which in the upper storey, break into the frieze of the entablature. Bold cornice. Archway to yard, flanked by walls with niches, at one side of front. Three bay side elevation, also with block architraves. Plain seven bay garden front. Interior much altered 1866-68. Wide and deep hall, lined with rather unusual fluted Doric pilasters and square columns of oak and divided by screen of arches. Staircase of good C18 joinery in staircase hall at side, leading up to large top-lit domed landing, with shallow arches and marbled half-columns; rather Soanian in character but presumably dating from 1866-68 remodelling. Room on right of hall with C18 panelling and ceiling with oval garland. Drawing room with Victorian plasterwork cornice. The old castle where the family originally lived stands a short distance away from the house; it is still roofed and has glass in its windows. It is unusually long for its height, with tall chimneys and machicoulis. Sopwell passed to the Trenches through the marriage of Mary Sadleir, daughter of the builder of the house, to Frederick Trench MP.”
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale Colliers January 2025 E53 YN99 10 beds5 baths1322 m2
THE SOPWELL HALL ESTATE, BALLINGARRY, COUNTY TIPPERARY, E53 YN99, IRELAND A most distinguished early 18th-century Irish country house positioned within an estate of some 300 acres, including attractive parkland and mature woodland and a 16th-century castle. 5 Principal Reception Rooms, 10 Bedrooms The house is privately and centrally positioned deep within mature parkland. The accommodation at Sopwell Hall is grand and beautifully executed, with the principal house comprising some 14,235 square feet or 1,322 square metres.
The castle, built circa 1590, is now unoccupied but largely intact. The stone outbuildings are of the highest quality and richly augment the house and castle.
A Studio, Gardener’s Cottage, Bailiff’s House and 2 Gate Lodges complete the accommodation to present some 18,342 square feet or 1,704 square metres of possible accommodation in total. In all the estate extends to some 300 acres or 121.4 hectares
Sopwell Hall is situated in a triangle of the historic towns of Birr, Roscrea and Nenagh. The nearest small town is Borrisokane, which is some 5 miles or 8 kilometres away. The International airports at Dublin, Cork and Shannon are within easy driving distance.
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
GEORGIAN ELEGANCE Built in 1745, to a design attributed to the renowned architect Francis Bindon, Sopwell Hall is imposing yet welcoming and conforms to the best traditions of early Georgian architecture. A popular and highly regarded architect, Bindon’s most noted country house designs are classically derived, like that at Russborough House, where he worked in collaboration with Richard Cassels. Indeed, this collaboration may have influenced the design of the top-lit domed landing at Sopwell Hall. Symmetrical in composition, Sopwell Hall is a beautifully balanced structure occupying a slightly elevated site with commanding views over the surrounding gardens and countryside. The house stands three storeys over basement with direct access from the ground and basement levels. All the windows on the seven bay façade and the round-headed front doorway have cut-stone block architraves and large keystones, which on the upper storey break into the frieze of the entablature under a pronounced cornice. Each side elevation has three window bays, one with block architraves and the other a Venetian window. The overall effect is extremely elegant and aesthetically pleasing. Substantial compensation monies received on the dispersal of wider estate lands hugely benefitted the house and core estate, with exceptional expenditure apparent on the building of significant stone outbuildings and considerable upgrading works to the house interior between circa 1866 to 68.
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
The handsome fluted Doric pilasters in the main reception hall were added at this time along with shallow arches and marbled half-columns to the large top-lit domed landing. Ornate cornicing was added to the drawing room and dining room. A large orangery style conservatory adorned the south-eastern elevation but was sadly removed in the 1950’s due to disrepair.
The current owners created an elegant sunken garden within the space incorporating period limestone walls, steps and terracing. A high archway leads to an enclosed courtyard off the other side elevation. This courtyard itself leading to an adjacent yard which includes the impressive range of stone outbuildings.
