Lismore, County Cavan, entrance front c. 1880. Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Bence-Jones, 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
p. 186. “(Nesbitt, sub Burrowes/LGI1912; Burrowes;IFR; Lucas-Clements/IFR) A house of probably ca. 1730 and very likely by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The main block was of two storeys over a high basement, with a pediment breakfront centre and a widely spaced Venetian window in both storeys. There were two bays either side of the centre. Overlapping “tower” wings of one storey over basement and one bay. Detached two storey six bay office wings, joined to house by screen walls. These wings have gable-ends with curvilinear gables facing the sides of the house; the outermost bay of each, in the front elevation is also gabled; the gables here are probably originally curvilinear also, though they are now straight. Round headed windows in lower storey and basement of house and in lower storey of office wings.The house had a solid roof parapet with urns and oculi in the upper storey of the office wings. Originally the seat of the Nesbitts, passed to the Burrowes through the marriage of Mary Nesbitt [Mary Anne, born 1826, daughter of John Nesbitt and Elizabeth Tatam] to James Burrowes [1820-1860, of Stradone House, County Cavan] in 1854; Lismore passed to the Lucas-Clements family through the marriage of Miss Rosamund Burrowes to the late Major Shuckburgh Lucas-Clements in 1922.
“Having stood empty for many years, the house fell into ruin and was demolished ca 1952, with the exception of the “tower” wings. The office wings are now used as farm buildings, and the family now live in the former agent’s house, an early house with a Victorian wing and other additions.”
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. 39. A house dating from c. 1730 and attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce. This house was very much in the style of Sir John Vanburgh, his cousin. the house became a ruin in this century and the central block except for one tower was demolished c. 1952. The flanking pavillions still remain.“
Of the original Lismore House, attributed to Edward Lovett Pearce (1699-1733), only the two wings and tower survive. The house was restored by Richard and Sonya Beer. [1]
It was probably built for Thomas Nesbitt, (c1672-1750), of Grangemore, County Westmeath, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1720, MP for Cavan Borough, 1715-50 [2].
Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.The Inventory tells us it is: “Symmetrical pair of detached six-bay two-storey flanking wings to former Lismore House, built c.1730, having advanced outermost end bays to each block, single-bay two-stage flanking tower formerly attached to south corner of house having single-bay extension to north…Rubble stone walls having red brick quoins, eaves course, and string course. Red brick surrounds to oculi at first floor over round-headed ground-floor windows and central segmental-headed door.“Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: “Blind lunette and oculus to gables facing former house.”Photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: “Tower having mansard slate roof, rubble stone walls with cut-stone platbands, cut-stone surrounds to window openings, round-headed openings with raised keystone and impost blocks to former ground floor, and segmental-headed openings to former basement level.”
Ancestry: See Cosby Nesbitt (1718-1786) and descendants.
Lismore Lodge is a very attractive early c1800 period house and gate lodge. The main house with six bays and two storey extends to 9,680 sq ft and is bound by a large stone wall. The property is believed to be a Stewarts house which was once part of The Lismore estate.
THE NESBITTS WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY CAVAN, WITH 9,735 ACRES
ANDREW NESBITT, of Brenter (presumed to be son of Thomas Nesbitt, of Newbottle, and grandson of George Nesbitt, who died in 1590), assignee from the Earl of Annandale, of the estates of Brenter and Malmusock, County Donegal, was father of
ANDREW NESBITT, who served in the army of CHARLES I in Ireland; whose eldest son,
THOMAS NESBITT (c1672-1750), of Grangemore, County Westmeath, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1720, MP for Cavan Borough, 1715-50, married twice, and was father of
COSBY NESBITT (1718-91), of Lismore, MP for Cavan Borough, 1750-68, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1764, who succeeded to the Cavan estates on the death of his father.
His eldest son,
COLONEL THOMAS NESBITT (c1744-1820), of Lismore, MP for Cavan Borough, 1768-1800, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1769, married and was father of
COSBY NESBITT JP DL, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1798, Major, Cavan Militia, whose second son,
ALEXANDER NESBITT DL (1817-86), of Lismore House, County Cavan, and Old Lands, Sussex, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1862, died without issue and was succeeded by his sister,
MARY ANNE BURROWES, who espoused, in 1854, James Edward Burrowes, and had issue, an only child,
THOMAS COSBY BURROWES JP DL (1856-1925), of Lismore, County Cavan, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1888, married, in 1885, Anna Frances Maxwell, sister of 10th Baron Farnham, and had issue,
Eleanor Mary (1886-1962); Rosamund Charlotte, b 1891.
Rosamund Charlotte Cosby Burrowes, of Lismore, married, in 1922, Major Shuckburgh Upton Lucas-Clements in 1922, and had issue,
Elizabeth Anne, b 1922; Thomas, b 1925; John, b 1930; Robert Henry, b 1930.
LISMORE HOUSE, near Crossdoney, County Cavan, was built ca 1730.
The main block was of two storeys over a high basement, with a pediment breakfront centre and a widely spaced Venetian window in both storeys.
There were two bays either side of the centre, overlapping tower wings of one storey each.
The house had a solid roof parapet with urns and oculi in the upper storey of the office wings.
Lismore passed to the Lucas-Clements family through the marriage of Miss R Burrowes to Major Shuckburgh Lucas-Clements in 1922.
Having stood empty for many years, the house fell into ruin and was demolished ca 1952, with the exception of a tower wing.
The estate is three miles from the Farnham estate and hotel.
The office wings were used as farm buildings and appear to have been converted to modern living accomodation.
You know the expression, ’All to one side like Crossdoney’? Well the reason that the modest little village is all to one side is largely due to a house built it in the late 1700s by the Nesbitt family. An old stone wall, the like of which the landed gentry would erect to keep poachers and commoners at bay hides the enormous Georgian home from motorists stopped at the village’s T-junction, deciding whether to head for Ballinagh or Killeshandra. From the 1980s that stone grey edifice hid the true extent to which the proud old home had fallen into dereliction. Likewise, for the last four years it has also hidden its incredible revival under the ownership of Richard and Sonya Beer since 2014. The transformation over the last four years is worthy of TV shows Grand Designs or The Great House Revival. It’s stunning.
Over the course of two years they had viewed maybe 30 to 40 different houses around Ireland. They had even searched abroad. “We had notions at one stage of maybe moving to France, we actually went and had a look at a few places, but we decided very quickly it wasn’t for us – you have three kids living in Dublin, what’s the point of moving to France?” A professional photographer for auctioneering agents, Richard happened upon Lismore Lodge on the way to a job in Killeshandra, back in 2013. He stopped outside the wall to take a swift peek, and as there was no ’for sale’ sign, he didn’t pay it much heed. The listed building had fallen into ruin since Dr Hannah – a surgeon in the hospital – had lived in it in the 1980s. Two owners, but no homemakers had followed. “We had been looking for two years probably for ’a project’ – I mean a project that needed maybe a couple of bathrooms and a new kitchen or something,” recalls Richard with a laugh. With that first glance he decided the derelict property was “too far gone”. It was only when he saw the property online and he and his wife Sonya travelled up from their County Clare home to see it first-hand that Richard realised he’d been here before. This time he was smitten. “I had a vision of what it would look like when it was done – and that was always the goal,” says Richard. “But you didn’t share it,” quips Sonya, who has clearly invested just as much of herself in the project. Did it not seem like it would be just too much work? “Well it was too much, but the thing that sold it to us was the site, and the mature trees and all. You couldn’t buy anything like this in Germany.” It’s understandable that Sonya was dubious considering the state the property was in. They got an architect to give it a once over from a structural point of view, but having photographed homes all his working life, and with two renovation jobs under his belt with their Victorian period home in Dublin and cottage in County Clare, Richard was determined to proceed. The Beers eventually bought the house for €140,000, which sounds like a steel for the stately property it is now – it seems foolhardy when you consider the state of the property back when the sale went through in late summer 2014. At least it came with 14 acres. To finance the purchase and renovation works they sold up their Dublin property, but sadly at the bottom of the market. “We got a fraction of what we thought we’d get,” laments Richard. Lying derelict for 30 years or more, scavengers had taken what they could – copper cylinder from upstairs, lead from windows. One of the fireplaces was found amongst overgrown grass having been dumped in the garden. “There wasn’t one sheet of glass left in the whole house. And what happened was the rain was coming in [through leaks/holes in the roof] and it had nowhere to evaporate because all the windows and doors were sealed, so it was like an incubator for wet rot, dry rot, fungus and whatever you want.” Did you not think Lismore was too far gone? “The walls were two foot thick and were straight, so I mean a two foot wall is not going to go anywhere,” said Richard. “Well we thought that,” offers Sonya, as we peer into a room which is now beautiful and airy with a view of the garden’s mature trees and the village beyond. They had intended inserting a steel support in an upstairs bedroom wall which had a major crack running across it. However it collapsed as a builder tested the reliability of a supporting beam, with 50-60 tonnes of stone coming crashing down. Photos of the scene are truly eye-popping. “That wall could easily have killed somebody,” he accurately recalls.
Nuclear explosion
Separately a relatively modern brick chimney breast in the same room later collapsed and smashed through a section of a newly refurbished floor downstairs. “It was like a nuclear explosion when that thing came down,” remarked Richard. They swiftly realised that the work couldn’t be done within budget by a contractor. “The place was atrocious,” summarises Richard. It got worse. “You could squeeze the water out of some of them with your bare hands,” he says of the timber supporting the roof,” says Richard. He adds: “The roof was still on it when we got here and then about two weeks after we arrived there was an unmerciful bang at one stage.” They discovered the roof in the downstairs dining room. They had hoped they could salvage more of the roof, but they finally retained approximately 15%. Original floors of only two rooms upstairs remain. Lismore Lodge was literally caving in around them. “We couldn’t go into the building upstairs for the first nine months or something like that – there was a carpet upstairs and that was holding everything up basically,” he says with a laugh, that suggests he’s only slightly exaggerating. “It was just ridiculous, and all the plaster was off the walls.” Such perilous support structures where common place: a central heating pipe alone was holding up a collapsed support beam for the floor above the kitchen. “Until you clear everything, you don’t know what’s underneath,” adds Sonya. In the ’Morning Room’, the plaster was still up on the walls, it still had fantastic cornice going around. We came in one day and the whole thing had slid down onto the floor – in one piece!” It quickly emerged that they would be unable to afford a contractor to carry out all of the necessary works within their budget, which they prefer to keep to themselves. Richard took on the role of project leader and employed what tradesmen their endless to-do list demanded first. The couple eagerly took a hands-on role in the work they could manage themselves. While the crash undermined the value they got for their previous home, it helped in that under-employed builders were available. “I wouldn’t want to start it now because you could be waiting months for some people – we were lucky with the plumber, the electrician – the fella who did the roof – they were all really good, and they didn’t mind that I mucked in as well,” says Richard. Whilst he who modestly thinks of himself as “an amateur”, he came up with the solution to supporting upstairs floors when you already have standing walls. They cemented in re-bars where the old joists were, and welded angle iron on top of that to provide a ledge and laid the new floor on the ledge rather than trying to bore huge holes into stone walls. “They were all very doubtful about that, but touch wood, that all worked out really well, because the floors are absolutely level upstairs. “It’s the only thing that’s straight,” add Sonya.
