Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 56. [Trench sub. Ashtown] “An elegant two storey villa, built for William Trench, brother of 1st Lord Ashtown, and completed by 1807. Conclusively attributed to Richard Morrison by Mr McPartland, who describes it as “full of spatial surprises, introduced by the extraordinarly funnelled entrance.” The latter is a deep arched recess, beneath which the entrance door is set; it has a wide concave surround and is the dominant feature of the three bay entrance front; a front identical to those of two other Morrison villas in Offaly, Ballylin and Bellair. The interior is ingeniously planned, with domed lobbies and rooms that are bowed or covered with trellis-work barrel vaults. The plasterwork is by James Talbot, who was associated with Morrison on other houses.”
Detached three-bay two-storey over basement country house, built in 1807, with bow to east-facing side elevation and recessed entrance porch. Hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, rendered chimneystacks, cast-iron rainwater goods and open eaves. Ruled-and-lined roughcast rendered walls with tooled limestone plinth course and quoins to basement. Timber sash windows with hammer dressed limestone surrounds and sills. Keystones to windows on ground floor. Windows to front elevation and bow with chamfered limestone surrounds. Continuous sill course to first floor windows on front and side elevations with shouldered arch detail above entrance. Ground floor windows flanking bow set within blind arches. Segmental-headed window openings to basement of east-facing side elevation with limestone block-and-start surrounds and horizontal sliding sash windows. Cambered-arch window openings to front and rear elevations with horizontal sliding sash windows. Recessed entrance porch consists of a segmental-headed arched opening with hammer dressed limestone architrave, deeply coved stucco surround leadings into the porch with a groin-vaulted ceiling. Segmental-headed arch with panelled soffit frames square-headed door opening with architrave surround flanked by pilasters with console brackets supporting dentil cornice and decorative foliate frieze. Glazed double doors with classical panel set within egg-and-dart frame above. Greek key skirting to porch. Door accessed up six limestone steps. Basement area enclosed by rendered plinth wall. Sundial set on a fluted limestone column to front site. Ruined summerhouse to rear site. Coursed rubble stone wall enclosed front site to west. Limestone piers and wrought-iron gates and railings to front site. Walled garden and stable yard to west of house.
Cangort Park, County Offaly, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Cangort Park, County Offaly, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Cangort Park, County Offaly, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Cangort Park, County Offaly, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Cangort Park, County Offaly, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Designed by Sir Richard Morrison for William Trench and completed 1807, Cangort Park in an important villa designed by one of the most prolific and successful villa architects practicing in the early nineteenth century. Almost identical to Bellair in north County Offaly, Cangort Park also shares many similar features with other Morrison designed villas. The deeply recessed entrance porch with a coved surround accessed up limestone steps and containing an ornate door surround with classical plaque above, is a striking entrance to the villa. The bowed side elevation, open eaves, limestone string courses and limestone chamfered window reveals and surrounds all contribute to the appealing design of the house and the significance of the structure. However it is the interior plan and decoration of the villa that is of most interest. The wonderful domed stair hall located in the centre of the building contains a sweeping cantilevered staircase and is decorated with the Greek key motif. Off the west side of the axial corridor lies a library with superb barrel-vaulted ceiling, reputed to be elegantly decorated by James Talbot. Although in poor condition now, the quality of the stonework, detail of design and elegant interior make Cangort Park an important part of the architectural heritage of County Offaly.
William Trench of Cangort Park, Shinrone, county Offaly, born 1760, was the fourth son of Frederic Trench of Woodlawn, county Galway. He married Sarah Moore a granddaughter of Edward 5th Earl of Drogheda and they had 2 sons and 2 daughters. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation the Trenches held some land in the parish of Croom, county Limerick. In 1836 Henry Trench, the second son of William and Sarah married a Bloomfield of Redwood, county Tipperary. In the 1870s Henry Trench of Cangort Park, Roscrea, owned 4,707 acres in county Tipperary, 2,113 acres in county Offaly, 1,926 acres in county Limerick, 1,581 acres in county Galway, 704 acres in county Clare and 432 acres in county Roscommon. His nephew the Reverend William Robert Trench of Liverpool owned 817 acres in county Tipperary.
Templemore Abbey, County Tipperary entrance and garden fronts c. 1880, photograph: collection Sir John Carden, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 271. “(Carden, Bt, of Templemore/PB) Templemore Castle, the original seat of the Carden family, was detroyed by fire towards mid-C18; after which a handsome nine bay house was built elsewhere on the demesne. This house was demolished early C19 and a new house built on a more elevated site in demesne adjoining the original park to the west; it was originally known as Templemore Priory, but afterwards called Templemore Abbey. In 1819, this house was no more than a single-stoey Gothic cottage with a very tall round tower and a crocketed square tower but it was subsequently greatly enlarged by William Vitruvius Morrison, in the Tudor-Gothic style….it was burnt 1922.”
Templemore Abbey, County Tipperary, dining room c. 1880 photograph: collection Sir John Carden, 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.John Craven Carden, 1st Baronet by Robert Hunter courtesy of Adam’s auction 13 Oct 2015. This portrait of John Craven Carden is in the uniform of the Templemore Light Dragoons, a volunteer regiment raised in response to the withdrawal of regular troops required for the American War but which rapidly acquired political leverage. Carden had inherited large estates in Tipperary acquired in the Cromwellian settlement of the 17th Century. Although without parliamentry influence, Carden represented landed interests which the Castle administration were keen to control. Bribes were measured and Carden was made a baronet in 1787. He proved to be a sound man in the 1798 rebellion and by fortifying the Market House in Templemore denied the town to the rebels. He also leased the land for a barracks (now the Garda Training College) and donated the site of the Catholic Church in 1810.
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.
Constructed on the site of an earlier house, Templemore Abbey was a vast neo-Gothic mansion designed by one of the masters of the genre in Ireland, William Vitruvius Morrison. The building contains elements of much of Morrison’s best work in the style, Elizabethan gables, battlements and turrets.
Sadly the building was torched during the War of Independence after it had been used by British forces as a base for B Company of the Auxiliaries. After they left the building in May 1921, it was destroyed in an arson attack.
THE CARDEN BARONETS OWNED 6,680 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY TIPPERARY
This family, which is of antiquity, removed from Lincolnshire into Ireland about the middle of the 17th century.
The name is local, being derived from the township of Cawarden, or Carden, which lies about eleven miles south-south-east from Chester, which manor was the original inheritance of the family; but the elder branch terminating in co-heiresses, the manor of Over-Carden was carried by marriage into the family of Felton, about the end of the 16th century.
A branch of the family had been settled in Kent, where it appears that it had been for several generations possessed of the manor of Hodford; but that estate was alienated during the reign of ELIZABETH I, by John Carden, to the family of Cobbe, when there is reason to believe that the Cardens of Kent removed into Lincolnshire, and that from them diverged the Irish branch, springing from
JOHN CARDEN (c1623-1728), who settled at Templemore, County Tipperary, about 1650, and married Priscilla, daughter of John Kent, of County Kilkenny, by whom he had issue,
Jonathan, ancestor of CARDEN OF BARNANE; JOHN, of whom we treat; William; Margery; Anne; Abigail; Margaret; two other daughters.
Mr Carden died at the extraordinary age of 105. His second son,
JOHN CARDEN, of Templemore, wedded, in 1717, Rebecca, daughter of Humphrey Minchin, of Ballynakill, and had issue,
JOHN, his heir; Minchin; Paul.
The eldest son,
JOHN CARDEN (1720-74), of Templemore, espoused, in 1747, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of the Rev Robert Craven, and had (with other issue),
JOHN CRAVEN, his heir; Christiana.
The eldest son,
JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN (c1758-1820), of Templemore, married firstly, in 1776, Mary, daughter of Arthur, 1st Viscount Harberton, and had issue,
John (1777-1811); ARTHUR, his heir; another son.
He wedded secondly, in 1781, Sarah, daughter of John Moore, and had issue,
Annesley; Gertrude; another daughter.
Mr Carden espoused thirdly, in 1788, Mary Frances, daughter of Henry Westenra, and sister of Warner William, 2nd Baron Rossmore, and had further issue,
HENRY ROBERT, 2nd Baronet; Harriet Amelia; Frances.
He married fourthly, Anne, widow of the Viscount Monck.
Mr Carden was created a baronet in 1787, denominated of Templemore, County Tipperary.
He raised and commanded the 30th Regiment of Light Dragoons, which, with many other regiments, was reduced at the peace of Amiens.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR ARTHUR CARDEN, 2nd Baronet (1778-1822), High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1820, who wedded Mary, daughter of Thomas Kemmis, of Shaen, Queen’s County; but dying without issue, the title devolved upon his half-brother,
SIR HENRY ROBERT CARDEN (1789-1847), of Templemore, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1824, who espoused, in 1818, Louisa, daughter of Frederick Thompson, of Dublin, and had issue,
JOHN CRAVEN, his successor; Frederick; Henry Daniel; Arthur (Rev); Elizabeth Caroline; Sarah Sophia; Frances Mary.
Sir Henry was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 4th Baronet (1819-79), DL, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1849, who married firstly, in 1844, Caroline Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Sir William Mordaunt Sturt Milner Bt, and had issue,
Beatrice Georgina; three other daughters.
He wedded secondly, in 1852, Julia Isabella, daughter of Admiral Charles Gepp Robinson, and had further issue,
JOHN CRAVEN, his successor; Henry Charles; Frederick Richard; Coldstream James; Derrick Alfred, ancestor of the 8th Baronet; Julia Ellen Beatrice; Norah Irene; Eileen Olive.
Sir John was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 5th Baronet (1854-1931), JP DL, High Sheriff of County Tipperary, 1882, who espoused, in 1891, Sybil Martha, daughter of General Valentine Baker, and had issue,
JOHN VALENTINE, his successor; Audrey.
Sir John, the last of the family to live at Templemore Abbey, was succeeded by his son and heir,
SIR JOHN VALENTINE CARDEN, 6th Baronet (1892-1935), MBE, Captain, Royal Army Service Corps, who married firstly, in 1915, Vera Madeleine, daughter of William Henry Hervet-d’Egville; and secondly, in 1925, Dorothy Mary, daughter of Charles Luckraft McKinnon, by whom he had issue, an only child,
SIR JOHN CRAVEN CARDEN, 7th Baronet (1926-2008), of Jersey, Channel Islands, who wedded, in 1947, Isabel Georgette, daughter de Hart, and had issue, an only child, ISABEL MARY.