PRIVATE ESTATE The Sopwell Hall Estate is a haven of tranquillity and privacy that is rare in the 21st-century. Positioned at the end of a half-mile drive Sopwell Hall occupies a central position within its own estate and enjoys a panoramic view over the park and woodland. Interspersed with mature specimen trees the parkland pasture surrounds the house. The outer parts of the estate comprising a perimeter woodland belt and creating a great sense of privacy and seclusion. Among the many ancient and specimen trees throughout the estate are some particularly fine Spanish chestnut, a noted ancient beech wood and a rare Siberian crab-apple tree. The woodlands include indigenous oak, beech, ash, larch and spruce. Unsurprisingly there is, too, much wildlife to be found on the estate. Red squirrels, pine martens, foxes and hares are regularly sighted, and buzzards, owls and falcons can also be found.
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
Since 1985, when the current owners acquired Sopwell Hall, a substantial amount of restoration and improvement works have been carried out in the gardens and wider pleasure grounds, which had become neglected. Spacious lawns were laid down, the two gate lodges restored and a hard tennis court installed. The sunken garden was created at the southwestern end of the house, incorporating a central water-lily pond, limestone walls and steps to create terracing. Works on the Walled Garden commenced in 2009 and, with expert advice, a fruit orchard planted to include apple, pear, plum, medlar, walnut and cherry trees and incorporating some old heritage varieties. Behind a mixed hedgerow divide lies a productive garden, with a large soft-fruit cage, a flower garden, herb garden and vegetable beds. All through the year there is a kaleidoscope of colour throughout the grounds with a great display of daffodils announcing the arrival of Spring, many of the 30 or so varieties found at Sopwell are original to the estate and are enhanced by arrays of snowdrops and crocuses. The ancient beech wood displays an abundance of bluebells and is quite a magical scene. Numerous shrubs and trees provide rich colour in all seasons. A large border flowerbed contains a wide selection of shrubs and climbers underplanted with various perennials and bulbs. Several varieties of climbing roses, clematis and wisteria adorn the various outbuildings in the coachyard and the large arched entrance. In the 18th-century and 19th-century many pleasure walks and bridleways were created around the estate with many still evident and in use today. Part of the original 1,000-acre estate demesne is now owned by Coillte, the semi-State forestry group, and across which forest walks, and horse riding can be enjoyed. The Sopwell Estate itself is private and exclusive.
Sopwell Hall is at the end of a half mile drive and is at the centre of the estate. The property is entered through fine cast iron pillared gates set within a cut-limestone entrance splay and adorned by the charming front Gate Lodge. The drive leads through undulating open parkland to a gravelled forecourt in front of the house. Of the circa 300 acres or 121.4 hectares within the estate about two-thirds comprise mature parkland grazing and one-third is in woodland, with about 74 acres or 29.9 hectares in mature woodland and some 20 acres (8 hectares) in a commercial plantation. Some 185 acres of grazing lands are let annually on an 11-month conacre basis. This arrangement could possibly continue, or the lands could be farmed in-hand. A walled enclosure adjacent to Killaleigh Castle has a useful range of outbuildings. Sopwell Hall and its circa 300 acres are entirely private and bordered by some 500 acres of Coillte (the semi-State forestry company) forestry and approximately 160 acres of farmland is used as part of a training farm for Gurteen College, which is 3 miles away. These three holdings combined constituting the original core estate at Sopwell. The Sopwell Hall Estate is private and exclusive with no third-party Rights of Way across the estate. There exists a Wayleave to allow mast collection in the beech wood by Coillte, but it appears not to have been exercised in over 30 years. The estate has the benefit of a Right of Way across some adjacent lands. The Coillte forestry which adjoins the estate greatly enhances the enjoyment of living at Sopwell Hall, as it provides great amenity for long walks in beautiful surroundings. Whilst being wonderfully secluded the estate is nearby to town amenities and easily accessible, with the M7 motorway accessible some 12.4 miles or 20 kilometres away at Roscrea (Junction 22).
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
16TH CENTURY CASTLE The Castle, called Killaleigh Castle, is long unoccupied but largely intact. Built, circa 1590, by the Gaelic MacEgan Clan as a fortified Castle or Tower House under an Elizabethan grant until 1662, when the Clan’s lands were forfeit. Killaleigh Castle with its immediate lands and over 1,000 acres coming into the possession of a Col. Thomas Sadlier, Adjutant General to Henry Cromwell, for his military achievements. Through buying up debentures on lands awarded to fellow officers who wished to return to England he had an accumulated estate of over 5,000 acres by the end of the 17th-century. The castle was in a ruinous state and Col. Sadlier rebuilt it and doubled it in size, adding a second overlapping rectangular section in the mid-17th-century and, presumably, the unusually tall chimneys. It is a fine example of the transition from basic fortified castles to more comfortable castles or houses, albeit still with fortification as evident from the mâchicoulis.