Challenge
Life on a building site was especially difficult in the first winter. “It was a bit of a challenge,” says Sonya, who admits to having been “fed up” at times. “The first nine months we were living in a caravan. It was very cold that winter.” They were constantly removing plaster, which is a particularly messy job, and could only wash up in a basin. “We used to drive to Dublin to one of our kids and have a shower in their house,” recalls Richard. They first concentrated on renovating a secondary home on the property, a little ‘Peacock House’, so called because Dr Hannah kept the flamboyant birds there. That gave them a “very cosy” base from which to attack the main home. Eventually the rebuild started to come together. “About a year ago, once we were fairly sure that we would be able to finish the house and not fall flat on our faces, we started to call the whole enterprise the Lazarus Project – back from the dead,” quips Richard. Walking around the Lismore on one of the most glorious days of the year confirms that all the Beers’ efforts in resuscitating this great house were rewarded. Entering each of the nine bedrooms, you have expect to hear the crescendo of the big reveal music you hear on TV renovation shows. The dining room, where they celebrated their first Christmas dinner having moved in last December, is truly amazing. The rustic kitchen is the Celt’s favourite. Stoves and ovens of varying sizes dominates an entire red brick wall of the kitchen. The internal walls of no less than seven flue had all collapsed, and had to be rebuilt by craftsmen. Richard shows the Celt a beehive bread oven behind an industrial metal door, before his excitement overtakes him as he brings us to the other end of the kitchen. “There’s a three quarter inch steel plate there so you can actually cook on that if you want to,” he enthuses. “Not that we’re going to,” adds Sonya. As the couple have blown their savings on restoring the home, some of the rooms are sparsely decorated, so there’s not quite the opulence you might expect of rooms of such proportions. They are no less stylish for their modesty of furnishings. Richard estimates that they are 97% finished the restoration, with painting and priming certain areas, and carrying out work in the woodland gardens, amongst the few jobs on the dwindling to-do list. Asked if he has any advice for someone thinking of taking on a renovation project, without hesitation, Richard replies: “Do it – its definitely worthwhile. If you can see – that you can come out the other end without either killing yourself or financially destroying yourself altogether, then I would certainly say do it because you get great satisfaction when you see it finished.”
Lisagoan, County Cavan, entrance front c. 1975, 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.
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
p. 185. (Humphrys/LGI1912) “A Classical house of ca 1820, built as a dower house for Ballyhaise. Diocletian window and doorcase recessed in tall arch; Wyatt windows. Bifurcating staircase, extending into bow at rear, the two flights being cantilevered out of the back wall of the house. Now a ruin.”
Not in national inventory
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. 39. Interesting, well planned, two storey, classical house of c. 1810. Stone tripartite doorcase with oval window above (which may originally have been Diocletian) all recessed in an arch. Built as the dower house to Ballyhaise for the Humphrey family. Now a ruin.
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.
p. 175. “(Wilson/IFR; Boyd-Rochfort/IFR) A two storey C19 castle of ca 1860, with small square turrets. Entrance arch of rough blocks of water-worn stone. Now the house of Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, formerly principal racehouse trainer of Queen Eliz II.”
Detached multiple-bay two-storey castellated country house with square-plan turrets, built c.1820. Range of outbuildings to west. Rubble stone boundary walls.
A castellated country house, that is an excellent example of architectural fashion in the nineteenth century. The related structures, including outbuildings and boundary walls add to its setting and context.
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.
p. 175. “An early C19 Tudor -Gothic house with gables, mullioned windows, a porte-cochere and tall octagonal and cylindrical chimneys. At the back is a pedimented house of ca 1800 facing the yard. Now owned by a religious order.”
Detached Tudor Revival U-plan four-bay two-storey house, built c.1845, having advanced gabled end bays, cut-stone porte-cochere to entrance in southern bay, end bays extend back as returns with lower six-bay wing to north-east. Now in use as education centre. Pitched slate roof with roll-top clay ridge tiles, cut-stone corbel course to verges, eaves broken by first floor windows. Slender elongated and castellated finials to gables at apex and on kneelers, oversailing detail to side gables with coved limestone verges. Ashlar limestone chimneystacks to ridges having triple octagonal-profile shafts on common plinth, cast-iron and uPVC rainwater goods. Ruled-and-lined rendered walls, roughcast rendered to rear, on raised plinth with tooled limestone sill course to first floor. Three-bay ashlar limestone port-cochere with castellated octagonal-profile clasping corner piers, carved parapet with sandstone crest, and Tudor-arch openings. Timber and uPVC casement windows, canted oriel window to first floor gable with panelled apron and parapet. Stained glass windows flanking doorcase and to mullioned stair window in rear gable with pointed lights, all having tooled limestone surrounds, hood mouldings, and sills. Tooled limestone doorcase with Doric pilasters and studded timber panelled double doors with corresponding Tudor arch panels over. Recent timber boarded doors to wings with dressed limestone surrounds, lintels, and keystones. Interior having heavily moulded cantilever stair, Tudor arch openings, and extensive vaulted plasterwork. Screen wall extends to north having Tudor-style gabled archway to side yard. Pitched slate outbuildings with recent additions forming two courtyards to north, with gabled breakfronts having cruciform finial, altered glazed coach house arches, half-dormer windows with timber bargeboards, and red brick and limestone surrounds. Courtyard complex entered through double-height Tudor archway of ashlar limestone, with voussoirs, pediment and hexagonal-profile finial. Heavily altered gate lodge to east with recent stone gate piers.
A significant and sprawling Tudor Revival structure, Kilnacrott House was built for Pierce Morton, on land granted to Robert Morton during the Cromwellian confiscations. It was used as a school from 1930 by the Holy Trinity Priory. The structure is replete with Tudor Revival detail, including arches, studded doors, and mullioned and oriel windows. The impressive port-cochere is perhaps the most dominant feature, creating a sense of drama and anticipation to the approach. Its sandstone crest bears the arms of its former inhabitants. Remarkably intact to the interior, this building and its well-executed and refined outbuildings form a large complex that is an interesting addition to the county’s architectural heritage.
This was formerly the hunting lodge of the Taylours, Marquess Headfort, who also owned Headfort House in County Meath. It was built for the First Earl of Bective, Thomas Taylour (1724-1795), son of Thomas Taylor 2nd Baronet Taylor, of Kells, Co. Meath, who served as MP for Kells and as a Privy Counsellor in Ireland. His mother was Sarah Graham from Platten, County Meath. Thomas the 1st Earl of Bective also served as Privy Counsellor. He married Jane Rowley, from Summerhill, County Meath.
It was their one of their younger sons, Reverend Henry Edward Taylour (1768-1852), who lived at Ardgillan Castle in Dublin. Their son Thomas the second earl became the 1st Marquess of Headfort, and added to Virginia Park Lodge and imported plants to create the parkland surrounding the Lodge. He married Mary Quin, from Quinsborough, County Clare. The Lodge passed through the family to the 4th Marquess, Geoffrey Thomas Taylour, son of the second wife of the 3rd Marquess. He married a music hall star, Rosie Boote, which scandalised society, but they moved to the Lodge and lived happily and had many children.
The Lodge was bought by chef Richard Corrigan in 2014, and he has undertaken much work to restore it to its former glory.
THE MARQUESSES OF HEADFORT WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY MEATH, WITH 7,544 ACRES
THEY OWNED 14,220 ACRES IN COUNTY CAVAN AND 12,851 ACRES IN WESTMORLAND
THOMAS TAYLOR, of Ringmer, Sussex, died in 1629, and was succeeded by his son,
JOHN TAYLOR, of Battle, Sussex, who died in 1638, leaving an only son,
THOMAS TAYLOR,
Who removed to Ireland, in 1653, in the train of Sir William Petty, in order to undertake the Down Survey, in which kingdom, he purchased lands in 1660, of which the town and townlands of Kells formed a portion, having disposed of his estates in England.
After the Restoration, he was appointed one of the sub-commissioners of the court of claims. In 1669-70, he was deputy receiver-general under Sir George Carteret, and immediately before his death he officiated as vice-treasurer and treasurer-at-war.
Mr Taylor married, in 1658, Anne, daughter of William Axtell, of Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, and had one surviving son, THOMAS, his heir, and one daughter, Anne, married to Sir Nicholas Acheson Bt.
He died in 1682, and was succeeded by his son,
THE RT HON THOMAS TAYLOR (1662-1736), who was created a baronet, 1704, designated of Kells, County Meath, and sworn of the Privy Council in 1726.
Sir Thomas wedded Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Cotton Bt, of Combermere, and had issue,
THOMAS, his heir; Robert (Very Rev), Dean of Clonfert; Henry; James; Henrietta; Salisbury; Anne.
Sir Thomas was succeeded by his eldest son,
THE RT HON SIR THOMAS TAYLOR (1657-96), 2nd Baronet, MP for Maidstone, 1689-96, Privy Counsellor, who married Mary, daughter of John Graham, of Platten, County Meath, and left, with a daughter, Henrietta, an only son,
THE RT HON SIR THOMAS TAYLOR, 3rd Baronet (1724-95), KP, MP for Kells, 1747-60, who wedded, in 1754, Jane, eldest daughter of the Rt Hon Hercules Langford Rowley, by Elizabeth, Viscountess Langford, and had issue,
THOMAS, his successor; Robert, a general in the army; Clotworthy, created Baron Langford; Henry Edward, in holy orders; Henrietta.
Sir Thomas was elevated to the peerage, in 1760, in the dignity of Baron Headfort; and advanced to a viscountcy, in 1762,as Viscount Headfort.
His lordship was further advanced, in 1766, to the dignity of an earldom, as Earl of Bective.
In 1783 he was installed as a Founder Knight of St Patrick (KP), and sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland.
His lordship was succeeded by his eldest son,
THOMAS, 2nd Earl (1757-1829), who espoused, in 1778, Mary, only daughter and heir of George Quin, of Quinsborough, County Clare, and had issue,
THOMAS, his successor; George; Mary; Elizabeth Jane.