Sir John died without male issue, when the title passed to his distant cousin,
TEMPLEMORE ABBEY, County Tipperary, replaced an earlier castle which was destroyed by a fire in the mid-18th century.
In its place another house was erected, though it, too, was demolished in the early 1800s and a new residence was constructed on an elevated location some distance from the original building.
It was called Templemore Priory, though its name was changed subsequently to Templemore Abbey.
This residence was relatively modest, similar to a single-storey Gothic cottage; it was, however, considerably increased in size, ca 1865, by the architect William Vitruvius Morrison in the Tudor-Gothic style.
This was said to have cost £36,000 (£4.3 million in today’s money).
The completed mansion afforded a two-storey entrance front, with finials, oriels, gables, and a castellated parapet.
There was also a long, irregular side elevation.
The Abbey was burnt to the ground in 1922 by the IRA.
Rossmore Park, County Monaghan, Gillman Collection, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 247. “(Westenra, Rossmore, B/PB) A C19 castle of great size and complexity; partly Tudor-Gothic, of 1827, by William Vitruvius Morrison; and partly Scottish Baronial, of 1858, by William Henry Lynn. The 1827 range, built for 2nd Lord Rossmore, dominated by a square tower and turret topped with crow-step battlements; and having a line of gables and oriels. Various small additions were made at one end, in order to enlarge the drawing room; according to the story, Lord Rossmore vied with Mr Shirley of Lough Fea, as to which of them could build a bigger room. The 1838 range dominated by a smaller and more massive tower with a polygonal turret and cupola, a balustraded parapet and other Scottish Baronial touches; also by a slender square tower with a spire. Eventually the combined ranges boasted of at least 117 windows, of 53 shapes and sizes. the three towers together produced a romantic silhouette, particularly as the castle was magnificently situated on a hilltop, overlooking a landscape of woods and lakes. In the later Victorian and Edwardian days, Rossmore was noted for its gaiety; the then (5th) Lord Rossmore, known as “Derry,” being one of the brighter sparks of the Prince of Wales’s set, and author of some lively memoirs called Things I can Tell. Post WWII, the castle became severely infested by dry rot and was abandoned by 6th Lord Rossmore in favour of Camla Vale. Now demolished.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
Architects: William Vitruvius Morrison / W.H. Lynn
Rossmore Park, County Monaghan, courtesy Archiseek.Rossmore Park, County Monaghan, courtesy Archiseek.
Also known as Rossmore Park, Rossmore Castle was a 19th century castle of great size and variety. Originally built in 1827 to the designs of William Vitruvius Morrison in Tudor Gothic, it was extended in 1858 by W.H. Lynn. The 1827 range was dominated by a square tower with turret and crow stepped battlements and a line of gables and oriel windows.
Lord Rossmore and the Shirleys of Lough Fea had competed for many years for the largest room in County Monaghan with the result that the drawing room at Rossmore was extended five times and resulted in the elongated area seen in the left of the photograph. Eventually the Castle had at least 117 windows of 53 different sizes and shapes and the three towers produced a romantic silhouette when viewed from the surrounding hills in the demense.
Rossmore Park, County Monaghan, courtesy Archiseek.
In the later years of the 19th century Rossmore was known for its gaiety with the 5th Lord Rossmore being a friend of the Prince of Wales. After the Second World War, dry rot forced the abandonment of the castle in favour of Camla Vale. Rossmore Castle has since been demolished.
THE BARONS ROSSMORE WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY MONAGHAN, WITH 14,839 ACRES
The family of CAIRNES of that ilk is of very ancient standing in Scotland. In 1363, DAVID II gave a renewal charter of the two Baronies of East and West Whitburn, Linlithgowshire, to WILLIAM DE CARNYS, and Duncan his son and heir.
This William had issue,
Duncan;
John;
William, father of JOHN, of whom presently;
Alexander.
The grandson,
JOHN CAIRNIS, of Cults, Aberdeen, son of William and heir of his uncle Alexander, was Custumar (customs officer) of Linlithgow, 1406-22, and Scutifer (shield-bearer) to the Earl of Douglas.
He died in 1456, leaving three sons, of whom the eldest,
JOHN CAIRNIS, of Cults and of Orchardton, Custumar of Linlithgow, 1449-56, served in the wars under JAMES II, and died ca 1493.
His son, or grandson,
WILLIAM CAIRNIS, of Orchardton, summoned as a minor Baron 1527, married Margaret, daughter of Sir Patrick Agnew, of Lochnaw, and died 1555, having had, with other issue,
William;
JOHN, of whom presently;
PETER;
HENRY.
The second son,
JOHN CAIRNIS, of Cults, Esquire to MARY Queen of Scots, wedded, in 1555, Margaret, daughter of Alexander McCulloch, of Killaster, and died in 1568, leaving issue, his second son,
JOHN CAIRNIS, of Cults, who sold most of the estates, espoused Margaret Hamilton, and died in 1603, leaving issue,
ALEXANDER CAIRNIS, of Blairboys, who sold the remainder of the lands of his family, settled in Ulster 1609, as general agent for the Scottish Undertakers in Donegal.
He died ca 1635, leaving issue, his eldest son,
JOHN CAIRNES, of Parsonstown, or Cecil, County Tyrone, MP for Augher, 1639-40, who married Jane, daughter of Dr James Miller, MD, of Monaghan, and had issue, with two daughters,
ALEXANDER CAIRNES (1665-1732), MP for Monaghan Borough, 1710-13, County Monaghan, 1713-14, 1715-27, Monaghan Borough, 1727-32, was created a baronet, in 1708, designated of Monaghan.
He wedded, 1697-8, Elizabeth, daughter of John Gould, of Hackney, and sister of Sir Nathaniel Gould, by whom he had issue,
William Henry, died unmarried;
MARY, of whom presently.
Sir Alexander died in 1732, when he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his brother, Sir Henry Cairnes, 2nd and last Baronet.
his only surviving child,
MARY CAIRNES, espoused firstly, in 1724, 7th Baron Blayney. He dsp 1732.
She married secondly, in 1734, Colonel John Murray, MP for Monaghan, and by him had issue,
Frances Cairnes, m 1st Earl of Clermont;
ELIZABETH, m (as below) General Rt Hon R Cuningham, 1st Baron Rossmore;
Anne; Mary; Harriet.
The Dowager Baroness Blayney died in 1790; her son-in-law was Robert, 1st Baron Rossmore.
Lineage of Westenra
THE WESTENRAS, descended from the family of VAN WASSENAER, of Wassenburg, were of great antiquity in Holland, and they bore the augmentation of the SEAHORSE, in reference to the valour of an ancestor who, during the Duke of Alba’s campaigns, was actively employed against the enemy, and undertook to swim across an arm of the sea with important intelligence to his besieged countrymen.
WARNER WESTENRA settled in Ireland during the reign of CHARLES II, and with his brothers, Derrick and Peter Westenra, became a free denizen of that kingdom, by act of parliament, in 1662.
In 1667, Colonel Grace sold the town and lands of “Clonlee, Brickanagh, and Lyagh” [sic], in the King’s County, to this Warner Westenra, merchant, of the city of Dublin.
He married Elizabeth Wyhrantz, and had issue,
HENRY, his successor; Elizabeth, m Rt Rev Simon Digby.
Mr Westenra died in 1676, and was succeeded by his son,
HENRY WESTENRA, who inherited likewise the estates of his cousin, Peter Westenra, MP for Athboy, 1692.
Mr Westenra wedded, in 1700, Eleanor, second daughter of Sir Joshua Allen, Knight, and sister of John, 1st Viscount Allen, by whom he had surviving issue,
WARNER, his successor; Henry; Peter; Elizabeth; Jane; Penelope.
He died in 1719, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
WARNER WESTENRA, MP for Maryborough, 1728-55, who espoused, in 1738, the Lady Hester Lambert, second daughter of Richard, 4th Earl of Cavan, and had issue,
HENRY, his successor; Richard; Joseph; Castilinna; Eleanor.
Mr Westenra was was succeeded by his eldest son,
HENRY WESTENRA, MP for Monaghan, 1818-26, Seneschal of the King’s Manors in Ireland, who married, in 1764, Harriet, daughter of Colonel John Murray MP, and had issue,
WARNER WILLIAM, his heir; Henry; Mary Frances; Harriet Hesther.
He was succeeded by his eldest son,
WARNER WILLIAM WESTENRA (1765-1842), of Rossmore Park, County Monaghan, who wedded firstly, in 1791, Mary Anne, second daughter of Charles Walsh, of Walsh Park, County Tipperary, and had issue,
HENRY ROBERT, his successor; Richard; John Craven; Charles; Marianne.
He espoused secondly, in 1819, Augusta, fourth daughter of of Francis, Lord Elcho, and sister of Francis, 7th Earl of Wemyss.
Mr Westenra succeeded to the barony of ROSSMORE on the decease of ROBERT CUNINGHAME, 1st Baron Rossmore, in 1801.
***********************
ROBERT CUNINGHAME (1726-1801), son of the late Colonel David Cuninghame, of Seabegs, Stirling, a General in the army, and Colonel, 5th Dragoons; MP for Tulske, 1751-60, for Armagh, 1761-8, for Monaghan, 1769-96, and for East Grinstead, 1788-9; was elevated to the peerage, in 1796, in the dignity of BARON ROSSMORE, of Rossmore Park; and having no issue by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John Murray, and co-heir of her mother Mary, Dowager Lady Blayney, sole heir of Sir Alexander Cairnes Bt, the patent of creation contained a reversionary clause conferring the Barony, at his lordship’s decease, upon the heirs male, at the time being, of two of her ladyship’s sisters successively; namely, Anne, the wife of the Rt Hon Theophilus Jones; and Harriet, the wife of Henry Westenra.
His lordship died in 1801, and the only son of Mrs Jones, Alexander Jones, having predeceased him, unmarried, the barony devolved upon Mrs Westenra’s eldest son, WARNER WILLIAM WESTENRA, 2nd Baron Rossmore.
The heir apparent is the present holder’s only son, the Hon Benedict William Westenra (b 1983).
ROSSMORE CASTLE, County Monaghan, was a very large and complex mansion, constructed on the outskirts of Monaghan town in Tudor-Gothic style in 1827 by the the 3rd Lord Rossmore, to the designs of William Vitruvius Morrison.