In 1745 a Francis Sadlier, grandson of Col. Thomas Sadlier, built the imposing Sopwell Hall to become the principal and statement house on the estate, with the castle then uninhabited. The Sopwell Estate ownership passing to the Trench family in 1797 through the marriage of his daughter, Mary. The Trench family remaining in ownership until 1985, when the current owners purchased Sopwell. Whilst in need of complete restoration the castle appears to be largely structurally sound and comprising some 3,976 square feet or 369 square metres could provide useful additional amenity, were it required and subject to any necessary consents. It stands within a walled enclosure that also contains the Bailiff’s House and a long range of single storey outbuildings.
The Bailiff’s House comprises some 1,480 square feet or 137.5 square metres of potential accommodation.
The outbuildings extend to some 5,812 square feet or 540 square metres of net internal space. Killaleigh Castle and the Bailiff’s House are positioned a short distance from Sopwell Hall and can be accessed from an internal roadway or independently from the rear or castle entrance.
THE LOCATION Sopwell Hall is situated in a triangle of the historic towns of Birr, Roscrea and Nenagh. Nearby Ballingarry village is a five minute drive away and has a church and ‘The Glue Pot’ pub. The small town of Borrisokane is some 5 miles or 8 kilometres away and includes a primary and secondary school, a doctor’s surgery with adjacent health centre, a butcher and two grocery stores, a petrol station, pubs and a hardware shop. Alternatively, Cloughjordan town is equidistant. The larger towns of Birr, Roscrea and Nenagh providing wider shopping, schooling and leisure amenity. Birr, a designated Irish Heritage Town has wide streets with many elegant Georgian buildings. Birr Castle and Science Centre includes the great Leviathan of Parsonstown astronomical telescope that was the largest in the World from 1845 to 1917. The town annually hosts a Vintage Week and Art Festival, The Irish Game and Country Fair, and The Irish Hot Air Balloon Festival; there being a strong aviation link with The Ormond Flying Club based at Birr Airfield. Birr Theatre and Arts Centre is a local cultural and social amenity for the arts, dance, film, music and theatre. Roscrea town provides access to the M7 motorway, about a 20 minute drive from Sopwell Hall and accessing Dublin and Limerick cities with an array of shopping facilities, theatres, restaurants, pubs, wine bars, café’s, boutique salons and leisure spas. The M7 giving motorway access to Dublin, Shannon and Cork International airports. Equestrian, walking and cycling facilities are abundant in the area with Sopwell Hall within easy reach of mountain trails. The Slieve Bloom, Silvermine, Slieve Bernagh, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Felim and Arra mountains all being nearby. Locally there are walking trails in the Knocknacree Woods and Scohaboy Bog and of course privately within Sopwell estate itself. For equestrian enthusiasts there are many riding schools and clubs in the area and the local Ormond Hunt has in the past met at Sopwell Hall. Horse racing takes places at Tipperary and Limerick. Golf courses within a 30-minute drive include those in Nenagh, Roscrea and Birr. Nearby Lough Derg, less than a 20-minute drive from Sopwell, is referred to as Ireland’s Pleasure Lake and is perfect for the water sport enthusiast with good sailing breezes and uncluttered expanses providing superb conditions for sailing, windsurfing and cruising. Lough Derg is the largest lake on the River Shannon, the longest river in Ireland and Great Britain. A harbour and marina in Portumna town provides cruiser boat rental and there are further harbours nearby at Terryglass and Dromineer, which has one of the oldest yacht clubs in the world. Lough Derg offers good trout, pike and bream fishing and walks on the Lough Derg Way. Sopwell Hall offers many amenities within the estate with historic bridleways and walking paths throughout the open parkland and mature woods. With over 90 acres of woodland there is also potential to create a small sporting estate. Tranquil and private Sopwell is a preserve of wildlife. Ballingarry village 2.8 miles or 4.6 km, 6 minutes driving Birr town 10.3 miles or 16.6 km, 18 minutes driving Roscrea town (M7 motorway) 12 miles or 19.3 km, 20 minutes driving Nenagh town 13.3 miles or 21.4 km, 22 minutes driving Dublin city 93 miles or 150 km, 55 minutes driving Limerick city 39 miles or 63 km, 54 minutes driving Cork city 99 miles or 160 km, 2 hours 4 minutes driving Dublin airport 1 hour 48 minutes driving Shannon airport 1 hour 10 minutes driving Cork airport 2 hours 5 minutes driving. Property specific Eircode postcode E53 YN99 GPS LOCATION 59.9924039 (latitude), -8.0490516 (longitude) Gate Lodge (entrance gates) Eircode E53 AY94 GPS LOCATION 52.9962936 (latitude), -8.0462998 (longitude) Elevation above sea level: 77 metres or 252 feet
Accommodation
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