His lordship was created, in 1800, MARQUESS OF HEADFORT.
He was succeeded by his eldest son,
THOMAS, 2nd Marquess (1787-1870), KP, MP for County Meath, 1812-29, Lord Lieutenant of County Cavan, 1831-70, who wedded firstly, in 1822, Olivia, daughter of Sir John Stevenson, and had issue,
THOMAS, his successor; Robert; John Henry; Olivia; Mary Juliana; Virginia Frances Zerlina.
His lordship espoused secondly, in 1853, Frances, daughter of John Livingstone Martyn.
He was succeeded by his eldest son,
THOMAS, 3rd Marquess, KP PC (1822-94), High Sheriff of County Meath, 1844, Cavan, 1846, who espoused firstly, in 1842, Amelia, only child of William Thompson MP, and had issue,
He married secondly, in 1875, Emily Constantia, daughter of the Hon Eustace John Wilson-Patten, and had further issue,
GEOFFREY THOMAS, his successor; Beatrix.
His lordship was succeeded by his surviving son,
GEOFFREY THOMAS, 4th Marquess (1878-1943), a Senator of the Irish Free State, 1922-28, who wedded, in 1901, Rose, daughter of Charles Boote, and had issue,
TERENCE GEOFFREY THOMAS, his successor; William Desmond; Millicent Olivia Mary.
The heir apparent is the present holder’s son, Thomas Rupert Charles Christopher Taylour, styled Earl of Bective (b 1989).
The Taylour family became very much involved in the political life of the locality, and several members of the family served as MPs for Kells and the county of Meath.
They were also a “Patrick Family”, the 1st Earl, and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Marquesses all having been appointed Knights of St Patrick.
His seat, Headfort House, in County Meath, was the only Adam house in Ireland.
In 1901 the 4th Marquess, an eminent horticulturist, caused a sensation when he converted to Rome to marry a showgirl called Rosie Boote.
A figure of great dignity, she remained the dominant personality in the family during young Michael’s youth and early adult life.
Virginia, in the county of Cavan, was named after ELIZABETH I, “the Virgin Queen”.
It owes its origin to the plantation of Ulster in 1609.
The lands eventually passed into the possession of Lucas Plunkett, Earl of Bective, a Roman Catholic, who was later created Earl of Fingall.
It can also be said that Lucas Plunkett, along with his son Christopher, frustrated the plans of the Government to proceed with the development of the town and its incorporation during his tenure.
He was sympathetic to the rebel Irish and sided with them against the planters during the 1641 Rebellion and the Williamite Wars of 1688-91, earning him the label of ‘traitor’.
Consequently it fell to Thomas, 1st Marquess of Headfort, and his successors, to fulfil the patent in relation to the development of the town in the second half of the 18th century and 19th century – the patent which was originally granted to Captain Ridgeway in 1612.
Lord Headfort maintained a beautiful park beside Lough Ramor, where he had a hunting lodge (above) in plain, rambling, Picturesque cottage style; a two-storey house with a three-bay centre and single-storey, three-bay wings.
The family often stayed here during the summer or autumn months, between 1750 and 1939.
The former hunting lodge, located on the shore of Lough Ramor, is now a hotel, Virginia Park Lodge.
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.
p. 41. “(Story/IFR) A three storey three bay mid-C18 house, built ca 1745 by Ven Joseph Story, Archdeacon of Kilmore. Venetian window over pedimented tripartite doorway. Two storey wing.”
Detached Palladian three-bay three-storey over basement country house, built c.1745, having Venetian window over central pedimented tripartite door opening, two-storey wing to east, and five-bay elevation to rear. Hipped slate roof with moulded ashlar cornice, rendered stacks to side elevations, replacement rainwater goods. Replacement ruled-and-lined rendered walls to front elevation. Roughcast rendered walls having block-and-start ashlar quoins to rear and sides. Graduated openings having cut-stone surrounds with raised keystone, stone sills, and replacement uPVC windows. Pedimented entrance with Doric pilasters framing square-headed door and flanking side lights. Nine-panelled door having raised and fielded panels opens to wide flight of cut stone steps. Square-profile dressed stone gate piers set in roughcast rendered walls with ashlar copings, flanking replacement gates. Complex of outbuildings to north-east having slate roofs, rubble stone walls with brick and stone dressed openings.
A substantial country house of balanced proportions and restrained Palladian detailing that retains much of its original character and form. It employs several Classical features including the arrangement of the tripartite doorcase with Venetian window above to first floor and architraved surrounds to openings. Despite the plastic replacement windows the house retains its imposing presence and classic appearance. The house is associated with nearby Kilmore Cathedral having been constructed by the Ven. Joseph Story (d. 1767), Archdeacon of Kilmore, and this connection contributes to the historical and social significance of the house.
Descended from Bishop Joseph Story of Kilmore and his wife Sophia Gore, daughter of Sir William Gore of Castle Gore, county Mayo, the Story family were settled in county Cavan from the mid 18th century. Robert Story or Storey, was one of the principal lessors in the parish of Cloone, barony of Carrigallen, county Leitrim, at the time of Griffith’s Valuation. Joseph Story, whose address is given as Bingfield, was the owner of 1479 acres in Leitrim in 1876. Bingfield House, north east of Crossdoney, county Cavan is an early -mid 18th century three story mansion. [34 H374016]
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.
p. 38. “A C18 house consisting of a 2 storey centre block, joined by screen walls to flanking wings. Centre block of three bays; tripartite doorway with pediment on console brackets; keystones over ground floor windows.”
Bellamont Forest, Cootehill, Co Cavan – maybe gardens open
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.
p. 37. “(Coote, Bellamont, E/DEP; O’Gowan/IFR) One of the most perfect examples in the British Isles of a Palladian villa; built ca 1730 for Thomas Coote, Lord Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland, to the design of his nephew, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce; inspired in particular by Palladio’s Rotunda at Vincenze and his Villa Pisani at Montagnana. Of red brick, with ashlar facings; two storeys over a rusticated basement, with a mezzanine fitted in at the sides. The upper storey treated as an attic, above the cornice. Five bay front with pedimented Doric portico; side elevations with central Venetian windows, the centre light of each being blind; one of them having entablatures and recessed columns, the other more simply treated. The hall has a high coved ceiling with a modillion cornice and a moulding in the keyhole pattern; the walls are decorated with rondels containing busts, some of which are said to represent members of the Coote family. The saloon has a richly ornamented coffered ceiling and a pedimented doorcase. The dining room has a deeply coved coffered ceiling (described by Dr. Craig as ‘eminently characteristic of Pearce’); and a screen of engaged fluted Ionic columns at one end. The bedrooms are arranged around a central upper hall, lit by an oval lantern enriched by plasterwork. The coved and coffered ceiling of the library dates from 1775, and was put in by Thomas Coote’s grandson, Charles, who succeeded his cousin as 5th Lord Colooney 1766 and was made Earl of Bellamont of 2nd creation 1767. In honour of this, he changed the name of the house, which had formerly been Coote Hill, to Bellamont Forest. Lord Bellamont was a somewhat absurd figure, ultra-sophisticated and ardently Francophile – he insisted on making his maiden speech in the Irish House of Lords in French – pompous and an inveterate womaniser. He left several illegitimate sons, to one of whom he bequested Bellamont, his only legitimate son having predeceased him. In 1874, Bellamont was sold to the Dorman-Smith (now O’Gowan) family, of which the politician Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, Governor of Burma at the time of the Japanese invasion, was a younger son. Bought recently by Mr. John Coote.”
Built between 1725 and 1730 for Thomas Coote, once Lord Justice of Ireland, and designed by Coote’s gifted nephew, architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Bellamont Forest is one of Ireland’s finest 18th-century palladian villas. The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement. The house is built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
Detached Palladian-style square-plan four-bay two-storey over basement country house, built c.1730, with central Doric entrance portico raised above flight of steps, three-storey over basement side elevations, three recessed central bays to rear elevation. Hipped slate roof behind parapet wall with central valley, and cast-iron rainwater goods, some with decorative detailing. Two pairs of symmetrically arranged red brick chimneystacks with connecting arches. Profiled carved stone cornice to parapet coping. Red brick Flemish bond walls with moulded limestone stringcourse below upper floor continuing around sides of the building treating upper level as attic storey, stone quoins to ground floor only. Carved limestone plinth with torus moulding above finely-cut V-jointed rustication to top half of basement having random coursed stone finish below ground level. Prostylar tetrasytle pedimented Roman Doric portico to centre entrance level with enriched entablature having metopes with musical instruments, standing on ashlar stone plinth approached by steps with ashlar side walls having cornice and plinth. Door opening within portico in carved sandstone lugged architrave surround with carved swag to door head, projecting cornice, and carved stone round-headed arched detail above. Panelled timber double-leaf door with fixed overpanel. Three-over-three timber sash windows in architrave surrounds to first floor. Six-over-six sash windows to ground floor having pedimented surrounds in outer bays with carved stone architrave surrounds and decorative floral motifs to upper angles, ashlar stone apron and carved brackets supporting moulded sills. Windows to inner bays within portico having lugged architraves and moulded sills on carved brackets without pediment or apron. Segmental-headed windows to basement level having two-over-two timber sash windows. Windows having stone cills without architraves to upper floor, side elevations. Three-over-three mezzanine windows to side elevations, to north side all as functioning openings, to south only west bays functional. Central windows at ground floor to south side paired as Venetian window with central blind arch having entablature and central arch on Doric columns, simpler version to north side with plain stone surrounds. Central ground floor window to rear elevation having lugged and kneed architrave with hood on scrolled console brackets and ashlar apron, advanced outer bays having ground floor Venetian windows with blind side lights and ashlar entablature and archivolt . Small side lights to corresponding basement windows below. Tunnel connecting to outbuildings to north-east.