An extension was added in 1858 in Scottish-Baronial style, designed by William Henry Lynn.
A main feature of the original building was a large square tower and turret with crow-step battlements.
The extension also featured two towers, one with a polygonal turret and cupola, the other a smaller square tower with a spire.
The building underwent further smaller changes, a number of which were inspired by a competition which had developed over the years between Lord Rossmore and Mr Shirley of Lough Fea, as to which of them could claim to have the largest room in County Monaghan.
The remarkable consequence was that the drawing-room in Rossmore Castle was enlarged five times.
Eventually the combined changes and additions resulted in a building with three towers and over 117 windows in 53 different shapes and sizes.
After the 2nd World War, the house developed a severe case of dry rot, and the 6th Baron and his family were forced to leave the castle and take up residence in Camla Vale, a Georgian house owned by the family and situated within the estate grounds.
Oscar Wilde once said ‘to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose both looks like carelessness’. The same could be said of County Monaghan and its castles, for my first book I was developing two chapters about two wondrous architectural creations in Monaghan. However imagine my surprise to discover that absolutely nothing of these great buildings remain but a few steps, outbuildings and gate lodges. The first of these is Dartrey which was completed in the midst of the Great Irish Famine in 1847. It was originally designed to extend and incorporate a house from the 1770’s known as Dawson’s Grove, with the old and the new house being divided by a substantial wall. The house cost its owner, Richard Dawson, who later became the first Earl of Dartrey, £30,000. It was a vast Elizabethan Revival mansion and the architect chosen for these improvements was William Burn. The house had a very long facade with legions of mullioned windows, oriel windows, Tudor chimneys and curvilinear gables.
In March 1856, a fire is believed to have destroyed the original part of the house which would have been the Dawson’s Grove section. The fire broke out in the roof as a result of a defective chimney and completely destroyed the north-eastern wing. Furniture, pictures and statues were saved as numerous people fought to bring the fire under control. Rooms lost in this fire included the drawing room and her ladyship’s boudoir. The house was insured and the damaged section was replaced, as a result the house that now existed was a totally ‘new’ house that contained nothing of the original Dawson’s Grove.
A major change took place in the finances of this house and family in less than 100 years after its completion. The last owner of the house was Lady Edith Windham who was the daughter of the second Earl of Dartrey, Vesey Dawson. Vesey Dawson, the second Earl of Dartrey died in June 1920 after a long illness at Dartrey. He was born on the 22nd April 1842 and succeeded to the Earldom upon the death of his father in 1897. He married Julia daughter of Sir George Orby Wombwell in 1882 and had two daughters. During the First World War, he and Lady Dartey produced large amounts of vegetables in the gardens and terraces that surrounded the castle. He was succeeded to the title by his brother Hon Edward Stanley Dawson born in 1843. Lady Edith Windham, the grand daughter of the first Earl disposed of the house contents in 1937 with a four day sale which included a number of paintings by El Greco, Zoffany, Reubens and Coates. A broadcasting or speaker system was used so bidding could be heard in the different rooms of the house. Also included in the auction were 5,000 books from the library, it is un-imaginable that one house could contain so many books but these were all contained in one room. There auction created a bit of a stir in the antiques world as buyers travelled from Dublin, Northern Ireland and Great Britain with special buses put in place to ferry expectant bidders to and from the castle. Lady Edith had previously moved in to the Stewards Cottage and a number of years after the auction she then made arrangements to have the house demolished. Therefore the man that originally built the house was only separated from the lady who demolished the house, by only one generation. In March 1946, the demolition sale of the castle was advertised and consisted of 500 lots which included beams, flooring, rafters, moldings, skirting’s, the solid oak staircase, oak doors, window casings, brick, 5,000 slates, mantelpieces in white and cream marble. The sale handled by Samuel Brown, an auctioneer from Monaghan. Lady Edith claimed she had no option as the rates were too high and a buyer was not forth coming. A company from Dublin called Hammond Lane Foundry were engaged to carry out the destruction of this architectural masterpiece; however one imagines they were more interested in the lead in the roof than architectural salvage. The process of demolishing the family seat supposedly made Lady Edith a profit of £3,000 but one wonders if this figure could be considered a profit, when it cost her descendant ten times that amount to build the house in the first place.
One of the few elements that survive today and give some impression of the architectural splendour of the original house is the Dawson Mausoleum which recently underwent a spectacular restoration. The Mausoleum was built to commemorate Lady Anne Dawson who died in 1769 and contains a life sized marble sculpture of the deceased, her husband and son gathered around an urn that contained her ashes. The domed building that contained this sculpture was designed by the architect James Wyatt and was situated in the demesne that once surrounded Dartrey. Over the years the building became derelict and the sculpture was vandalised, with pieces of the statue being broken off and stolen. Now that the Mausoleum is restored a recent appeal has located the head of one of the statues in Dublin. However the hands, feet and angels wings still remain at large.
The second architectural jewel lost to the county of Monaghan was Rossmore Castle whose decline was hastened when it developed dry rot. This castle, as can be seen in the pictures, was something akin to a Walt Disney creation with its towers and turrets.
A succession of extensions in order to claim the title of the largest drawing room in Monaghan enlarged the floor area of the castle over the years. Rossmore Castle was a large Tudor Revival house built in 1827 to the design of William Viturvius Morrison for the second Lord Rossmore. In 1825, Richard Morrison was engaged in producing plans to rebuild the house then known as Cortolvin Hills for Lord Rossmore. In 1854, William Deane Butler produced plans for remodelling the house but these were not executed. The house was altered and enlarged 1858 to the design of William of William H. Lynn. Eventually the combined changes and additions resulted in a building with three towers and over 117 windows in 53 different shapes and sizes. One feature of the house was its drawing room which enlarged on a number of occasions due to Lord Rossmore competing with his neighbour Mr. Shirley of Lough Fea to have the largest room in the county. A competition Lord Rossmore eventually lost.
The early 1900’s the Rossmore’s seemed to have a run of bad luck. It was reported in August 1906, Lord Rossmore was ill in the castle and was confined to his room for the previous week. He had intended to go to his large, recently built, shooting lodge on his mountain. In April 1907, Lord and Lady Rossmore’s eldest son William was injured while mounting his pony near the castle. The pony bolted, William’s foot became entangled in the stirrups and he was dragged for some distance. He suffered a fractured skull and a broken leg. However a happy event was recorded in 1908 when the Duke of Connaught paid a visit to the castle. He again returned in 1909, where he stayed overnight and then travelled to Lord Rossmore’s mountain in Glasslough for grouse shooting. In the early part of the twentieth century Rossmore remained unoccupied for long periods as the fifth and sixth Barons decided to live in England which resulted in the uncontrolled spread of dry rot.
The Rossmore Family made a valiant attempt to brave the dry rot at Rossmore but when the mushrooms appeared on the drawing room ceiling it was hard to make any guests believe they were there for decorative purposes. The time came for them to abandon the castle for another family property when they had to ask their guests to wipe their feet on a disinfected mat so not to spread the spores of the dry rot. One wonders if it was the social embarrassment or the actual dry rot that led to the demolition of the house. In May 1946, contents of the castle advertised by Battersby & Co and that they had been removed to the Dower House, Camla, Rossmore Park. The auction which was to take place included antique furniture, Chippendale Mirrors, oil paintings statues, tapestries, china, carpet chandeliers and of course the obligatory billiards table. The oil paintings included works from Dutch, English, Flemish and Italian schools and comprised of portraits, battle scenes and landscapes. Now with the castle denuded of its contents, a demolition sale took place in September 1946 and lots included joist, rafters, bricks, slates, fireplaces, doors, windows, shutters, water tanks, bathroom fittings
The house remained unoccupied, was unroofed during the Second World War and finally demolished in 1975 and the grounds of the castle were sold to the Irish State in the 1960’s. The family moved to a nearby dower house called Camla Vale after the castle became uninhabitable due to the dry rot. The dry rot spores are believed to have traveled in the corks of the bottles from the wine cellar of the castle and as a result their new home also became infested. Today Rossmore is a public park with only a few elements such as the entrance steps and terraces of the castle surviving.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 165. “Godfrey, Bt/PB) A house built or remodelled in late C18 by Sir William Godfrey, 1st Bt, MP; altered 1830s by Sir John Godfrey, 2nd Bt, to the design of William Vitruvius Morrison, who threw one of his thinner Tudor-Revival cloaks over the house and gave it four slender corner-turrets with cupolas, similar to those at Glenarm Castle, Co Antrim and Borris, Co Carlow. A two storey service wing with curvilinear gables was also added. Inside the house, Morrison formed a two storey galleried hall, opening with arches onto the staircase. The house was lived in by the Godfreys until ca 1960; after which it was abandoned and has now fallen completely into ruin, most of it having been demolished.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 82. Kilcoleman Abbey, Milltown (formerly Milltown House) “A plain three storey house built c. 1800, altered in the Tudor Revival style by Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison in 1819 for Sir John Godfrey. Abandoned 1960, some ruins remain.“
Also known as Milltown House. More or less abandoned from 1800 to 1818, the house was renovated under the second Baronet, Sir John Godfrey, according to ambitious plans drawn up by architect William Vitruvius Morrison. However the general economic decline of the 1820’s and family misfortunes meant that only the stables and service wing, with its flemish gables, were completed as planned. Later, in the early 1840’s, the third Baronet Sir William Duncan Godfrey further modified the main block of the house, adding an attic storey, a turret, and assorted gables, pinnacles and buttresses. The family abandoned the house in 1958 due to severe dry rot and it was demolished in 1977.
In O’Hea O’Keeffe, Jane. Voices from the Great Houses: Cork and Kerry. Mercier Press, Cork, 2013.
p. 215. Under the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, the Godfrey family from Romney in Kent were granted a 7,000 acre estate in mid Kerry, a grant reaffirmed under the Restoration by Letters Patent dated 13 June 1667. The estate had its origins in the Augustinian priory of Killagha, which was suppressed in 15676 and the lands granted to Captain Thomas Spring of Suffolk. It was later forfeited to Major John Godfrey (1616-75) of Ludlow’s Regiment of Horse.