GRACIOUS ACCOMMODATION From the gravelled forecourt to the front of the house wide limestone steps lead through both outer and inner doors into the magnificent reception hall. Spacious and well-proportioned it is lined with distinctive fluted Doric pilasters and divided by a screen of arches. Fine ceiling plasterwork includes twin ceiling roses and decorative cornicing. The large marble chimney piece is original to the 1745 build and has an open fire.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
An interconnecting arch links to the stair hall. To the left of the main hall is a study and to the right a charming timber panelled morning room, with original marble chimneypiece and decorative ceiling work. The drawing room and dining room are each impressive and, again, accessed from the central main hall. Displaying the very best features and proportions of fine Georgian architecture each is filled with natural light, has impressive large marble chimneypieces with open fires and ornate cornicing.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
The stair hall incorporates a fine 18th-century carved timber staircase lit from a large Venetian window on the stair return and from the large top-lit domed landing above. Concealed doors lead to a guest WC and a roof terrace. A secondary stair hall accesses the floor below and the upper floors. A small kitchen on this level serves the dining room. A feature of the main reception rooms and, indeed, the entire house is the abundance of natural light with ample tall and large glazed windows.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers. Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale Colliers January 2025
The broad carved staircase, complete with original handrail and spindles, leads to a generously large landing on the first floor. Impressive architecturally, there are six matching scagliola sienna marble columns and a large, perfectly proportioned domed ceiling, with a glazed atrium at the apex, which is surrounded by fine plasterwork. There are five principal bedrooms and four bathrooms on this floor. The Master Bedroom Suite occupies the south-eastern corner. The bedroom enjoys a dual aspect and has marble chimneypiece with an open fire and interconnecting doors to an en-suite bathroom and to Bedroom 2, which could be used as a dressing room and links to its own bathroom. The bathroom, off the master bedroom, is charming with the design inspired by a bathroom in the Chateau de Rambouillet in France. Bedroom 3 has a dual aspect with fine parkland views towards Knockshegowna Hill (Cnoc Sí Uwa, which translates as ‘Hill of Fairy Una’) and an interconnecting door to Bedroom 4, which in turn connects to an en-suite bathroom. These rooms combined could make a large suite with a bedroom, dressing room and bathroom. Bedroom 5 retains the original 1745 oak panelling and has an interconnecting door to a shared bathroom with Bedroom 4 and/or can utilise a family bathroom across the hall. A laundry room with linen shelving is positioned off a secondary stair hall, which accesses the second floor and floors below. The second floor provides five further bedrooms and a bathroom and has a games room, study, large store and access to the roof.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
The lower ground floor has a large axial central hall that opens at ground level to both the courtyard and the sunken garden. It includes a sitting room with an open fire. A large kitchen has glazed double French doors to a South facing garden terrace, an open fireplace with a vintage water heater, and a range of fitted timber wall and floor cupboards with solid timber worktop, a large Belfast style sink, an integrated Viking Professional electric oven with six gas hob plates, clay tiled flooring, spot lighting and interconnecting door to a pantry. The old servant’s hall has an open fireplace and 5 recessed alcoves. The Wine Cellar has 20 wine bins and additional racks. A boot room, store, laundry, boiler room, estate office and staff apartment complete the accommodation on this floor. The staff apartment has a bedroom, bathroom and small living room or lobby. The Studio is positioned in the upper floor of the adjacent courtyard buildings and is a large space comprising some 660 square feet or 61 square metres and has a solid fuel stove, fitted cupboards, book shelving and timber flooring.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
THE COURTYARD Positioned immediately adjacent to the main house the courtyard comprises an impressive range of single and two-storey cut-stone outbuildings that include a Coach House, garaging, a Studio, workshop and various stores. Exceptional expenditure on their building is apparent as they are extensive and surprisingly elaborate for outbuildings. They are thought to have been constructed between circa 1866 to 68 following the receipt of substantial monies for the sale of estate lands. Combined they extend to some 3,346 square feet or 311 square metres of net internal space.