Bellamont House is an iconic building of national importance set in a dramatic demesne landscape. It is considered the best and earliest example of a Palladian villa in Ireland. The house was designed the Coote family by their cousin, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (d.1733), who was the leading exponent of Palladian architecture in Ireland. Having trained under the English Baroque architect Sir John Vanburgh (1664-1726) Pearce’s short but successful career included the former Parliament House on College Green, Dublin and many town and country houses including Summerhill House in Co. Meath and two houses on Henrietta Street in Dublin. Bellamont Forest is his most important house design to have been built and the association with this very important architect makes it one of the most significant country houses in this country. Pearce used architectural motifs derived from Palladio’s Italian villa designs, including the Venetian window arrangements with continuous sills, pedimented window surrounds, and Doric portico. The portico had originally been proposed in antis as an open loggia within the plan at the expense of the entrance hall. Instead, placed prostyle it aims to affirms a kind of moral dignity about the architecture and its patron. More prosaically, additional space was gained for the entrance hall, and the external portico was better suited to the Irish climate than an open loggia. The plan has all the compactness of a Palladian villa. The simple treatment of the main stairs may seem surprising, tightly compressed as it is in a narrow space off the hall with none of the gravitas of theatre that has come to be associated with the country house staircase. However the modesty of the main stair does not anticipate the impressive columnar bedroom lobby, the encircling effect of its Tuscan order and oval lantern, an oblique reference perhaps to the centralised plan of Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. It was a theme to be revived later at Russborough and Bellinter by Richard Castle. Bellamont is one of the few houses in Ireland with a mezzanine storey as expressed in the north and south elevations. The interior displays elements of artistic importance, in particular the finely tooled decorative plasterwork, but also in the carvings of the marble and stone fireplaces in the principal rooms and marble busts of the Coote family. Though a modestly sized country house, Bellamont uses symmetrical design and use of red brick to promote a sense of solidity for a house perched on an exposed elevated site enjoying spectacular views of the surrounding lakes and Dromore River. The farm and stable yards located to the north-west of the main house would once have been necessary to support the running of a large country house and together with the entrance gates and gate lodges form an important group of demesne related structures.
Archaeological research would appear to indicate that Richard Coote had a fortified house at Collooney sometimes referred to as Bellamont House or Collooney Castle. A later structure in the town, also known as Bellamont House, is not associated with the Coote family. A possible site for Collooney Castle has been identified by Timoney drawing on earlier sources such as Terence O’Rorke
featured in Great Irish Houses. Forewards by Desmond FitgGerald, Desmond Guinness. IMAGE Publications, 2008.
p. 94. “ The owner, John Coote, bought Bellamont in 1987, thus restoring the estate to the Coote family after it had been gambled away by an ancestor, Captain Richard Coote, and sold to the Smith family in the 19th century. John Coote grew up in Australia, after the Coote family emigrated in 1906, and became involved in sheep farming. The first he knew of Bellamont Forest was from an article in Country Life in 1962. Later, he learned more from his aunt and uncle, Muriel and John Coote, who had visited Bellamont’s then owner, Eric Dorman-Smith, a general in the British army. Four generations of Smiths had lived at Bellamont when Coote, an interior designer, paid a visit and found the property was for sale. He could not resist and bought the house and estate.
“The estate was very run down at the time,” Coote recalls. “The house was structurally sound, but it was in a sorry state. For the last two decades I have restored the house and parklands. The drive has been re-routed so that when you arrive – and this is the beauty of Pearce – the house doesn’t look like a huge villa. When you view it from the back, however, it’s a totally different house and it looks quite large indeed.”
The approach has been to return the estate, where possible, to its 1729 appearance. A painting currently hanging at Leixlip Castle shows the estate as it was at the this time, and Coote has used it as his guide. The façade of the house has been left largely untouched, with the main work done to the windows, some of which have been repaired and glass paneling restored.
Entering the house through the portico, you notice musical instruments are a feature of the exterior engravings. Inside the entrance hall scrapes have been taken and the original colouring has been returned with the assistance of Dr Ian Bristow, a UK painting expert. A very fine Irish table, a copy from a drawing by Pearce, is a hugely impressive feature of this room. The busts have always been present and were bought most likely on the Grand Tour. The flooring is Portland stone and layers of floor polish have been removed to return it to its natural state. Peat buckets and lanterns are all from Coote and Co [p. 97] while the Earl of Bellamont may have introduced the fireplace.
The saloon has a fine example of an early baroque ceiling and a new chandelier has been installed based on the Pearce chandelier in the House of Lords. Portraits of the Earl of Bellamont and the Countess of Bellamont by Reynolds have been copied and hung on the wall. The original of the Earl of Bellamont is hanging in the National Gallery in Dublin, while the portrait of the Countess of Bellamont is owned by the Duchess of Abercorn’s family.
Double doors lead into the dining room with its wall colouring taken from the colouring of the frieze in the fireplace. Gib and dummy doors maintain Pearce’s symmetry while contemporary artworks hang on the walls….
The family sitting room contains a fireplace with shield motif and acanthus leaf. The chair linen was woven according to an 18th century sample found on the estate. Originally, this room was a series of rooms, but after a fire in the 1760s the Earl of Bellamont had a new ceiling installed and made this a companion room to the dining room. At some point, the dining room would probably have served as the state bedroom.
Like all Palladian houses, the staircase at Bellamont is to the side. The small library, which is first left off the entrance hall, is used a great deal as it attracts winter sunshine. As with many of the smaller rooms, the original Pearce fireplace remains. The fringes for the curtains were handmade in London using 18th century looms, while the bookcases were made in Australia.
Upstairs, on the first floor landing, a new floor made of 150 year old Baltic pine salvaged from a nearby bridge has been laid. In addition to the dummy doors, all the bedrooms lead from the hall. The tables are copies of some fine examples at Powerscourt and family portraits adorn the walls.
John Coote’s latest phase of work at Bellamont is to renovate the outbuildings and to create additional bedroom suites, the headquarters of his successful furniture design company, Coote and Co, and a new concert hall. “These estates need to work,” he says.
John Coote has restored Bellamont Forest and ensured it has risen from the landscape of Cootehill to retake its place at the forefront of Palladian design.”
Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London. 2002:
Bellamont Forest was designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce for the Cootes, Earls of Bellamont, around 1730. The family were descended from a brilliant soldier, Sir Thomas Coote, who was killed in 1642 ‘in a skirmish with the Irish.’ His four sons were given land in different parts of Ireland – Sligo, Laois, Monaghan and Cavan – giving rise to the legend that. you could walk across the country from one coast to the other without leaving Coote land.
Designed around 1730 by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, the house is one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in Ireland. Loosely based on Palladio’s Villa Pisani, the house stands four-square on rising ground. It is constructed in red brick with a Doric limestone portico and pediments over the windows to either side. The entrance hall is particularly striking, with the simplicity of its black and white paved floor and marble busts of Roman emperors.
The house is private, but the grounds are accessible from the town and offer some pleasant walks. The town gets its name from the marriage of Thomas Coote, a colonel in the Crown forces, to Frances Hill of Hillsborough.
Bellamont House completed in 1730 by Judge Thomas Coote and designed by the architect Edward Lovett Pearce. In 1800 it passed to an illegitimate son of Earl Charles Coote, who is reported to have fathered up to 18 children by five women. Charles, variously described as a tyrant, a madman, and a person of “disgusting pomposity”, was tried in 1764 for murdering a man during the ‘Oakboy’ rebellion which he helped to repress brutally. He got off and is immortalised in a camp portrait by Joshua Reynolds in the National Gallery. The estate was gambled away by descendant John Coote in 1874 and bought by the Dorman-Smiths, whose most famous member, Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith, served in the British army in both world wars before being sacked in 1942. He was a good friend of Ernest Hemingway, went home to Bellamont, changed his name to O’Gowan and turned republican, allowing the IRA to use the estate as a training ground, and advised its executive during the Border Campaign. He died in 1969. The most recent owner, John Coote was brought up on a sheep station in the Australian outback, his family having emigrated in the early 1900s. Coote died suddenly in 2012, and the house is now for sale (March 2015).
Here is Bellamont Forest, County Cavan which can lay claim to being the most beautiful house in Ireland. Certainly its situation is unparalleled, since the building sits on a rise at the end of a mile-long drive, the ground to either side dropping to lakes, the world beyond screened by dense woodland. Bellamont is an unexpected delight, hidden from view until one rounds the last turn of the drive and sees the house ahead. In purest Palladian style and looking like a villa in the Veneto, Bellamont is believed to have been designed c.1725-30 by the pre-eminent architect then working in Ireland, Sir Edward Lovett Pearce who was also responsible for the Houses of Parliament in Dublin (now the Bank of Ireland), and a number of since-lost country houses such as Desart Court, County Kilkenny and Summerhill, County Meath. Pearce was a cousin of Bellamont’s builder Thomas Coote, a Lord Justice of the King’s Bench. The Cootes had come to Ireland at the start of the 17th century and prospered so well that within 100 years their various descendants owned estates throughout the country. Ballyfin, County Laois which has recently undergone a superlative restoration was another Coote property.
The appeal of Bellamont lies in its exquisite simplicity, beginning with an exterior which is of mellow red brick with stone window dressings. Of two storeys over a raised rusticated basement, the front is dominated by a full-height limestone portico reached by a broad flight of steps. The imposing effect is achieved by the most effortless means and using the plainest materials, but there can be no doubt that Bellamont was always intended to impress. The Portland stone-flagged entrance hall, with its coved ceiling and pairs of flanking doors, sets the tone for what is follow. While there are small rooms immediately to right and left, the latter traditionally used as a cosy winter library, the main reception areas lie to the rear of the building, a sequence of drawing room, saloon and dining room which retain their 18th century decoration including the chimneypieces. The first of these is believed to have once been a series of rooms, but following a fire in 1760 acquired its present form including the elaborate recessed ceiling which was probably intended to complement that in the dining room on the other side of the saloon. The walls of this central room contain contain stucco panels once filled with family portraits, the best-known of which – painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1773 and showing the Charles Coote, Earl of Bellamont resplendent in his robes as a Knight of Bath – now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.
The aforementioned Earldom of Bellamont was a second creation of the title for a member of the family. Evidently an ostentatious and pompous man – seemingly he insisted on making his maiden speech in the House of Lords in French, to the bemusement of his fellow peers – Lord Bellamont can at least be credited with having the good taste to enhance the house built by his grandfather. He married a daughter of the first Duke of Leinster and by her had four daughters and just one son who died in Toulouse at the age of 12, his body being brought back to Bellamont to lie for three days on the upper landing before burial in the family vault. As a result of there being no legitimate heir, the earldom again lapsed on Lord Bellamont’s death in 1800. However, despite being seriously wounded in the groin during a duel with Lord Townshend, he managed to have at least 16 offsring out of wedlock by four different women, and one of these sons, also called Charles Coote, inherited Bellamont Forest. Ultimately it was sold out of the family in the middle of the 19th century and bought by the Smiths (later Dorman-Smiths), one of whom Major-General Eric Dorman-Smith served in the British army during both the First and Second World Wars after which, having changed his surname to O’Gowan, he became involved with the IRA.