The Godfrey family initially lived in Tipperary for fifty years following their arrival in Ireland, before moving to Kerry in teh early part of the eighteenth century. Major John Godfrey’s grandson, John Godfrey (1686-1711), then occupied the old Spring demesne of Bushfield as his principal residence. He was succeeded by his son William Godfrey (1707-47).
On Wm’s death the estate passed to his brother, Captain John Godfrey (1709-82) who married Barbara Hathaway, granddaughter of Thomas, Earl Coningsby. Captain Godfrey worked hard to improve the lot of his tenants and built the village of Milltown to encourage local enterprise. His son William (1738-1817) succeeded him and he built a new house within the demesne in the 1770s. In 1783 he became MP for Tralee and two years later was elevated to the rank of Baronet. Expensive tastes forced Sir William to assign his life interest in the estate to his eldest son John (1763-1841). John made a well-connected marriage to Eleanor Cromie from County Antrim in 1796, but did not come to live at Bushfield until after his father’s death in 1817.
p. 216. Sir John was sympathetic towards Catholic emancipatino and provided land for the building of a new Catholic chapel. He employed architects Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison to remodel the old house at Bushfield, which was subsequently renamed Kilcoleman Abbey.
In 1824 Sir John’s son and heir, William Duncan Godfrey (1797-1873) married a Catholic, Mary Teresa Coltsmann, daughter of John Coltsmann of Flesk Castle in Killarney, much to the surprise of the family. Sir William inherited the estate in 1841, and during the Famine it became heavily burdened by debt, but was saved by the marriage of the heir John Fermor Godfrey (1828-1900) to an English heiress, Mary Cordelia Scutt. Sir John had a keen interest in hunting and kept a famous pack of houses the Kilcoleman Hunt, but was forced to disband it in 1881 due to the constant danger of attack by the Land League. By his death in 1900 most of his powers as landlord and magistrate had been removed under the Local Government Act of 1898.
He was succeeded by his son, Sir William Cecil Godfrey (1857-1926), who married Maud Hamilton, the only child of Frederick Hamilton of Carbery, County Kildare, in 1885. Following teh birth of their daughter Phyllis, Maud died from medical complications. In 1901, Sir William married Mary Leeson-Marshall of nearby Callinafercy House. During Sir William’s time, the Godfrey estate was sold to the tenants under the terms of the Wyndham Act of 1903, all of teh proceeds going towards teh payment of debts.
Making a decisive political shift, in the 1918 election Sinn Fein, the Irish republican party, gained all four seats in Kerry, and in the spring of 1921 the first attacks on the Big Houses in Kerry by the IRA began. Kilcoleman Abbey escaped unscathed, due in part to Sir William’s local popularity. On his death in 1926, Kilcolman was inherited by his brother, John Ernest Godfrey (1864-1935), who in 1889 had been appointed an engineer to the Duke of Devonshire’s estate at Lismore Castle in Co Waterford. In 1933 he and his wife Eileen Curry moved back to Kerry. He was succeeded by his son, Sir William Maurice Godfrey, who lived in England. In 1941, unable to support the family seat, Sir William decided to sell Kilcoleman to his cousin Phyllis Godfrey (1890-1959), who was the last member of the family to reside at the old estate.
p. 218. Mary Constance Godfrey married Dick Edwards, who became agent of Lismore Castle. It is their son, Dermot Edwards, who is interviewed for this chapter of the book.
p. 219. Phyllis Godfrey, who was born in 1890 to Sir William Cecil and Lady Maud Godfrey, bought Kilcoleman Abbey, but she did not have the financial resources to maintain the building or teh gardens. Life was far from easy. After the sale in 1942, Dermot’s grandmother Eileen, Lady Godfrey, left Kilcoleman, and with her two daughters, Dorothy and Ursula, returned to live at Lismore.
[It was demolished in the 1970s. It was full of dry rot. Dr John Knightly, a native of Milltown, wrote his PhD thesis: The Godfrey Family and their Estates 1730-1850.]
p. 224. After Phyllis Godfrey’s death, Kilcoleman was inhierted for a second time by Sir William Godfrey, who at this time was determined to live in Kerry, though not to restore the ruined house. He was approached by Paulie Fenno, an American heiress, who offered to buy and restore the house and run it as a hotel. The project ran into financial difficulties, however, the the remaining lands were sold to the Land Commission to be divided up among local farmers. In the 1970s Kerry County Council bought and demolished the derelict building. An estate of modern houses now stands on teh site.
Kilcoleman Abbey was the residence of Sir William Godfrey at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, when it was valued at £33. Lewis also records it as his residence in 1837. In 1894 Slater referred to it as the seat of Sir John F. Godfrey. In 1906, it was still part of the Godfrey estate and valued at £35 10s.The Irish Tourist Association survey of the early 1940s refers to it as “Godfrey House, a fine type of Elizabethan type mansion”. Bary states that the original house, built by the first Godfrey to settle in the area at the end of the seventeenth century, was called Bushfield but that it burned down in 1774 though Wilson still refers to it by this name in 1786 and provides a detailed description of the surroundings. Knightly indicates that a new house was then built by Sir William Godfrey. This house was remodelled twice in the nineteenth century. Sir William Maurice Godfrey sold Kilcoleman in the 1960s and it was demolished in 1977.
THE GODFREY BARONETS OWNED 6,331 ACRES OF LAND IN COUNTY KERRY
MAJOR JOHN GODFREY, of Colonel Edmund Ludlow’sRegiment of Horse (a member of the ancient family of GODFREY, of Romney, Kent), obtained for his services in Ireland during the rebellion of 1641, a grant of 4,980 acres of land in County Kerry, and settled there.
He married Miss Davies, and was succeeded by his only son,
WILLIAM GODFREY, of Bushfield, County Kerry, and Knockgraffon, County Tipperary, who wedded Deborah, only child of Alderman Luke Lowther, of the city of Dublin, and was succeeded at his decease by his eldest son,
JOHN GODFREY, of Bushfield, who espoused Philippa, daughter of Anthony Chearnley, of Burncourt, County Tipperary, and had issue,
William, dsp; JOHN, his successor.
Mr Godfrey died in 1712, and was succeeded by his only surviving son,
JOHN GODFREY, of Bushfield, who married Barbara, daughter of the Rev Mr Hathway, and granddaughter (maternally) of the 1st Earl Coningsby, and had issue,
WILLIAM, his successor; Luke (Rev Dr), Rector of Middleton, Co Cork; Edward; Anthony; Letitia; Phillippa.
Mr Godfrey died in 1782, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
WILLIAM GODFREY (1739-1817), of Bushfield, who was created a baronet in 1785, denominated of Bushfield, County Kerry.
Sir William, MP for Tralee, 1783-90, MP for Belfast, 1792-7, wedded, in 1761, Agnes, only daughter of William Blennerhassett, of Elm Grove, County Kerry, and had surviving issue,
JOHN, his heir; William (Rev), Rector of Kenmare; Luke, a major in the army; Letitia; Agnes; Phillippa; Arabella; Margaret; Elizabeth.
Sir William was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN GODFREY, 2nd Baronet (1763-1841), who espoused, in 1796, Eleanor, eldest daughter of John Cromie, of Cromore, County Londonderry, and had issue,
WILLIAM DUNCAN, his heir; John (Rev); Henry Alexander; Robert; James George; Richard Frankland; Anne; Agnes; Eleanor.
JOHN FERMOR, his heir; William; Henry Arthur; Christiana; Eleanor Isabella.
Sir William was succeeded by his eldest son,
SIR JOHN FERMOR GODFREY, 4th Baronet (1828-1900).
Sir John Fermor Godfrey, 4th Baronet (1828–1900);
Sir William Cecil Godfrey, 5th Baronet (1857–1926);
Sir John Ernest Godfrey, 6th Baronet (1864–1935);
Sir William Maurice Godfrey, 7th Baronet (1909–1971).
The baronetcy expired following the decease of the 7th Baronet, without male issue.
KILCOLMAN ABBEY, formerly Bushfield, Milltown, County Kerry, was granted in 1641 by CHARLES II to Major John Godfrey “for his services against the rebels“.
Sir William Petty, in his Reflections on Matters and Things in Ireland, called this donation “by no means an equivalent for the Major’s services”. It was built ca 1800 by Sir William Godfrey, 1st Baronet, comprising a fairly plain, Georgian, three-storey block.
The house was altered in 1819 by Sir John, 2nd Baronet to designs of W V Morrison, who gave it a Tudor-Revival makeover, with four slender turrets on each corner, topped by cupolas (not dissimilar to Glenarm Castle and Borris).
A two-storey service wing was added later.
Morrison created a two-storey galleried hall, which opened with arches on to the hall.
The Godfrey family continued to live at Kilcolman until about 1960, when it was abandoned.
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.
Shanganagh Castle, County Dublin, courtesy National Inventory.
p. 256. “(Rowan-Hamilton/IFR; Heyman/LGI1958) A house or castle formerly belonging the the Walsh family; bought ca 1800 by Gen Sir George Cockburn, a soldier, an ardent Whig politician and an avid collector of antiquities, who greatly enlarged it, to the design of one or both of the Morrisons; so that it became a somewhat haphazard mixture of plain late-Georgian and castellated; with a cured bow and a slender battlemented round tower. The Morrison additions included a large ballroom, a dining room and a room called the “Monumental Room” containing Cockburn’s collection of Greek and Roman relics. Having acquired four circular Greek altars and a large Corinthian capital which were too large to display indoors, Cockburn had them erected one on top of another to form a column in front of the house with an inscription commemorating the passing of the Great Reform Bill 1832: but, in 1838, Whig though he was, he put another inscription on the back which read, Alas to this day a Hum Bug.” Shanganagh passed to the Rowan-Hamiltons bythe marriage of Cockburn’s daughter Catherine, to Cdre G.W.R. Rowan-Hamilton. It was sold 1919. Sir Harold Nicholson, whose mother was a Rowan-Hamilton, subsequently bought Cockburn’s Reform Bill monument and disposed its components about the garden as Sissinghurst Castle, Kent…”
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. 229. “(Chicheseter, Donegall, M/PB) A rambling Tudor-Revival house by William Vitruvius Morrison in the south-eastern outskirts of Belfast…The seat of 2nd and 3rd Marquesses of Donegall; the original seat of their family, Belfast Castle, having been destroyed by fire 1708 and not rebuilt. 3rd Marquess found Ormeau inconvenient and badly constructed, and abandoned it towards the end of 1860s in favour of the new Belfast castle.”