THE BAILIFF’S HOUSE The Bailiff’s House, originally a steward’s house, is positioned adjacent to Killaleigh Castle within the walled enclosure. Whilst in need of restoration the structure appears generally sound and the layout is very pleasing. It extends to some 1,480 square feet or 137.5 square metres.
THE GARDENER’S COTTAGE The Gardener’s Cottage is positioned within the Walled Garden, abutting the wall at the very north-western end. It extends to some 722 square feet or 67 square metres over 2 storeys.
FRONT GATE LODGE The Front Gate Lodge is architecturally impressive and is positioned just inside the main entrance gates to Sopwell Hall it is set out over a single storey and extends to 566 square feet or 52.6 square metres. There is a living room, kitchen, bedroom bathroom and laundry room and provides useful accommodation.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
BACK GATE LODGE The Back Gate Lodge or Castle Gate Lodge is positioned at the top of the rear entrance. Extremely picturesque the accommodation extends to 681 square feet or 63.3 square metres over 2 storeys and includes a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. It has been recently restored and provides charming accommodation.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Gate lodge at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
Features
The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale Colliers January 2025
RESTORATION AND UPGRADING Acquired by the present owners in 1985 both Sopwell Hall, the outbuildings and the lands required substantial restoration and upgrading, therefore comprehensive programme of work has been undertaken in the subsequent years. Conservation works included the repair and restoration of timber panelling and plasterwork and all the windows being taken out and refurbished. Fine Georgian chimneypieces were sourced and installed to replace three less suitable Victorian ones added in the circa 1866-68 remodelling. The entire house was re-wired and re-plumbed, and a modern oil-fired central heating system installed, complete with an efficient condenser boiler and thermostatic controls for zoned areas. A smoke alarm and monitored security alarm were installed. Rooms were re-commissioned to provide or create five bathrooms, two new kitchens, a laundry room, boiler house and a roof terrace. Great emphasis was given to ensuring security of services with a private well water supply added to augment a mains water supply, a powerful generator installed to provide back-up in the event of an outage on the mains electric supply and two large (3000 gallon or 11,500 litre) oil tanks installed to provide long term on-site storage. Woodland on the estate providing a stable supply of logs for the open fires in the house. Sympathetic to the historic importance of the house and yet cognisant to create a country home suitable for the 21st-century the extensive restoration and improvements works undertaking over the last 35 years present Sopwell Hall as a comfortable and elegant home. A fine collection of period furnishings adds to the overall charm of Sopwell. While not included in the sale it is understood the majority could possibly be subsequently purchased by a successful buyer. TENURE and POSSESSION The property is offered for sale freehold and it is the intention to provide vacant possession on completion of the sale. FIXTURES and FITTINGS All fitted carpets and curtains will remain in the property on closing and will become the property of the purchaser. The light fittings, furniture and any other chattels within the house or other buildings are excluded from the sale. As are the garden statuary, ornaments and machinery. The majority are understood to be available by separate negotiation and/or the owner retains the right to hold an auction of the contents of the house on the premises prior to a sale completion. RIGHTS OF WAY The property is offered for sale subject to and with the benefits of all matters and rights of way which affect the property. It is understood there are no Rights of Way across the property, aside from the small Wayleave outlined.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.