In 1987 Bellamont Forest was bought by John Coote, an Australian interior designer whose family had emigrated from Ireland at the start of the last century. John dearly loved the house and undertook to restore it to a pristine condition, keeping the decoration spare so that the beauty of the rooms’ architecture would be more apparent. There was never a great deal of furniture, just a few large pieces he had specifically made and which were inspired by Georgian workmanship. In revealing the building’s purity he not only demonstrated the splendid taste of Pearce but his own also, since it would have been tempting to intervene in the interiors. Those interiors served wonderfully for entertaining, which John did frequently. I have been to a great many terrific parties at Bellamont, and even hosted a few there, one of which – a birthday dinner for 30 – is thankfully uncommemorated by any photographs. But there are ample souvenirs and joyous memories of John’s own sundry social gatherings, such as the thé dansants he loved to throw, when a 16-piece orchestra would play in the saloon and Jack Leslie would demonstrate how to dance the Black Bottom. The last great party at Bellamont took place during the summer of 2009 to mark John’s 60th birthday and was spectacular even by his standards, with drinks in the lower gardens followed by dinner and dancing outdoors in the balmy air. The following year John was obliged to put Bellamont Forest up for sale, and thereafter he rarely visited the place. Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of his death, which happened unexpectedly while he was working in Indonesia. He is still sorely mourned by all of us who knew him in Ireland. Meanwhile Bellamont slumbers, awaiting a new owner who will kiss the place back to life; there is talk now of an auction in March. One prays that whoever next assumes responsibility for Bellamont will bring to the house the same flair and fun as did John Coote for so many years.
Since first writing of Bellamont Forest (La Belle au Bois Dormant, January 21st), I have heard from a number of readers concerned about a set of 18th century marble busts formerly in the house. Although none can be verified with absolute certainty, various tales exist concerning the origin of these busts. It is said, for example, that they represent different members of the Coote family responsible for building Bellamont. It has also been proposed that they were brought back from mainland Europe after a Grand Tour and installed in niches in the entrance hall and first-floor landing specifically created to accommodate them. What can be confirmed is that the busts were already in the house more than two centuries ago. Sir Charles Coote, an illegitimate son of the last Earl of Bellamont, produced a Statistical Survey of Cavan in 1802 in which he wrote of the house, ‘The entrance from the portico is a lofty hall, thirty feet by thirty, which is ornamented with statuary in regular niches…’ Likewise in 1835 Lieutenant P. Taylor’s statistical report on the parish of Drumgoon includes a description of Bellamont with the observation, ‘The portico enters into a lofty hall 30 feet square, tastefully ornamented with statuary…’ I am grateful to Kevin Mulligan for bringing these two references to my attention.
The earliest known visual evidence of the busts’ presence in the house comes from a photograph album presented by Richard Coote to his neighbour Lady Dartrey in September 1870. Now in the possession of the National Library of Ireland, it includes a view of the entrance hall (then serving as a billiard room), which with that institution’s permission I reproduce above; one can assume the picture was taken at some date prior to 1870 (and incidentally, how fascinating to see the hall decorated in such high-Victorian style). A photograph in Volume V of the Irish Georgian Society’s Records (see top of this piece) which was published in 1913 and shows the busts in their niches appears to be a section of the earlier picture. Thereafter it would seem the busts remained within the house through changes of ownership – until last year. Following the death of John Coote in January 2012, the busts were removed from Bellamont. After representations from the Irish Georgian Society, in September Cavan County Council issued notice to a number of parties requiring the busts’ return. To date this has not happened. I do not intend to become immersed in legal niceties, not least because the matter could yet go to litigation. On the other hand, the busts’ removal does raise a number of significant questions about what constitutes a permanent fixture within a historic building and what should be deemed a transitory decorative feature. In the case of the busts no violence was done to the house during their removal, for which nothing other than a step ladder was required. In other words, unlike say when a chimneypiece is taken out, the structure suffered no damage. The Government’s 2011 Architectural Heritage Protection Guidelines for Planning Authories proposes: ‘free-standing objects may be regarded as fixtures where they were placed in positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ It also states that ‘Works of art, such as paintings or pieces of sculpture, placed as objects in their own right within a building, are unlikely to be considered as fixtures unless it can be proved that they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ It is worth noting first that these are only guidelines; the document’s opening page counsels that what follows ‘does not purport to be a legal interpretation of any of the Conventions, Acts, Regulations or procedures mentioned. The aim is to assist planners and others in understanding the guiding principles of conservation and restoration.’ In addition, the advice offered is that works of art can only be deemed fixtures provided there is proof ‘they were placed in particular positions as part of an overall architectural design.’ In the case of the Bellamont busts the lack of such conclusive documentary evidence is an obvious problem for anyone championing their return. We do not know the artist responsible, or the date of their creation. Were they commissioned or bought ‘off the shelf’? Can it be conclusively demonstrated the niches were designed to accommodate them? The next photograph shows the entrance hall in the mid-1980s not long before Bellamont Forest was bought by John Coote; over the intervening century every aspect of the room’s decoration has changed except for the busts.
I am unaware of any similar case to the Bellamont busts in this country at the moment or indeed in the past but it has to be said that recent precedents in Britain are not encouraging. In 1990, for example, Canova’s marble statue of The Three Graces, which had been commissioned by sixth Duke of Bedford in 1814 and installed in a purpose-built temple at Woburn, was removed after it had been judged not to constitute a part or fixture of the building. Only following four years of intense negotiation was the statue jointly bought by the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland. More recently in 2007 Dumfries House and contents were offered for sale by the Marquess of Bute. Those contents included the only fully documented suites of furniture made by Thomas Chippendale. If anything could be deemed a fitting, albeit free-standing, it was surely these Chippendale pieces. Yet they would have been dispersed at auction (for which catalogues were printed by Christie’s) but for the intervention of the Prince of Wales who subsequently helped to establish a charitable trust preserving Dumfries and its furnishings. Alas in Ireland we have no such well-connected champions of the country’s architectural heritage, nor have we shown much concern for preserving the historic contents of our houses. For this reason, the issue of the Bellamont busts is important and could set a precedent. But it is essential that sentiment does not cloud any discussion relating to their removal. Over centuries an inordinate number of works of art have been taken from their original or long-term settings and placed elsewhere, as a visit to any state gallery or museum will demonstrate. To insist that proprietors of historic buildings may not dispose of certain items which have remained in the same location beyond a certain period of time is to trespass dangerously on the rights of private ownership. It could also hinder rather than help the cause of heritage preservation by inspiring antagonism among the very people we are trying to encourage and support. Having seen the busts in place over many years, my ardent wish is that they will be restored to the niches they occupied for so long. But I am also sufficiently aware of the complexities of the case to appreciate this might not happen.
Having been once to Bellamont (see La Belle au Bois Dormant, January 21st), it is impossible not to return. Here is the upper floor of the house’s main cantilevered staircase. The relative want of ornamentation – only plasterwork curlicues embellishing each sprung arch – forms a striking yet sublime contrast to the elaborate workmanship found on the floor below.
THE EARLS OF BELLAMONT OWNED 5,321 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY CAVAN
This is the parent stock whence the noble houses of COOTE, Earls of Mountrath, and COOTE, Lords Castlecoote, both now extinct, emanated.
This noble family derives its origin from
SIR JOHN COOTE, a native of France, who married Isabella, the daughter and heir of the Seigneur Du Bois, of that kingdom, and had issue,
SIR JOHN COOTE, Knight, who coming into England, settled in Devon, and married a daughter of Sir John Fortescue, of that county.
His lineal descendant,
JOHN COOTE, heir to his uncle, 28th Abbot of Bury St Edmund’s, wedded Margaret, daughter of Mr Drury, by whom he had four sons,
Richard; FRANCIS, of whom we treat; Christopher; Nicholas.
Mr Coote’s second son,
FRANCIS COOTE, of Eaton, in Norfolk, served ELIZABETH I; and by Anne, his wife, had issue,
SIR NICHOLAS COOTE, living in 1636, who had two sons,
CHARLES, his heir; William (Very Rev), Dean of Down, 1635.
Sir Nicholas’s elder son,
SIR CHARLES COOTE (1581-1642), Knight, of Castle Cuffe, in the Queen’s County, served in the wars against O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, at the head, as Captain of the 100th Foot Regiment, with which corps he was at the siege of Kinsale, and was appointed, by JAMES I (in consequence of the good and faithful services he had rendered to ELIZABETH I), provost-marshal of the province of Connaught for life.
In 1620, he was constituted vice-president of the same province; and created, in 1621, a baronet, denominated of Castle Cuffe, Queen’s County.
Sir Charles distinguished himself, subsequently, by many gallant exploits; but the most celebrated was the relief of Birr, in 1642.
Being dispatched, with Sir Thomas Lucas and six troops of horse, to relieve that garrison, and some other fortresses, it was necessary, in order to effect the objective, to pass the causeway broken by the rebels, who had thrown up a ditch at the end of it.
Sir Charles, leading thirty dismounted dragoons, beat the enemy, with the loss of their captain and twenty men; relieved the castles of Birr, Borris, and Knocknamase; and having continued almost forty hours on horseback, returned to the camp with the loss of only one man.
This is the surprising passage through Mountrath woods which justly caused the title of MOUNTRATH to be entailed upon his son.
Sir Charles married Dorothea, youngest daughter and co-heir of Hugh Cuffe, of Cuffe’s Wood, County Cork, and had issue,
Charles, his heir; Chidley, of Killester, Co Dublin; RICHARD, ancestor of the EARL OF BELLAMONT; Thomas, of Coote Hill; Letitia.
The younger son,
RICHARD (1620-83), for his hearty concurrence with his brother, SIR CHARLES, 2nd Baronet, in promoting the restoration of CHARLES II, was rewarded with the dignity of a peer of the realm.
Being the same day that his brother was created Earl of Mountrath, Richard Coote was created Baron Coote, of Coloony, in 1660.
In 1660, Lord Coote was appointed Major to the Duke of Albemarle’s regiment of horse; and the same year he was appointed one of the commissioners for executing His Majesty’s declaration for the settlement of Ireland.
His lordship was, in 1675, appointed one of the commissioners entrusted for the 49 Officers.
In 1676, this nobleman resided at Moore Park, County Meath; and at Piercetown, County Westmeath.
He married Mary, second daughter of George, Lord St George.
Following Lord Coote’s decease, in 1683, he was interred at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
His second son,
RICHARD, 2nd Baron (1636-1701), Governor of County Leitrim, 1689, Treasurer to the Queen, 1689-93, MP for Droitwich, 1689-95, was, in 1688, one on the first to join the Prince of Orange.
In 1689, he was attainted in his absence by the Irish Parliament of JAMES II.