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. 68. “(Evans-Freke, Carbery, B/PB) The original Castle Freke was an old castle formerly belonging to the Barrys, which was bought by the Frekes in C17; Capt Arthur Freke defended it for several months during the Williamite ward, but it was afterwards captured by the forces of King James and partially burnt. It continued to serve as the family seat until late 1780s, when Sir John Evans-Freke, 2nd Bt, after coming of age, found it so neglected and disapidated that he abandoned it and built a new house on a more convenient site, with splendid views over Roscarbery Bay…When the offices came to be built, which was not until ca 1820, it occurred to Sir John (by this time 6th Lord Carbery) that “the whole might be thrown into the character of a castle”; and so he commissioned Sir Richard Morrison to carry out a transformation….The house was gutted by fire in 1910 and rebuilt with steel window-frames…The work ws finished in 1913, when a ball was given here for the coming of age of 10th Lord Carbery, who sold Castle Freke post WWI. The house was dismantled 1952 and is now a ruin.”
John Freke of Castle Freke, Co. Cork. attributed to John Lewis, courtesy of Adam’s auction 16th Oct 2018. From the same sale was the signed and dated (1757) conversation piece by Lewis called Sir John Freke, Lady Freke and Mr Jeffries of Blarney (sold Sothebys at Slane Castle Lot 423, 26/6/1979). The present lot is likely to be an individual study of the same sitter, perhaps Sir John Redmond Freke M.P. for Cork. John Evans whose mother was Grace Freke inherited from his maternal uncle,founding the family of Evans Freke, whose baronetcy was only created in 1768. The Evans title of Baron Carbery was subsequently inherited by this family.Castle Freke north facade, County Cork, courtesy of http://www.castlefreke.ie
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.
“A large classical house built c. 1790 by Sir John Evans-Freke, altered by Richard Morrison c. 1820, when he also designed the large office court. The original house was at the same time remodelled in the Tudor Revival style. The main block was destroyed by fire in 1910. In the subsequent rebuilding Morrison’s alterations were simplified. The house was stipped of its fittings in 1952. Now a ruin.”
Castle Freke west facade, County Cork, courtesy of http://www.castlefreke.ieCastle Freke, County Cork, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.Castle Freke, County Cork, photograph by Robert French, (between ca. 1865-1914), Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 25. The first prominent exponent of Neoclassicism in Cork was a native, Michael Shanahan. He appears to have been a stonecutter, and probably came to the attention of the ‘Earl-Bishop’ Frederick Hervey while the latter was Bishop of Cloyne in 1767-8. Hervey took Shanahan on a Continental tour in 1770-2, a very rare thing for an Irish architect, during which Shanahan made measured drawings, particularly of bridges, as Hervey was proposing to build a bridge at Londonderry. On his return to Ireland, he became Hervey’s agent and oversaw the construction of James Wyatt’s Downhill in Derry, as well as designing churches and glebe houses in that diocese. Shanahan returned to Cork in the early 1780s, establishing a marble and stone works in White Street which specialized in chimneypieces, geometrical stone staircases and porticos. His first significant commission was St Patrick’s Bridge, in 1788-91. Shanahan’s houses tend to be reticent in the extreme. Castle Freke (1780s) and Castle Bernard [p. 26] (1790s) are big astylar blocks, bare except for rusticated quoins and thin cornices. Castle Bernard in particular appears to owe a debt to Wyatt’s Castle Coole in the axial arrangement of a hall with columnar screen, and the elliptical saloon projecting into the bow on the garden front.
Detached multiple-bay two-storey castle, built c.1780, having break front to front (south-east) elevation, four-stage tower to western corner and bartizan to south corner on stone corbels. Crenellated stone parapets on stone corbels, having roughly coursed sandstone chimneys. Roughly coursed sandstone walls with string course to tower and parapets and limestone quoins. Camber-headed window openings with stone sills and sandstone voussoirs, set within recessed round-headed niches to side (south-west) elevation having sandstone voussoirs and keystones. Square-headed window openings to tower with chamfered stone sills. Various associated buildings to front including round and octagonal-profile towers with parapets having decorative scalloped coping surmounting stone corbels and coursed stone circular-plan chimneystacks. Coursed limestone walls with cruciform loops. Three-stage octagonal tower attached to single-bay two-storey ruin. Crenellated parapet on stone corbels to tower and coursed stone chimneystack to ruin. Roughly coursed stone walls with string course to tower. Square-headed window openings with stone sills and moulded stone label mouldings to ruin. Located within own expansive grounds.
Castle Freke makes a notable and significant contribution to the surrounding landscape. Located on an elevated site overlooking the sea, the building is visible for miles from both sea and land. Associated with the Evans-Freke family, they were significant contributors to the social and historic fabric of the area. The architectural form of the building and association with significant architects, William Morrison in the early nineteenth century and Kaye-Parry and Ross in the early twentieth century, make this country house an important contributor to the architectural heritage. The eighteenth century classical house was disguised by William Morrison in his 1807 design with the addition of Gothic Revival features, including towers, bartizans, castellations and tall chimneystacks. The courtyard was remodelled and a second courtyard created with the addition of a single-storey wing and tower. It would appear that this work remained incomplete up to c.1840. The interior was destroyed by fire in 1910 and architects Kaye-Parry and Ross inserted concrete floors and roof and a Jacobean Revival style interior. The reinforced concrete technology utilised during the early twentieth century reconstruction adds both technical and scientific significance to the building. In 1919 the last Baron of Carbery, John Evans-Freke sold the estate. The lands were divided when it passed to the Land Commission in the 1930s. It was used as army barracks for the 38th-39th Battalions during World War II, and later as a summer base for the boys of Upton Industrial School. The house was dismantled in 1952 following the purchase of the house by a local man.
Castle Freke lies next to a small forest in Castlefreke townsland, in County Cork in Ireland.
Originally Castle Freke was a tower house dating back to the 15th century. It belonged to the Barry family. It was occupied by the Frekes 1617.
The Frekes and Evans intermarried and became Barons of Carbery 1715 and Castle Freke was rebuilt in 1780 by Sir John Evans-Freke, incorporating the original castle keep in its design.
The renowned architect Sir Richard Morrison altered the castle into its current Gothic castellated style in 1820. In 1910 a fire gutted the castle. John Carbery was forced to sell Castle Freke in the 1920s and it was dismantled in 1952.
In 2005 the sprawling ruin of the castle was bought back by Stephen Evans Freke, the youngest son of the late Peter Evans Freke, the 11th Lord Carbery. He started a restoration to return Castle Freke to its former glory. But in 2014 he had a financial dispute with the architect overseeing the restoration and the works halted. The current phase of restoration is partially complete.
This is a great castle, too bad it’s completely sealed off and abandoned again. But I must say that it also adds to its creepy atmosphere. It is on private property and therefore not accessible.
David Hicks, Irish Country Houses, A Chronicle of change. The Collins Press, County Cork, 2012.
A retired Wall Street investment banker is spending millions of euros “on a labour of love” rebuilding a castle which was once in his family’s possession for hundreds of years.
Tue, 06 Aug, 2019 – 07:05
Sean O’RiordanA retired Wall Street investment banker is spending millions of euros “on a labour of love” rebuilding a castle which was once in his family’s possession for hundreds of years.
Stephen Evans-Freke is painstakingly rebuilding Castle Freke, originally constructed as a mansion house in the 1750s, but which had impressive battlements added to it later. The castle, which is situated near Rosscarbery, Co Cork, has impressive views of the sea and surrounding land. On a clear day, you can see Fastnet Rock.
Stephen explained that the Evans’ side of the family were Welsh Celts, while the Frekes were Norse Vikings. They both arrived in Ireland around the same time, in the late 1570s. The Frekes bought land and the old Rathbarry Castle from the Barry clan shortly after their arrival. The Barrys were the dominant force in the area at the time.
The Frekes and Evans intermarried and became Barons of Carbery in 1715. The current Castle Freke was built by John Evans-Freke, although, as Stephen pointed out, there was clear evidence on the site of an older “fortified Elizabethan ‘strong house’.”
His Norse, Welsh, and Irish heritage are to the fore in the rebuilding programme and can be seen in some of the magnificent plaster ceilings which are being put into the castle. The type of plasterwork being carried out by experts hasn’t been undertaken in Europe for hundreds of years.
Stephen Evans-Freke with his partner Barbara Birt at Castle Freke Castle in West Cork.
One of the impressive reliefs on the ceilings is a depiction of the Children’s of Lir legend, replete with resplendent swans. But Stephen has a sense of humour and in one corner, he’s added a small frog poking his head out and smoking a cigar.
To honour his Viking heritage, there’s a large plaster ceiling depiction of the Norse god Odin and his two protective wolves. It also features the legendary Valkyries collecting the bodies of fallen heroes from the battlefield to bring them to Valhalla. Freke is incidentally the Norse name for a wolfman.
For his Celtic/Welsh ancestry, he has created another ceiling scene, this time depicting the Lady of the Lake presenting the legendary sword Excalibur to King Arthur. There are also two dragons fighting, which signifies the one-time struggle for supremacy between Wales and England.
The magnificent music room has had an entire plaster ceiling installed, the inspiration for which came from the ceiling of Lincoln Cathedral. Stone flooring recently put down in part of the house came from a medieval monastery in the Burgundy region of France.
“It’s a bit of a pay as you go project,” says Stephen, who declined to comment on what the final bill for the restoration project was likely to cost him.
Funeral shrouds don’t come with pockets. You’re not going to be able to take it (money) with you. You might as well do something worthwhile with it.
There was a major fire in the castle in 1909 and when it was rebuilt, the plaster walls were replaced with concrete. A team of 20 workmen, made up of stonemasons, plasterers, sculptors, and carpenters, have stripped the walls of the old concrete and are preparing to re-plaster all of them.
The 40-plus chimneys have already been relined and the vast majority of the battlements have been repaired, as have many external walls on land surrounding the castle.
“All of the parapets were knocked for their lead in the 1950s,” says Stephen. “We’ve probably moved the world market on lead restoring them. We had two craftsmen who came out of retirement to do it.”
In particular, he has great praise for his master stonemason, Micheál Ó Suilleabháin.
He painstakingly replaced stone on the battlements and other parts of the building, most of which was cut from local quarries. Some old quarries in the area were reopened to source the same kind of stone.