BER Details
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Killaleigh Castle at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Killaleigh Castle at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Killaleigh Castle at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Killaleigh Castle at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.Killaleigh Castle at Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale January 2025 photograph courtesy Colliers.The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale Colliers January 2025The Sopwell Hall Estate, Ballingarry, Tipperary for sale Colliers January 2025
To arrange a viewing for this significant estate please call Callum Bain Mobile +353 86 8118367 or Email callum.bain@colliers.com Joint Agent David Ashmore – Ireland Sotheby’s International Realty
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement house, built c.1745. Hipped slate roof with rendered chimneystacks. Ruled-and-lined render to walls, with cut stone cornice and eaves platband. Cut-stone block architraves to all windows on ground and first floors of front and east side elevations. Timber sliding sash windows, four-over-four pane to upper floors, two-over-two pane to basement at rear. Segmental-headed windows to basement of front elevation. Timber panelled front door having round-headed block architrave with plain fanlight. Cut-stone doorcase with pilasters to double-leaf panelled door in south elevation. Flight of limestone steps up to main entrance and balustrade to basement level added in 1860s.
Appraisal
Sopwell Hall was built in the mid-eighteenth century by Colonel Francis Sadleir and the house has been attributed to Francis Bindon who had connections with the owner. The roof and part of the interior of Sopwell Hall were remodelled in 1866-68 and extensive outbuildings added. Constructed of fine quality materials, with crisp cut limestone details of particular note, the building is well maintained and in good condition after many years of restoration work carried out by the present owners. Located on extensive landscaped grounds which incorporate a seventeenth-century fortified house, two gate lodges, cut-stone outbuildings and a walled garden.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Two yards of single and two-storey outbuildings, built c.1870, enclosed by high stone walls located north-west of the main house at Sopwell Hall. Hipped slate roofs having cut-stone chimneystacks. Exposed squared limestone walls having cut stone quoins, cornices, sills and surrounds to openings. Small-pane timber windows having top opening ten-over-fifteen pane casements. Timber battened doors. Limestone carriage arch having ball finials and flanked by niches, leading to eastern yard, with limestone piers to gateway at north side and to western yard. Eastern yard has multiple-bay single-storey outbuilding with carriage arch and six-bay outbuilding with two-storey centre bays. Western yard has single-storey L-plan outbuilding with advanced and higher centre blocks with segmental-headed carriage arches and flanked by lower two-bay blocks. Three-bay two-storey building to north-west corner of walled garden, having pitched slate roof with chimneystack.
Appraisal
A complex of outbuildings of the highest quality constructed at the same time as the remodelling of the eighteenth-century Sopwell Hall in the late 1860s and replacing all of the original outbuildings. The buildings retain the majority oftheir original features and character and are in good condition following recent restoration.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached three-bay single-storey gate lodge, built c.1865, with pedimented entrance portico in antis. Hipped slate roof with rendered chimneystack. Lined-and-ruled rendered walls having cut limestone portico, quoins and plinth. Segmental-headed openings, paired to gables, with one-over-one pane timber sash windows and moulded limestone surrounds with brackets beneath sills. Timber panelled door with overlight, set in square-headed opening inside portico, latter with fluted Doric columns. Ornamental cast-iron piers and gate flanked by rectangular limestone piers with cast-and-wrought-iron gates and railings; cast-iron railings, cut limestone piers and rendered quadrant walls.
Appraisal
This gate lodge is notable for its apparent architectural design. The classically-inspired portico is an interesting addition to this small-scale building and is clearly the work of skilled craftsmen, as are the carved limestone window surrounds, sills and brackets and the segmental-headed windows which enrich and enliven the façade. The gates are highly decorative and add further interest to the site. This building forms part of a significant group of related structures with the buildings of Sopwell Hall demesne.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached three-bay two-storey former steward’s house with advanced gabled end bay and hipped porch, built c.1875, having single-storey annex to southwest. Pitched slate roofs having cut-stone chimneystack and ceramic ridge tiles. Squared limestone walls, rendered in parts. Timber mullioned and transomed casement windows, one dormer. Timber panelled door in shouldered-arch opening. Stone outbuildings to rear having pitched slate roofs and bellcote.
Appraisal
Built immediately west of Killaleigh Castle, a 17th century fortified house, the construction of the steward’s house involved the removal of part of the medieval bawn wall. Alterations to Sopwell Hall and the rebuilding of the outbuildings was carried out in the late 1860s, and the steward’s house is likely to have been built as part of this phase of work. An exceptionally long outbuilding is located to the northeast of the castle, part of which predates the later nineteenth-century phase of work. Both the outbuildings and the steward’s house are of the highest quality construction with fine stonework, and their location on an archaeological site is of added importance.