His lordship was created, in 1689, EARL OF BELLAMONT, along with a grant of 77,000 acres of forfeited lands.
His lordship was Governor of Massachusetts, 1695;,and Governor of New York, 1697-1701.
The King had sent Lord Bellamont to New York to put down the “freebooting“.
Unfortunately he was responsible for outfitting the veteran mariner William Kidd, who turned into ‘Captain Kidd’, who terrorised the merchants until his capture in 1698.
According to Cokayne ”he was a man of eminently fair character, upright, courageous and endependent. Though a decided Whig he had distinguished himself by bringing before the Parliament at Westminster some tyrannical acts done by Whigs at Dublin.”
His lordship wedded, in 1680, Catharine, daughter and heir of Bridges Nanfan, of Worcestershire, and had issue,
NANFAN, his successor; RICHARD, succeeded his brother.
His lordship was succeeded by his elder son,
NANFAN, 2nd Earl (1681-1708), who married Lucia Anna van Nassau (1684-1744), daughter of Henry de Nassau, Lord Overkirk, in 1705/6 at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London.
He died at Bath, Somerset, from palsy, without male issue, when the family honours devolved upon his brother,
RICHARD, 3rd Earl (1682-1766), who, in 1729, sold the family estate of Coloony, County Sligo, for nearly £17,000.
In 1737, he succeeded his mother to the estates of Birtsmorton, Worcestershire.
Macaulay described him as “of eminently fair character, upright, courageous and independent.”
On his death, the earldom expired.
The last Earl was succeeded in the barony of Coote by his first cousin once removed,
THE RT HON CHARLES, 5th Baron, KB, PC (1738-1800), son of Charles Coote, MP for County Cavan, son of the Hon Thomas Coote, a Justice of the Court of the King’s Bench of Ireland, younger son of the 1st Baron.
In 1767, the earldom of Bellamont was created again when Charles, Lord Coote, was created EARL OF BELLAMONT (3rd creation).
In 1774, Lord Bellamont was created a baronet, of Donnybrooke in the County of Dublin, with remainder to his illegitimate son, Charles.
Following his death in 1800, the titles became extinct as he left no surviving legitimate male issue, though he was succeeded in the baronetcy according to the special remainder by his illegitimate son Charles, 2nd Baronet.
BELLAMONT FOREST, near Cootehill, County Cavan, now sits amid approximately one thousand acres of parkland and lakes.
It is one of Ireland’s finest 18th-century Palladian villas.
The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement, built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
The main house has been re-roofed and the chimneys rebuilt; the current owner has also rewired the house.
A new heating system has been installed on the ground floor with concealed radiators and the entire house re-plumbed.
There are both excellent formal reception rooms and beautiful entertaining rooms, coupled with a comfortable family atmosphere.
It provides extensive bedroom accommodation for both family, guests and staff, and in addition boasts the former linen hall.
The gardens have also been developed and greatly enhanced and act as further entertaining space.
As I’m sure you may be aware I’ve already featured Bellamont Forest in Co Cavan on this page. Due to the generosity of Charles Dorman O Gowan ( and friend ) I’ve got some photos previously never seen publicly , (along with some other very old ones which I’ve recently come across – the 1870s ones ). Charlie’s great great grand father bought the estate in 1874 for £145,000 . The family sold it circa 1980. There have been 3 owners since . As per my previous posts on Bellamont , the renovation of the house continues unabated.
8/8/2016
Bellamont Forest, ,near Cootehill,originally the Cavan seat of the Coote family , whose other branches included Ballyfin . Subsequently the Smith ( O Gowan) family paid about £145,000 in 1874 for the estate and they had many interesting members over the years including ” The Brigadier “, Eric Dorman O Gowan – he changed his name from Smith after a wrangle with Winston Churchill and the British government of the time -they owned it for over 100 years . Then the Mills family for a few years , John Coote an Australian designer and now John Morehart. Designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce in the style of Villa Capra /Rotonda by Andrea Palladio ( the Villa Pisani at Montagnana is very similar)for his uncle Thomas Coote in the mid 1720s. It really is exquisite in the trueness of its form . Despite a huge fire about 12/15 years after completion which destroyed much of the house and roof , the “rebuild ” was extensive and it retains its true form . Many timbers/joists after recent refurbishment works displayed evidence of burning and scorching from that fire. It was circa 1775 one of the main reception rooms , the library,had its flat ceiling replaced by the splendid vaulted one that exists today .Evidence of 18th century wallpaper still exists in the space above it where there was once a room ( in pictures section). Sitting overlooking 2 lakes( anyone can have one ) ,the house is quite simply breathtaking . My bias towards the beauty of this house , I’m rarely lost for words , requires me to state , show me another as pure and elegant .This is of National, if not international importance. Lovett Pearce also was responsible for amongst other buildings the former Irish Parliament on College Green and Castletown House. The house is ,as seen in the pictures ,undergoing extensive renovation work after a period of some neglect and possible inept or at least ill advised refurbishment works, but also the ravages of time, standing for not far off 300 years might take its toll on any building .I’m positive all owners tried their best during their time .
One of Ireland’s most architecturally important houses, Bellamont Forest in Cootehill, Co Cavan has sold
Wed, Jun 3, 2015
by Madeleine Lyons
One of Ireland’s most architecturally important houses, Bellamont Forest in Cootehill, Co Cavan has sold for around €2million. The substantial Palladian villa on 1000 acres has been purchased by a US couple with Irish interests and a number of international properties. The 18th century property had been on the market by a liquidator for €1.35million, until three weeks ago when final offers of more than €1.5million were invited by selling agent Ganly Walters. It’s understood the new owners, who currently own a holiday property in Ireland, plan to refurbish Bellamont for private use in a restoration project that will cost upwards of €2million.
According to Robert Ganly most of the bidding took place over a 48 hour period between the US couple and two other interested parties from the UK and Ireland. There had been a lot of interest in the property both for its historical significance as one of the finest examples in the British Isles of a Palladian villa and its role at the centre of a 1991 divorce action between the late owner John Coote and his wife Andrea (an Australian politician)….
Built between 1725 and 1730 for Thomas Coote, the Lord Justice of Ireland and designed by Coote’s gifted nephew, architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Pearce’s other works include the former Houses of Parliament in College Green, now The Bank of Ireland. He later became Surveyor General of Ireland, a post which he held until his death in 1733.
The house is four bays square, built over two storeys, with a basement. The house is built of red brick with ashlar facings, and has a Doric limestone portico, with pediments over the windows.
Considered one of the most perfect Palladian villa ever built in Ireland, Bellamont House is not well known, but the Coote family who built it are. The first was Sir Charles Coote who died in battle at Trim in 1642, leaving his four estates to his four sons.
His youngest son Col. Thomas Coote was granted the lands in County Cavan after the Act of Settlement in 1662 and was the founder of the town known as Cootehill.
After his death in 1671 the estate was passed to his nephew Thomas Coote, who later became a Lord Justice of the Kings Bench in Ireland and was made a Knight of the Bath ‘in testimony of his good and laudable service in suppressing tumultuous and illegal insurrection in the northern parts of Ireland’.
After Thomas married his third wife Ann Lovett in 1697, Coote became the uncle-in-law of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, a cousin who was the most important architect in Ireland during the early 18th century. It was Pearce who built Thomas Coote’s new house in 1730, the design based on Palladio’s Villa Rotonda at Vicenza.
The name was changed to Bellamont Forest by Coote’s grandson Charles, who inherited the estate in 1764 and became the Earl of Bellamont in 1767. Lord Bellamont was a interesting figure, described by some as a man of ‘the highest refinement’, but also a ‘tyrant’, ‘madman’ and ‘a person of disgusting pomposity’.
An consumate womaniser, he sired at least six illegitimate children, with six different women, including 5 from his wife. After his death the estate passed to these descendants who became less than prosperous.
In 1874 Edward Smith, a coal tycoon bought the Bellamont house and lands for £145,000. Following his death in 1880, the estate was continuously passed down until 1984 when the Irish ‘troubles’ persuaded the family to sell the estate.
Three years later John Coote a descendant whose family immigrated to Australia in the early 1900s, visited Ireland and discovered the derelict estate was for sale and seized the chance to buy it.
After 23 years of renovation, Coote completed the work of his lifetime at his family home, Bellamont Forest. It is truly an extraordinary achievement and the house is virtually unaltered since Pearce’s day. The 11,350 square foot, two-storey main house was re-roofed, rewired and replumbed, with underfloor heating installed on the ground floor.
Double doors lead into the 25ft by 29ft ballroom, the most ornate room in the house that showcase an exceptional coffered ceiling. The main reception room is the library, whose original flat ceiling was replaced by Lord Bellamont in 1775 with a more elaborate coved one to match the dining room. This was the only major alteration made to the house in 238 years.
The stone staircase leads to the mezzanine floor, which leads to a large bedroom with ensuite bath and an office, both with vaulted ceilings.
The staircase continues up to the first-floor bedroom hall, top-lit by a decorative elliptical lantern that later became a typical feature of Irish houses.
A second staircase leads to the basement, where much of the original stone-flag flooring and vaulted brick ceiling has been restored. There’s an apartment, large orignial kitchen, dining room, media room and wine cellar.
The servants’ tunnel links the basement with the landscaped walled garden to the rear of the house.
The vast former linen hall has also been restored to provide five reception rooms and five bedrooms with bathrooms.
John Coote died in 2012 and the property sits empty and quietly awaits someone with the financial ability to make the needed repairs and love this ancient family seat once again.
Ballyhaise House, Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan – agricultural college
Ballyhaise House, County Cavan, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
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.
p. 22. “[Humphryes] An important house by Richard Castle, built ca 1733 for Brockhill Newburgh. Of 2 storeys over basement, and 7 bays, faced in brick, with ashlar dressings. Entrance front with pedimented central feature of 4 Ionic pilasters superimposed on a Doric entablature and 4 Doric pilasters. Garden front with central curved bow, which has round headed windows and a doorway under a consoled pediment. The bow contains an oval saloon which Dr. Craig considers may well be the earliest surviving oval room in the British Isles; it keeps its original plasterwork on the ceiling, which, surprisingly, is a brick vault; the groun dfloor as well as the basement being vaulted over, as in the King House in Boyle, Co Roscommon. The doors and chimneypiece in the saloon are all curved. Sold ca 1800 to William Humphreys, who extended the house by adding 2 storey wings of the same height as the original block and also of brick with stone facings; but with a neo-Classical flavour; the slightly projecting end bays on the entrance front being framed by broad corner strip pilasters, supporting entablatures with dies. The windows in these bays are tripartite, with entablatures over them on console brackets. Sold by the Humphrys family in the present century, now an agricultural college.”