“It’s been sandblasted so lichen can grow on it and give it that weathered look like the rest of the stones,” Stephen says.
His family owned Castle Freke up to 1921, but they didn’t leave it because of the political turmoil of the time. In fact, the Evans-Frekes openly supported the winning side.
“My great uncle, Baron John Carey, was a great supporter of Michael Collins. He was the first man in Munster to own an aeroplane used to put on flying shows at which he would raise funds for the cause of independence.”
The castle was later taken over by another family. Stephen bought it back in 1999, “but with no particular intention at the time of restoring it”.
However, thoughts of finally getting his hands back on the family pile were sown when he was quite young.
“We had a painting of the castle in our family home,” he says. “My father brought me to see the castle when I was 12. It was very forlorn-looking. This is about roots. My aim is to get the main block restored in the next five years.”
Stephen says he is also going to put a lot of effort into restoring the gardens, and will work with Cork County Council experts on the best way to do this. Eventually, he hopes to open them up to the public. Once the castle is refurbished, he plans to spend part of his time living there, but would also open it on occasion to the public for charity events.
“The castle and the approximate 170-acre estate have been put into a trust to preserve it for future generations of the family.”
From mining and biotech to trad music and fishing
Stephen Evans-Freke was born in Ashbourne, Co Meath. He is the youngest son of the late Peter Evans-Freke, the 11th Lord Carbery. Stephen’s father was an engineer, but as there was no work for such professionals at the time in Ireland, the family moved to England when he was at a young age.
After graduating in 1973 from Cambridge University with a law degree, Stephen moved to South Africa, where he worked with IBM to build the first computer programme for valuing gold mines.
In 1976, he moved to New York and became an investment banker working in Wall Street. In the 1980s, Stephen concentrated much of his efforts on financing the first generation of biotech companies, a feat he is especially proud of as many of these companies went on to produce life-saving and life-improving treatments.
He was lead investment banker to Genentech, AMGEN, Centocor, and a number of other leading biotech companies. He left Wall Street in 1990. Stephen describes himself as having a couple of great passions in his life, apart from renovating the castle.
“I’m a passionate environmentalist and very much supportive of sustainable farming,” he said proudly as he looked down from the castle turrets on a herd of horned Aberdeen Angus grazing in a field below.
“I also love traditional music.”
He also likes his fishing, and big fish at that. Stephen spends a lot of his time in the Caribbean, having moved to the US Virgin Islands in 2008, and prefers nothing better than fishing for big marlin.
He also enjoys scuba diving, sailing, tennis, playing the piano, reading history and philosophy, and horseback riding. Stephen is a well-known philanthropist. He founded new ventures on the US Virgin Islands, including the leading Caribbean air ambulance company, AeroMD.
Ballygiblin, County Cork c. 1911, photograph: David Davison. 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.Ballygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ie
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. “(Wrixon-Becher, Bt/PB) A house remodelled in Tudor-Baronial style, with a turret and spire, ca 1836 by William Vitruvius Morrison. The house flanked on one side by a detached Gothic orangery, with buttresses and pinnacles. Now a ruin.”
Ballygiblin, County Cork, 1986, 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.Ballygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ie
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.
“Good Tudor Revival house designed c. 1836 by William Vitruvius Morrison for Sir William Wrixon Becher incorporating an earlier house. Still intact in 1960. Now a ruin.”
Ballygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ie
This country house is notable for comprising two blocks built a century apart, each displaying many fine features. The later block was designed by William Vitruvius Morrison, the well-known architect, in the Tudor Revival style which became popular in the nineteenth century. Though now in ruins, the blocks retain their historic characters, enhanced by limestone ashlar and render details and the elaborate door surround to the later block with a crest and motto. The house is prominently situated on a hill overlooking its demesne and has numerous associated outbuildings of architectural merit.
Ballygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ie
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 317. “The conferring of a baronetcy on the Wrixon-Becher family in 1831 is perhaps what prompted the enlargement and remodelling of their C18 house in a Tudor Revival fashion between 1831-35. This now stands in ruins, after the roof was removed in 1960. The architect was William V. Morrison, and Ballygiblin closely resembles his work at Clontarf Castle, Co Dublin and Hollybrook, Co Wicklow. Benjamin Woodward appears to have had a hand in completing the house, perhaps after Morrison’s death in 1838. The three-storey C18 house has a five-bay N front with Venetian windows lighting a stair. This was given gables, tall chimeys and mullioned windows of three and four lights so that it blended with Morrison’s new ashlar limestone L shaped range, which is built against its S side. This housed a drawing room and dining room, with a dormered upper storey and two-storey battlemented bay window. Morrison also added a three-stage entrance tower with an octagonal lantern and stone spire in the corner between the new and old ranges, and set a richly carved armorial plaque above the entrance.
Behind the house, is a small spiky orangery with arched windows and buttresses which terminate in pinnacles. An extensive and coeval stableyard stands N of the house. In marked contrast is the triumphal arch gateway at the demesne entrance.”
Ballygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ieBallygiblin, County Cork photograph courtesy Barry Auctioneers and Valuers and myhome.ie
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. “(Crosbie/IFR) The original house of the Crosbies here was long, low and thatched, facing onto an enclosed bawn or countyard, in the corner of which was a strong stone tower, part of an old castle of the De Cantillons. It was in this tower that, in 1730, Thomas Crosbie placed the chests of silver which he had rescued from the Danish East Indian Golden Lyon when that vessel was lured into Ballyheigue Bay by wreckers and wrecked; his exertions in saving the treasure and the crew of the ship proved too much for him, and he died from exposure and fatigue. Some months later the castle was attacked by rapparees and the treasure carried off; it was alleged that the attack was organised by Thomas Crosbie’s widow, who subsequently obtained the bulk of the treasure. A new house appears to have been built ca 1758, which Col James Crobie turned into a romantic castle ca 1809. His architects were Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison, the design being produced by the latter though he was only 15 at the time. Like other Gothic and Tudor-Revival houses by the Morrisons, it was intended to represent a building dating from two different periods: the entrance front, in the words of Neale, “exhibiting the rich and ornamental style of teh early part of the reign of Henry VIII”; whereas the elevation towards the sea had “the character and appearance of the castellated mansions of King Henry VI.” In fact, the seaward elevation betrays itself very much as a two storey Georgian house which has been battlemented and had round and square towers and other pseudo-medieval features added to it; while the adjoining entrance front is a not very inspired gabled affair. And whereas Neale’s well-known view shows the castle dramatically situated at the edge of a sheer cliff above the sea, it stands less spectacularly at teh top of a gently sloping lawn, quite some way from the water’s edge. A castellated outbuilding is joined to the castle by a long wall. Peirce Crosbie, the son of Co James Crosbie, had trouble with his wife, who eloped to the Continent with a groom – having previously bestowed her favours on stable-lads – and was never heard of again. The castle was burnt 1921 and is now a ruin.”
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. 81. “A large Tudor Revival house designed by Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison for James Crosbie c. 1809, incorporating an earlier house. The house was burnt in 1921 and one wing was recently restored.”
Remains of detached two- and three-storey Tudor Gothic Revival style country house, built 1809, incorporating fabric of earlier house, 1758. Comprising six-bay two-storey side (south) elevation of entrance block with battlemented parapet, single-bay three-storey battlemented corner turrets on circular plans and nine-bay two-storey lower wing (originally return) to west having battlemented parapet and corner machicolation. Burnt, in 1840, later used as prison, burnt, in 1921 and now mostly collapsed. Wing reconstructed and remodelled, c. 1975, to accommodate use as apartments with remainder of building now ruinous. Castellated parapets with one cast-iron hopper having floral motif. Snecked sandstone walls with grey limestone string courses and plinth, castellated machicolations, blind arrow loops and having render to parts of side wall with imitation ashlar. Square-headed openings with limestone sills, surrounds, hood mouldings and having sandstone relieving arches. Timber window frames in side openings. Four-centred arch to doorway in double-height arch having window above with carved spandrels. Detached nine-bay two-storey Tudor Gothic Revival style former stable complex, built c. 1810, to east on an L-shaped plan about a courtyard with battlemented parapet, with single-bay two-storey corner turret on a circular plan and three-bay side elevations. Extensively renovated in latter part of twentieth century with pair of single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porches added to accommodate use as apartments. Detached six-bay single-storey rubble stone-built outbuilding, built c. 1810, to east on an L-shaped plan with series of elliptical-headed integral carriage arches, now disused. Section of rubble stone boundary wall to east with series of arrow loops possibly originally part of walled garden.
Gateway to Ballyheige Castle, built c. 1830, comprising pair of single-bay two-storey lodge towers with cross apertures and battlemented parapets having elliptical-headed carriage arch to centre and single-bay single-storey flat-roofed end bay to south with battlemented parapet. Lodge to north now disused. Castellated parapet walls with sandstone copings. Sandstone ashlar facing to front and rear facades with rubble stone side walls and blind arrow loops. Pointed sandstone arches with limestone profiled sills and replacement windows. Three-centred recessed carriage arch.
Architect: Richard Morrison & William Vitruvius Morrison
Long rambling castle sited across a hillside. Burnt during 1921, a wing was recently restored. The grounds are now a golf course. Interestingly while both illustrations are a reasonable representation of the castle, both exaggerate the landscape. In reality the castle is sited on top of a rolling hillside.
THE CROSBIES WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY KERRY, WITH13,422 ACRES
This is a branch of the CROSBIES OF ARDFERT, extinct Earls of Glandore, themselves scions of a family long settled in the Queen’s County and in County Kerry, and latterly represented by the Crosbie Baronets, of Maryborough.
The common ancestor of the Baronet’s family and the two branches of Ardfert and Ballyheigue was
The Queen’s letter to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Mountjoy, dated from the manor of Oatland, in 1600, directing his appointment, describes him as “a graduate in schools, of English race, skilled in the English tongue, and well disposed in religion.”
The Bishop was previously Prebendary of Disert, in the Diocese of Limerick.
He married Winifred O’Lalor, of the Queen’s County, and had, with four daughters, six sons,
Walter (Sir), 1st Baronet, of Maryborough; DAVID, of whom presently; John (Sir), of Tullyglass, County Down; Patrick; William; Richard.
The Lord Bishop of Ardfert died in 1621.