Sopwell Hall, Ballingarry, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
The Tipperary Gentry. Volume 1. By William Hayes and Art Kavanagh. Published by Irish Family Names, c/o Eneclann, Unit 1, The Trinity Enterprise Centre, Pearse St, Dublin 2, 11 Emerald Cottages, Grand Canal St, Dublin 4 and Market Square, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland. 2003.
Sadlier
p. 220. There appears to have been two separate families of Sadlier in Tipperary. Thomas Sadleir, a Colonel in Cromwell’s army was the ancestor of the Sadleirs of Sopwell Hall and Castletown in Tipperary. At various times in the 1650s Colonel Sadleir was governor of Wexford and of Galway. While he was in Galway he was given teh task of looking after the priests who were in prisons in Ireland. He received £100 from the government to move them to Inishboffin and build cabins there for them. The colonel was allotted land in Tipperary in lieu of his pay. He probably bought up debentures too. By the end of the 17th century he had over 5,000 acres of land.
His great grandson, Francis Sadleir of Sopwell Hall, had no son and he cut off the entail to the family lands, as he had no liking for his cousin Thomas of Castletown. When he died in 1797 his estes were divided between his two daughters.
This family was represented thereafter by the family of Castletown.
The other Sadleir family in Tipperary was descended from John Sadleir, an adventurer, who did not come to Ireland until the 1660s, when his lands had been secured under the Act of Settlement….
p. 221. Clement Sadleir was the third son of John Sadleir of Ballintemple, who was married to Grace the daughter of William Chadwick of Ballinard. They had seven sons but only three of them produced sons from whom descended the Sadleirs of more modern times. They were Clement of Shronell, Nicholas of golden Garden and Sadleirs Wells and Ricahrd of Holycross and Scalaheen.
Clement of Shronell had a son William who seems to have died in the early 1790s, and it was his son, Clement, who married Johanna Scully.
Apparently named after an English property, Sopwell in Hertfordshire, which was inherited by the Sadleir family. In 1655 a Cromwellian soldier, Colonel Thomas Sadleir, was granted Kinelagh Castle, county Tipperary, which he renamed Sopwell Hall. This property remained in Sadleir possession until it was inherited by Mary Sadleir who, in 1754, had married Frederick Trench of Woodlawn, county Galway, the parents of the 1st Lord Ashtown. The present house was built by Mary’s father, Francis Sadleir, in the mid 18th century. Wilson refers to it as the residence of Mr. Sadlier in 1786. Sopwell Hall was left to Francis Trench, brother of 1st Lord Ashtown, who was living at Sopwell Hall in 1814. In 1837 Lewis records the Trenches in possession and writes that “on the demesne are the ruins of the ancient castle formerly occupied by the Sadleir family”. The Ordnance Survey Name Books, in 1840, refer to Sopwell as “a spacious building, the residence of Stewart Trench”. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation the 2nd Lord Ashtown, son of Francis, was occupying the house, valued at £40 and held by him in fee. By 1906 Sopwell was valued at £80 and occupied by the Honourable Cosby G. Trench. The Trench family were still resident at Sopwell Hall in the 1970s. In 1840 the Ordnance Survey Name Books noted that Sopwell was one of the largest demesnes in the country.
Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary dates from c.1745 but the house was extensively remodelled in the second half of the 1860s and it was at that time that the first-floor landing was given its present appearance. Exceptionally wide, the space is generously lit by a circular glazed dome resting on a sequence of shallow arches. These are supported by what appear to be marble columns. In fact, the latter are only painted and one quirky detail is that the surface pattern of each column features a number of human profiles, said to represent members of the Trench family who were then owners of the property.
Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Sopwell Hall, County Tipperary, photograph by Robert O’Byrne.
Kinelagh Castle, County Tipperary is likely to have begun as an O’Carroll tower houses built in the 15th century. In 1655 the land on which it stands was granted to an English solder, Colonel Thomas Sadleir who renamed the building Sopwell Hall after his family home in Hertfordshire. He doubled the size of the property by adding the section to the right, and also appears to have inserted at least some of the cut-stone windows and the corbelled corner turrets. The Sadleirs remained in residence until c.1745 when a smart new house, also called Sopwell Hall, was built a short distance away.
Irish Historic Houses 