Ballyhaise House was built for the Newburghs, a local landowning family, in the 1730s. Richard Cassels (1690-1751) was of German origin and also known as Richard Castle. He settled in Ireland around 1728 and worked with Edward Lovett Pearce on the Houses of Parliament before becoming the leading country house architect of his day in Ireland. Ballyhaise House has been used as an agricultural college since the beginning of the 20th century and has been much altered.
Detached eleven-bay two-storey over basement former country house, built c.1735, possibly with core of c.1700, comprising seven-bay central block having pedimented centre bays with superimposed orders and a three-bay semi-circular bow to rear elevation. Lower outer bays added c.1820 with recessed intermediate bays and advanced end bays having tripartite windows, southern bay forming end of four-bay side elevation. Now in use as college. Hipped and slated roofs with lead ridges and rendered chimneystacks of simplified Vanbrughesque design, having clay chimneypots with lotus-flower decoration. Parapet to central block as stone entablature with central pediment retaining trace of tympanum sculpture, similar entablature over bow to rear, lower stone cornices to outer bays and south wing. Red brick walls with architectural detailing of ashlar sandstone to front of main block and to later end wings, ashlar stone to centre three bays. Centre bays articulated with pilasters in superimposed Doric and Ionic orders, upper Ionic order having pulvinated frieze and cornice extending across higher central block. Doric order having blank metope frieze, cornice carried across central block and intermediate bays with plain ashlar band above and plain frieze below. Plain raised ashlar bands flanking end bays over both storeys carried round to the side elevations. Ruled-and-lined rendered walls to basement below string course at window head level and ashlar outer bays. Side elevation to south with simplified banding courses at mid height and a continuous string course under the upper storey sills. Side elevation to north of rubble stone with brick surrounds to openings and large quoins to the north-west corner. The rear elevation of roughcast render, smooth ruled-and-lined render to bow. Shouldered architraves to ground and first floor windows with ashlar sill course at ground floor and six-over-six timber sash windows. Tripartite windows to outer bays with ashlar mullions and cornice hoods on scrolled brackets, six-over-nine timber sash windows to centre section at ground floor windows. Segmental-headed windows to basement with plain architraves and six-over-six timber sashes. Square-headed door opening to central bay with recent glazed double-leaf entrance doors in shouldered architrave surround topped by a segmental pediment with shell motif over carved floral garland. Rear elevation with round-headed windows to basement and ground floors, segmental-headed to first floor, both types having plain reveals to bow and brick surrounds elsewhere. Square-headed door opening to bow with shouldered architrave surmounted by corbelled canopy with carved sandstone swag motif, round-headed blind door opening to main ground level above with Gibbs surround and open-bed pediment on scroll brackets. Entrance hall with plastered brick-vaulted ceiling with deep severies and coffered centre. Black and white stone floor tiles and tall Kilkenny limestone open-bed pedimented chimneypiece. Four main reception rooms off hall, Bishop’s Room having marble chimneypiece, running mould cornice and decorative centrepiece. Peacock Room having plastered brick-vaulted ceiling with elliptical-headed formerets, modillion cornice and heavy foliate centrepiece. Walls having hand-painted wallpaper with dado rail and deep skirting, panelled window joinery and panelled door with flanking pilaster architraves and plain entablature over-door and replacement marble fireplace. Oval Room in bow opens off hall to rear with compartmentalised oval ceiling having dentil cornice and foliate centrepiece, stucco panelled walls with dado rail and round-headed windows with panelled window joinery, curved Kilkenny limestone chimneypiece having central corbel with fish-scale design. Ballroom now in use as a lecture room with decorative modillion cornice and centrepiece with decorative feather motifs, dado rail and deep skirting boards, Carrara marble chimneypiece with fluted Corinthian columns supporting mantle having decorative Greek key and palmette motif to lintel. Panelled window shutters, soffits and window backs with fan detail to reveals, timber panelled doors with similar fan details to panels and overdoor with floral garlands. Stair hall off entrance hall to south with service stair beyond lobby room to the north. Dogleg stair from basement to first floor with sandstone steps from ground floor to basement. Turned balusters set on pears and blocks and scrolled tread ends with decorative fretwork detail. Door openings in stair hall have round-headed overdoors with decorative spider-web motif emulating fanlight and flanking pilaster architraves. Dining room in end bay now used as a boardroom with decorative cornice having palmette motifs, grey marble chimneypiece having flanking Ionic columns, timber panelled window and doors with fan details to panels and decorative floral garland to overdoor. Arched recess to west-end wall. Offices to basement all with brick vaulted ceilings, stone flags in parts with black and red quarry tiles to entrance hall, plain rendered window embrasures with simple historic timber shutters to some windows and some cast-iron fireplaces. Ground floor raised above surrounding area opening onto steps flanked by balustrade at raised level enclosing basement area across front and south elevation, further steps lead down to driveway. Situated within an extensive designed landscape on rising ground in a meander of Annalee River. Extensive stable and farmyard complex extends up hill to west, large south-facing walled garden to north-west, gates and lodge to south-east.
Ballyhaise House is architecturally one of the most significant houses in Cavan. A multiple phased building set in an early designed landscape, the core of house, vaulted over basement and ground floor, date from c.1705. A historic watercolour painted before 1730 depicts the earlier house with related buildings and bridge in the wider landscape setting. The house was remodelled after this date for Brockhill Newburgh MP, and the work has traditionally been attributed to Richard Castle (1690-1751), one of Ireland’s foremost Palladian architects. However, it is now thought to be the work of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The demesne landscape was described in Rev Henry’s ‘Upper Lough Erne’ in 1739. The advanced outer bays were added c.1820, possibly by the Dublin architect William Farrell (d. 1851), and are similar in detail to his work at nearby Rathkenny House and Kilmore See House. The interior is well preserved, the architectural detail reflecting the historic evolution of the house, with classical detailing added to earlier vaulted ceilings being a notable feature. The demesne constitutes an ensemble of structures and designed landscape features of high quality, including a largely intact stable yard, a walled garden, and entrance gates, and adds to its setting and context.
Built by Brockhill Newburgh and originally composed with wings in the classic Palladian manner (removed when the house was extended in the early nineteenth century), Ballyhaise was deemed by Jonathan Swift, ‘not only the best, but the only house he had seen in Ireland’.
Like Bellamont, the house at Ballyhaise is distinguished as a building predominantly built of brick with its classical detail perfectly mediated, cleanly and precisely, in contrasting stone trim. Instead of a freestanding portico, the idea of the temple front is addressed in the frontispiece, a pedimented breakfront formed with two tiers of pilasters – Ionic over Doric – which observed the strict hierarchy that applies to the classical orders. Ballyhaise was further innovative for its introduction to Irish domestic architecture of the central bowed projection, distinctive here in its accommodation of a complete oval form within the plan, a shape that derives from French baroque architecture of the seventeenth
century. Though difficult to conceive now, Ballyhaise was even more remarkable in that its original form had been conceived with the classic expanded Palladian layout, its central block set between curved wings in a manner that enjoyed an enduring popularity in Ireland, having begun with houses like Carton and Castletown in County Kildare. At Ballyhaise, this grand composition with its low arcaded wings terminating in polygonal pavilions, equal to the most ambitious of Palladio’s villa designs, was swept away when new wings were formed in the early nineteenth century. The massing of the central block at Ballyhaise between lower square subsidiary towers and a series of small pyramid roofs recurred at Lismore (fig.14), where the surviving wings rather more grandly reaffirm the Palladian idea of closely integrating the agricultural practicalities of the farm with the house.
Ballyhaise House As part of James I’s plantation of Ulster, in 1609 John Taylor of Cambridge received a grant of 1,500 acres in an area of County Cavan called Aghieduff. Here he established the town of Ballyhaise and, according to a mid-19th century report, ‘built a strong Bawn of lime and stone for his own residence, on the site of the present castle, which, from it position, commanded the ford over the river.’ John Taylor married Ann the daughter and heiress of Henry Brockhill of Allington, Kent – their elder son was Brockhill Taylor who served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Cavan in the 1630s. On his death he left no son but two daughters one of whom, Mary inherited the Cavan estate. She married Thomas Newburgh - their second son, Colonel Brockhill Newburgh, (c.1659 – 1741) was the next owner of Ballyhaise since his elder brother died in 1701 without heirs. During the Williamite Wars, Colonel Newburgh had raised a company of soldiers and participated in several battles in support of what would prove to be the winning side.
In 1704 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cavan and served as an M.P. from 1715 to 1727, as well as acting as chairman of the local linen board. Ballyhaise remained in the possession of the Newburgh family until around 1800 when it was sold to William Humphreys, a Dublin merchant who had made his fortune in the wood trade. In 1905 the state bought the property and has run it as an agricultural college every since.
‘It were also to be wished that even our gentlemen would in their country-seats imitate Colonel Newburgh, a great improver in the Co. of Cavan, who as well as several others, does not only use stucco work, instead of wainscot, but has arched his fine dwelling-house, and all his large office-houses, story over story, and even all their roofs in the most beautiful manner without any timber.’ Samuel Madden, Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, Etc.1738. ‘This seat, for beauty and magnificence, may vie with any in Ireland. There is an ascent to it by several terraces from the river, which are adorned with ponds, jets d’eau, fruit and flowers. The house is about 140 feet in front – it is made to last for ever – the roofs and all the apartments being vaulted, and curiously finished with stucco work; and yet scarce any house in Ireland has so brisk and lively an aspect – the just mixture of the brick and hewn stone, and the proportion of the parts adding life to one another; the large court and offices also behind it are all vaulted. It is not easy to pass by this fine seat without delaying at it, but to do justice to the house, its various apartments, gardens, vistas, avenues, circular walks, roads and plantations rising to the tops of all the hills around, would require a description that would draw me too far from my present design.’ Rev. William Henry, Upper Lough Erne, 1739. ‘The affairs of Ireland being sometime happily settled, the gentlemen of the country now began to quit their cottages, and build mansion houses, suitable to their estates and fortunes. The arts hitherto unknown in Ireland, architecture in particular, began to receive encouragement; of which no gentleman of private fortune gave juster and more useful specimens than Mr Newburgh. His dwelling house as well as offices being arched throughout, in the upper as well as lower stories are thereby of course, free from the danger and power of fire. The compliment that the late Dean Swift paid to Mr Newburgh on the planning such a singular but useful edifice, was as uncommon, as there is reason to believe it sincere, viz. That it was not only the best, but the only house he had seen in Ireland.’ Particulars relating to the Life and Character of the Late Brockhill Newburgh Esq. ,1761.