His second son,
DAVID CROSBIE, of Ardfert, Colonel in the army, Governor of Kerry, 1641, stood a siege in Ballingarry Castle for more than twelve months.
He was afterwards Governor of Kinsale for CHARLES I; and in 1646 he inherited a portion of the estate of his cousin, Sir Pierce Crosbie Bt, son of Patrick Crosbie, who had been granted a large portion of The O’More’s estate in Leix.
Mr Crosbie wedded a daughter of the Rt Rev John Steere, Lord Bishop of Ardfert, and had, with four daughters, two sons,
THOMAS, his heir; Patrick.
Colonel Crosbie died in 1658, and was succeeded by his elder son,
SIR THOMAS CROSBIE, Knight, of Ardfert, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1668, knighted by His Grace the Duke of Ormonde, in consideration of the loyalty of his family during Oliver Cromwell’s rebellion.
He was MP for County Kerry in the parliament held in Dublin by JAMES II in 1688, and refused to take the oath of allegiance to WILLIAM III.
Sir Thomas married firstly, Bridget, daughter of Robert Tynte, of County Cork, and had issue,
DAVID, ancestor of THE EARLS OF GLANDORE; William; Patrick (Rev); Walter; Sarah; Bridget.
He wedded secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Garrett FitzGerald, of Ballynard, County Limerick, by whom he had no issue; and thirdly, in 1680, Elizabeth, daughter of William Hamilton, of Liscloony, King’s County, and had issue,
THOMAS, of whom hereafter; John; Charles; Pierce; Ann.
By a very peculiar, probably unique, settlement, executed on the marriages of Sir Thomas Crosbie and his eldest son respectively, to the two sisters, on the same day (1680), a new settlement and redistribution of all the family estates was made, by which those of Ballyheigue were appointed to the issue of the last marriage.
Under this settlement Ballyheigue passed to the eldest son of his third marriage,
THOMAS CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, MP for County Kerry, 1709, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1712 and 1714, who espoused, in 1711, the Lady Margaret Barry, daughter of Richard, 2nd Earl of Barrymore, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir; Anne Dorothy; Harriet Jane.
Mr Crosbie died in 1731, and was succeeded by his son and heir,
JAMES CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1751, who married Mary, daughter of Pierce Crosbie, of Rusheen, and had issue,
PIERCE, his heir; James; Catherine; Henrietta.
Mr Crosbie died in 1761, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
PIERCE CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1797, who wedded Frances, daughter of Rowland Bateman, of Oak Park, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir; Pierse; Elizabeth; Frances Anne.
The elder son,
JAMES CROSBIE (c1760-1836) of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1792, MP for County Kerry, 1797-1800, espoused, in 1785, his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Rowland Bateman, of Oak Park, and had issue,
PIERCE, his heir; James; Francis; Thomas; Letitia; Frances.
Colonel Crosbie died in 1836, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
PIERCE CROSBIE (1792-1849), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1815, who espoused firstly, Elizabeth, daughter of General John Mitchell. She dsp.
He married secondly, in 1831, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas William Sandes DL, of Sallow Glen, County Kerry, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir; Margaret Catherine.
Mr Crosbie wedded thirdly, Margaret, daughter of Leslie Wren, and had further issue,
William Wren; Pierce; Leslie Wren; George Wren; Francis; Elizabeth Margaret; Alice Julia.
Mr Crosbie was succeeded by his eldest son,
JAMES CROSBIE JP DL (1832-79), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1862, Colonel, Kerry Militia, who espoused, in 1860, Rosa, daughter of Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye Bt, of Denby Grange, Yorkshire, and had issue,
Piers Lister (1860-78), died at Harrow; JAMES DAYROLLES, of whom hereafter; Kathleen Matilda; Rosa Marguerite; Marcia Ellen.
Mr Crosbie was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES DAYROLLES CROSBIE CMG DSO JP DL (1865-1947), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1894, who married, in 1894, Maria Caroline, daughter of Major James Leith VC, Scots Greys, and granddaughter of Sir Alexander Leith, of Glenkindie, and had issue, an only child, OONAGH MARY.
BALLYHEIGUE CASTLE, near Tralee, County Kerry, was originally low, long and thatched, facing on to an enclosed courtyard, where there was a stone tower, part of an ancient castle.
The original house on this site was constructed about 1758, but was renovated and enlarged to the design of Richard Morrison ca 1809.
The last member of the family, Brigadier Crosbie, sold Ballyheigue Castle in 1912.
The building was used as a prison at the time of the Irish civil war in 1920.
It was burnt in 1921.
Very little of the original remains, but some renovation has taken place and there is holiday accommodation at the site, now surrounded by the Golf Course.
A wing was reconstructed and remodelled about 1975, to accommodate use as apartments, with the remainder of the building now ruinous.
In 1680 two sisters from County Offaly, Elizabeth and Jane Hamilton, were married on the same day. While Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Crosbie, Jane married Sir Thomas’s eldest son (from an earlier marriage), David. Thus the latter’s heir Maurice, future first Baron Branden, was both nephew and cousin of Sir Thomas and Elizabeth Crosbie’s eldest son, also called Thomas. While David inherited the family’s main estate at Ardfert, County Kerry (see An Incomplete Story « The Irish Aesthete), Thomas Crosbie was left another estate further north in the same county at Ballyheigue. The ancient family formerly in occupation here were the Cantillons who supposedly occupied some kind of fortified building; they were displaced in the 17th century by the Crosbies (who, in turn, had been moved by the English government from their own traditional lands in Offaly). The younger Thomas died in late 1730, supposedly after he suffered from exposure and fatigue involved in rescuing the crew and cargo of a Danish vessel, the Golden Lion, which had become stranded on the local coast: the cargo happened to include 12 chests of silver valued at £20,000. A complex drama involving the disappearance of at least some of this silver, and the possible involvement of Thomas’s widow, Lady Margaret Barry (a daughter of the second Earl of Barrymore) then followed; what exactly happened and who benefitted from the theft has never been clearly established. In any case, a new residence was built at Ballyheigue c.1758 by Colonel James Crosbie, heir to the younger Thomas. Seemingly this was a long, low thatched property, by then somewhat old-fashioned in style, and surrounded by an orchard, gardens and bowling green. It was his grandson, another colonel also called James and an MP, first of the Irish Parliament and then, after the 1800 Act of Union, of the Westminster Parliament, who gave the house, renamed Ballyheigue Castle, its present – albeit now semi-ruinous – appearance. …[see website]
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. 226. “(Bruen/IFR) A large early C19 classical mansion by William Vitruvius Morrison.
It has two storeys, the entrance front having a five-bay central block with a pedimented portico of four huge Ionic columns, prolonged by wings of the same height, at first set back behind short colonnades of coupled columns and then returning forwards with pedimented Wyatt windows in their ends. Rather dull and amorphous thriteen bay garden front, inadequately relieved by having four separate bays breaking forward wiht Wyatt windows, and bay a pair of somewhat paltry single-storey balustraded curved bows. Rich interior plasterwork in Morrison’s characteristic style. Hall with Ionic columns, free-standing, coupled and engaged; frieze of swags; ceiling of geometrical ribs. Damaged by fire ca1910 and afterwards restored; sold ca 1957; now an agricultural research centre.”
Detached five-bay two-storey Classical style country house, c. 1760, with ashlar façade, tetrastyle pedimented Ionic portico and balustraded parapet. Redesigned (externally and internally), c. 1832, with two-storey lateral wings and pavilion blocks added. Designed by the Morrisons. Tripartite windows added, c. 1876. Now in use as school. Group of detached outbuildings to site including two-storey cut stone stable complex, c. 1760, with blind arcade.
Remains of freestanding granite ashlar Greek Revival temple style mausoleum on a raised base, c. 1841, with Doric pilasters and lugged doorcases. Now in ruins. Designed by J. B. Keane.
Protected Structures of Ireland: The mausoleum dates from circa 1841 and was never completed. It was designed by J.B.Keane, the Morrison’s assistant, and consists of a Greek-revival temple with massive, granite ashlar walls on a raised base. This possibly the largest mausoleum in Ireland. Designs for the mausoleum were exhibited in the Royal Hibernian academy in 1841. The mausoleum has been cleaned recently and is in good order.
Gateway, c. 1835, comprising Classical style triumphal arch with flanking paired giant Ionic columns on pedestals carrying blocked entablature and walled carriage turn to front. Designed by the Morrisons.
Record of Protected Structures:
Oak Park House, Oak Park Demesne, Oak Park.
Townland: Oakpark or Painestown.
An opulent neo-classical composition dating from circa 1832 designed by Sir Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison. Their work completely remodelled a house of circa 1760 and encased it in granite ashlar. The façade is of five bays and two storeys and has a magnificent, ionic portico, cornice and balustrade. The garden front has a pair of single-storey, balustraded bows. Laterally-placed wings, which are connected by colonnades of square-plan piers, were added by McCurdy and Mitchell between 1876 and 1879. Further alterations were carried out after a fire in 1902. The detailing on the house is superb with crisp, granite carving of the Morrison designs maintained by the remodelling in the 1870s when plate-glass sash windows were inserted.
The walled garden has a high, stone wall. One side of the wall is next to the avenue leading to the house. On the North side of the garden is a composition with two, gable-fronted buildings which have square-headed doorcases and sidelights on the ground floor and a pair of pointed windows with chamfered, granite dressings on the first floor. The first-floor windows cut a string course which marks the base of the gable. The walls are built of rubble-stone rendered with lime rendering and the roofs are of natural slate with granite coping to the front. The two buildings are linked by a single-storey section. The buildings probably date from the 1830s. This is a very interesting and unusual design which shows the architect engaged in a playful composition.
The Dairy,
Oak Park Demesne,
Carlow
An estate cottage, probably designed by the Morrisons, in tudor-gothic style. It is built of coursed-rubble granite with gables, bow-windows, stair’s turret and single-storey wing. The windows have granite mullions with chamfered dressings as does the square-headed doorcase. The stairs turret has a pointed, stone roof. The roof is covered with natural slate. The house has been closed up for some years
The Old Stable Block,
Oak Park Demesne,
Oak Park
A U-plan stable block with a seven-bay, two-storey façade having a three-bay, recessed centre, painted, smooth-rendered walls, carriage arches on the ground floor, a string-course at impost level and small windows on the first floor. The roof is hipped and covered with natural slates. The return walls have wide, blank arches with the string course running along at impost level so that the head of the arch is glazed and looks like a Diocletian window. The stables appear to date from circa 1820 and because of their sophisticated design could be by the Morrisons at a time that they were working in Borris.