As part of James I’s plantation of Ulster, in 1609 John Taylor of Cambridge received a grant of 1,500 acres in an area of County Cavan called Aghieduff. Here he established the town of Ballyhaise and, according to a mid-19th century report, ‘built a strong Bawn of lime and stone for his own residence, on the site of the present castle, which, from it position, commanded the ford over the river.’ Further English and Scottish settlers were encouraged to move into the area and when Nicholas Pynner undertook his government-commissioned survey of the province’s plantation in 1618-19 he found eighteen such families living at Ballyhaise ‘and everything around the infant colony appeared in the most prosperous condition.’ The disturbances of the 1640s were a setback to the enterprise but by the time of Charles II’s restoration to the throne in 1660, Ballyhaise’s settlement was once more progressing. John Taylor had married the daughter and heiress of Henry Brockhill of Allington, Kent and their elder son was duly christened Brockhill Taylor; he served as Member of Parliament for the borough of Cavan in the 1630s. On his death he left no son but two daughters one of whom, Mary inherited the Cavan estate. She married Thomas Newburgh and the couple had several sons, the second of which, Colonel Brockhill Newburgh, was the next owner of Ballyhaise since his elder brother died in 1701 without heirs. During the Williamite Wars, Colonel Newburgh had raised a company of soldiers and participated in several battles in support of what would prove to be the winning side. In 1704 he was appointed High Sheriff of Cavan and served as an M.P. from 1715 to 1727, as well as acting as chairman of the local linen board. However it is for the building projects he undertook on his Ballyhaise estate that Colonel Newburgh is best remembered. In 1703 he and another local landowner rebuilt the bridge here as an eight-arched stone structure, and during the same period he also embarked on a grand scheme to lay out a new town, described after his death as being ‘in the form of a Circus, the houses all arched, with a large circular market house in the center; a building, in the opinion of some good judges, not unworthy the plan of Vitruvius or Palladio; and which (if we may be allowed to compare small things with great) bears no distant resemblance to the Pantheon at Rome, but with this difference, without the opening of the convex roof at the summit, contrived to give light to the latter.’ Unfortunately in 1736 the market house collapsed and had to be rebuilt; in 1837 it was reported to be ‘an arched edifice built of brick and of singular appearance.’ It has since gone and the present market house, with ill-considered uPVC windows, does little to improve what remains of Colonel Newburgh’s once-elegant and innovative programme of urban planning.
The near-contemporaneous accounts carried above give us an idea of Colonel Newburgh’s ambitious developments of his own house and grounds at Ballyhaise, and the impact these made on visitors to the area. The gardens, it is clear, were an elaborate baroque arrangement of ‘ponds, jets d’eau, fruit and flowers’ spread across a sequence of terraces that descended to the river before the land rose up once more on its far side. As for the house, its architect has long been the subject of speculation. It used to be attributed to Castle, but given that Colonel Newburgh is believed to have been born c.1659 (and died in 1741) and that certain elements of the building, not least the red brick used in its construction, are associated with Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, he now seems more likely to have been responsible. Ballyhaise was probably constructed on the site and incorporated parts of an earlier dwelling dating back a century to around the time of John Taylor’s arrival; one imagines this to have been defensive in character. Colonel Newburgh’s house, on the other hand, projects its owner’s assurance and the more tranquil character of the time. The core of the building was of two storeys over half-basement, and of seven bays. As already mentioned red brick was used except for the three centre bays which are of limestone with Ionic over Doric pilasters below a full entablature supporting a pediment. The narrow entrance is reached at the top of a flight of steps, a garland of carved flowers fitted beneath the door case’s segmental pediment containing a scallop shell. In 1746 the architect and designer Thomas Wright who was then visiting Ireland as a guest of Lord Limerick (see Do the Wright Thing, July 28th 2014) made a sketch of the front of Ballyhaise as it then was. This can be seen above and indicates the house was the centrepiece of a Palladian scheme extended on either side by quadrants before terminating in pavilion wings. None of this remains today and the interior has likewise undergone changes since first completed when it was vaulted throughout, allegedly as a precaution against fire. What remain largely unaltered are the entrance hall and rooms immediately on either side; one of these, the so-called Peacock Room, contains wall paper from the first half of the 19th century, covered in varnish at some later date but otherwise in good condition. To the rear of the entrance hall is the room which best evokes Colonel Newburgh’s house, a small oval saloon. Its walls covered in plaster panelling beneath a shallow coffered dome, the saloon contains a simple Kilkenny marble chimneypiece and two windows on either side of what surely must once have been an opening onto a balcony at the centre of the projecting bow.
Ballyhaise remained in the possession of the Newburgh family until around 1800 when it was sold to William Humphreys, a Dublin merchant who had made his fortune in the wood trade. By then the house must have looked very old-fashioned and it was therefore subjected to a complete overhaul. The quadrants and wings were demolished and the main block extended on either side to hold drawing and dining room respectively, both lit by generous tripartite windows. The contrast between these and the original early 18thcentury windows is only one of a number of incongruities, accentuated on the exterior by the unmistakable difference in tone of brick. Inside rather narrow passages provide access to the main reception rooms which are large and mostly plain although the overdoors carry floral friezes. The main staircase, squeezed into too tight a space, leads to the first floor former bedrooms which are also simple although some, such as that immediately above the oval saloon, retain their Georgian decoration and chimney piece. Mr Humprheys’ heirs enjoyed the advantages of his wealth for barely a century before it ran out and the house was once more sold, this time to the state which in 1905 bought the estate to run as an agricultural college. Ballyhaise has served this purpose every since, a mixed blessing for the place. Inevitably there have been losses, not least to the surrounding parkland where no evidence of Colonel Newburgh’s fantastical gardens survive; of course, these may well have been swept away when the property was modernised by Mr Humphreys. Recent additions to the building stock in the grounds are pedestrian in design, but the old stable blocks remain and have suffered relatively little compromise. And most importantly the house itself survives and has of late benefitted from remedial works, particularly to the roof. Not all is as was when Colonel Newburgh embarked on his improvements but the words of the Rev. William Henry written in 1739 still ring true: Ballyhaise appears to have been ‘made to last for ever.’
THE HUMPHRYS’ OWNED 5,146 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY CAVAN
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS, of Ballyhaise, County Cavan, younger brother of Christopher Humphrys, of Dromard, married Letitia Kennedy, and had issue,
Christopher, b 1786; WILLIAM, of whom we treat; John, 1809-18; Anne; Matilda; Letitia; Amelia; Caroline; Sophia.
Mr Humphrys, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1822, was succeeded by his second son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS JP DL (1798-1872), of Ballyhaise House, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1832, who wedded firstly, in 1826, Anna Maria, daughter of John Pratt Winter, of Agher, County Meath, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; JOHN WINTER, succeeded his brother; Mervyn Archdall; Anne Elizabeth.
He espoused secondly, in 1838, Maria Clarissa, daughter of Hugh Moore, of Eglantine House, County Down, and had issue,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS (1827-77), High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1877, who died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother,
JOHN WINTER HUMPHRYS (1829-84), of Ballyhaise House, High Sheriff of County Cavan, 1879, who married, in 1854, Priscilla Cecilia, daughter of the Rev J P Garrett, of Killgaron, County Carlow, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; John Mervyn; James Winter; Charles Vesey; Mervyn Archdall; Francis Edward; Arthur Armitage; Llewellyn Winter; Percy Raymond; Caroline Elizabeth; Priscilla Cecilia; Clara Christina; Anna Maria; Emily May.
Mr Humphrys was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS JP (1855-97), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant RN, who wedded, in 1879, Alice, daughter of James Stannard JP, of Bricketstown House, County Wexford, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his heir; NUGENT WINTER, succeeded his brother; Ethel Elizabeth; Evelyn Alice.
Mr Humphrys was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM HUMPHRYS (1883-1906), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant, 17th Lancers, who died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother,
NUGENT WINTER HUMPHRYS (1885-1931), of Ballyhaise House, Lieutenant, Manchester Regiment, who espoused, in 1911, Blanche Ada de Vivefay, daughter of William Edward Wilson, of Daramona.
BALLYHAISE HOUSE, Ballyhaise, County Cavan, is one of the most notable mansions in County Cavan.
The house comprises two storeys over a basement, with seven bays; with ashlar dressings, faced in brick.
The entrance front has a pedimented feature with four Ionic pilasters.
The garden front has a central carved bow with round-headed windows.
The bow contains an oval saloon, which has been considered one of the earliest of its kind in the British Isles.
Ballyhaise was sold in 1800 to William Humphrys, who enlarged the house considerably by adding two storey wings of the same height as the original block.
The estate was sold by the Humprys family in 1906 and now serves as an agricultural college.
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.
p. 20. “(Enery/LGI1863; Roe/LGI1912) A house built 1764 by G. Montgomery on the site of Ballyconnell Castle, which had been burnt. Two storey, five bay front; two bay side; high-pitched roof. C19 bowed porch.”
Detached five-bay two-storey country house, built 1764, having single-storey bowed entrance, added c.1850, with returns to rear extended, 2008. Currently disused. Hipped roof slate roof to main house and pitched slate roofs to returns, having rendered chimneystacks, oversailing eaves and uPVC bargeboards. Conical felt roof to bowed entrance. Rendered walls with moulded sandstone eaves course and sandstone ashlar plat band at first floor. Moulded limestone eaves cornice to entry bow. Moulded granite plinth course to north elevation. Replacement double-glazed timber six-over-six sliding sash windows to ground floor, three-over-three to first, two four-over-four to return, with limestone sills. Round-headed window openings to bow with concrete sills and casement windows. Rounded-headed door opening to entrance bay having temporary plywood door and single-pane overlight. Two square-headed door openings to ground floor of west elevation and one to east elevation of return, having metal security doors. Formerly attached L-plan multiple-bay two-storey range of former outbuildings to rear, now heavily altered and partially converted to apartments. Set on elevated site in historic demesne close to Woodford River, now within housing development. Partially surrounded by random sandstone rubble boundary wall with square cement coping and cast-iron railings.
Ballyconnell Castle was completed in 1620 for Walter Talbot who had developed the town during the Plantation of Ulster. The castle was burnt and replaced in the eighteenth century by Ballyconnell House, apparently built by G. Montgomery, and retained the name ‘castle’ well into the nineteenth century. Though recently renovated, the building retains much of its historic form, proportions, and character. The detailing in local sandstone is typical of Ballyconnell. As the former seat of the landlords of Ballyconnell, it continues to contribute to the social history of the town and its surrounding hinterland.
Irish Historic Houses 