Iron Bridge,
Oak Park Demesne,
Oak Park
A cast-iron, single-arch bridge with serpentine, entwined ornamentation, banded, granite piers and dating from circa 1835. It was designed by George Papworth. A very important iron bridge of unusual design.
Jimmy O’Toole, The Carlow Gentry: What will the neighbours say! Published by Jimmy O’Toole, Carlow, Ireland, 1993. Printed by Leinster Leader Ltd, Naas, Kildare.
Chapter: Bruen of Oak Park
p. 53 [p. 51-2 ripped out] :As a result of Captain Bruen’s objection to his daughter’s match, local rector Canon Ridgeway refused to marry the couple, who then eloped to England, but when they returned to Carlow some weeks later, still not married, Canon Ridgeway relented, ignored the Captain’s protests, and performed the wedding ceremony in 1939…. Now he was alone in Oak Park (formerly Painstown), a property first purchased in 1775, by Henry Bruen I, grandson of James Bruen of Tarvin, County Chester, who came to Ireland with the army of Oliver Cromwell, and was granted land at Abbeyboyle, County Roscommon. Henry came to Carlow after a career in the Quarter Master General’s office in the U.S. army, where he made his fortune. The story – embellished, no doubt, by political enemies of the family later – was that while responsible for supplying coffins, he had them designed with false bottoms, which facilitated recycling!
Whatever its source, Bruen certainly had a fortune, and during the last decade of the 1790s, he took full advantage of the forced sales of poart of the Bagenal, Whaley and Grogan estates in County Carlow. He bought 3,702 acres from Thomas “Buck” Whaley of Castletown, who had gambled away his fortune. …Land ownership meant political muscle and in 1790, Henry Bruen I was returned to parliament with William Burton of Burton Hall, in an uncontested election. … Sir Richard Butler, living at Garryhundon at the time, [p. 55] withdrew… in favour of Bruen…. Sir Richard had the “family seat” back within five years following the sudden death fo Colonel Bruen at his Dublin home in North Great George’s Street in 1795….
It was Henry Bruen II who was to put the Bruen stamp firmly on Carlow politics. He was at Harrow with George Gordon Byron, later the poet Lord Byron, and Robert Peel, with whom he would later run shoulders as fellow Tory MPs. Sir Robert was Home Secretary when Catholic Emancipation was granted, a Bill supported by Henry Bruen. He opposed the Tithe system, which he described a “badly devised and tending towards the production of much evil…” He was first elected, unopposed in 1812, at the age of 22 – the first of 13 elections in which he was involved over forty years. …Prior to the 1830s, party politics as we know them today did not exist, and when polling took place, the choice was between Tory candidates of varying political views. Where there were agreed candidates for the two county seats MPs were returned without a contest.
But politics were about to change dramatically in County Carlow – albeit for a relatively short period – following Catholic emancipation and the leadership of Daniel O’Connell. However, with the exception of two brief periods, Bruen survived the political trauma and turmoil of the 1930s, and held a seat continuously btween 1840 and his death in 1852… The campaign had been so intense in 1831, that Bruen and his running mate Horace Rochfort, withdrew the night before the poll.
But it was the election of 1841 that was to make Henry Bruen II a hero among Conservative voters throughout the country. He partnered Thomas Bunbury of Moyle, to defeat the high profile Daniel O’Connell (Jr), the son of the Liberator, and John Ashton Yates…Intimidation was an acceptable weapon. At a meeting in Carlow town, Daniel O’Connell Jr suggested the use of cribs or pens in churches where Catholic voters, who refused to come onto the Liberal side, [p. 56] could be corralled during mass, to underline their support for landlords. O’Connell could hardly have been unaware of the fact that such actions would lead to violence, and among Catholics at that. “Cooping” was another practice on both sides, where voters, for their own protection, were locked up dring thedays preceding polling to prevent them being intimidated, or physically attacked. Abduction too was practised to prevent voters getting to the polls.
On June 26th – five days before the election – more than 250 Catholic voters armed to a man, were under the protection of a squadron of cavalry at Borris House. Few of these abductions were reported to the police, suggesting most of them were of theirown free will, but whether it was out of fear of their landlord, and clan loyalty, in this case to the Kavanaghs, would be impossible to determine.
The Liberals kept their captured voters in a disused brewery in Kilkenny where they were looked after by the local liberal organisation, the Kilkenny Citizens Club. Atone stage, there were 120 voters in the brewery, consuming enormous quantities of food, and being entertained by the teetotal bands. A Tory pamphlet entitled “The Reign of Terror in Carlow” reported that on Juen 27th “A boatload of voters was brought along the canal from Leighlibridge to Bagenalstown. The teetotal band at Leighlinbridge played sacred music to drown the groans of the imprisoned electors in the lumberboat. The miserable electors were tied, guarded by armed men, and commanded by two priests, Fr Murphy and Fr Mahon.”
p. 57….Bruen called the Catholics ‘savages’ during a parliamentary debate. The liberal Leinster Reformer attacked the St. Mullins voters – mostly tenants and supporters of Kavanagh’s – proclaiming “thre are some vile traitors for lucre among he wretched serfs of Lady Harriet Kavanagh, or rather the wretched serfs of Doyne (Charles “Silky” Doyne), for hie is lord and master.” Onn the eve of the election , the St. Mullins voters were lodged at Strawhall House, where they were visited by O’Connell in a last ditch effort to persuade them to change sides – he did not succeed.”
“The clergy in most parishes, lad by Bishop James Doyle, threw their considerable weight behind the Liberal cause, and it was because of this support that Daniel O’Connell could advocate the use of cribs in churches as a form of punishment…a crib was erected in Tinryland church for what were termed “the black sheep who voted Tory.”…
On the same Sunday, James Prendergast, whose brother voted Tory, was turned out of Clonegal church…children were turned out of school due to parents votes… Immediately after the election, unprecendented persecution of Bruenite voters commenced, according to P.J. Kavanagh… Andrew Marshall, a Bruen tenant,, was beaten by a mob at the Royal Oak, and in Hacketstown, Brian Kelly, who was rescued from a mob before the election, was stoned afterwards by a mob of thirty. In Leighlinbridge, William Bergin was attacked by 300 people because he voted Tory.
P.J. Kavanagh claims there was no proof of any landlord vengeance having taken place after the election…
p. 59. Henry III (1828-1912) was back in the House of Commons in 1857, and held his seat until 1880, whe, with Arthur McMurrough-Kavanagh, both sitting MPs, they were heavily defeated by Home Rule candidates E.D. Gray and D.H. MacFarlane. That election was a key bench mark… it ended the stranglehold of landlords on the national political system in Ireland.”
Just as the influence of the Bruens had grown both economically and politically over the years from 1775, so too did their mansionhome at Oak Park. The present house is the result of four periods of enlargement and remodelling carried out between 1797 and 1902. 22 years after he arrived, Henry I …decorated the house previously occupied by the Cookes. In 1832, Henry II commissioned William Morrison to remodel the house, and in 1876 builder Samuel Bolton signed a contract for a major extension, which took three years to complete… in 1902, the house was gutted by fire, and when the outbreak was brought under control eight hours later, all that remained intact was the north wing. Head housemaid Lucy Fleming, who raised the alarm, said she was awakened by what appeared to be the noise of intruders – suggesting that the fire may have been deliberate…. The house was rebuilt under the supervision of architect William Mitchell, who was responsible for extensive interior re-design work. The family moved to the dower house at Strawhall during the rebuilding.
p. 60. After WWI, sometimes as many as 6-8 planes would land in thefield, army officers coming to Oak Park from Dubil for a party.
In 1922 Henry Bruen IV leased the deer park to Carlow golf club and an 18 hole course was developed.
Oak Park House in Carlow town is probably the finest 18th/19th Century house in south east Ireland. The house itself is of huge architectural and historical significance. There are 700 acres of woodland and open pasture including a lake.
The history of Oak Park (once known as Painestown) has been known since 1775 when the park was in the possession of the Bruen family, until the death of Arthur Bruen in 1954. In 1960 it was sold to the Irish Land Commission and opened the National Teagasc Tillage Research Centre there. Farmers from the west of Ireland bought small pieces of land to farm, thanks to loans. So every year the farmers had to pay back the Land Commission a sum on the size of their holding.
The Bruen Family purchased Oak Park, formerly known as Painestown around the year 1775. In 1832, Henry Bruen commissioned William Vitruvius Morrison to redesign the house. It is remodelled in the classical style and retains the existing house as its central component. The front façade features a two-storey Ionic portico set on a pedestal. Today Oak Park House and demesne is the property of Teagasc – the agricultural research body. It has recently become the administrative headquarters for Teagasc.
Stable complex, built c1765, comprising two-storey cut stone building with round-headed blind arches and three-bay gable-fronted buildings opposite. Renovated, c1985, with openings remodelled.
The Mausoleum
The Mausoleum is a large structure located in the woods, approximately 500 metres north-west of Oak Park House. It was designed in 1841 by the architect John B. Keane in the style of a Greek Peripteral Temple. Keane was initially a draughtsman with the Morrisons and probably got the commission because of this. The exact purpose for its construction is unknown but it is possible that Henry Bruen II commissioned it as a memento of his victory over Daniel O‟ Connell Jnr. In the Westminster election of 1841. The Temple was never completed and it was later used as a Mausoleum. The last two Henry Bruens and their wives are buried in the Mausoleum.
The Graveyard and Church are located in the Farmyard about 400 metres south of Oak Park House. The origin of the small ruined Church is uncertain. It is most likely that some stage it was used as a private Chapel for early Coke (or Cooke) landlords who were Catholic. An engraved stone slab with the date 1670 was found during a clean-up but according to some experts there are indications that part of the ruins date to an earlier period. Two table-tombs within the ruins contain the remains of some of the Coke who owned Oak Park.
The Arch, Oak Park, designed by William Vitruvius Morrison which is at the entrance to Oak Park House and demesne. It remains to this day a magnificent example of a Triumphal Arch. The arch is flanked by paired Ionic columns on the front elevation with Doric columns on the back flank of the Arch. The columns are raised on pedestals. Both sides of the Arch carry a full entablature. On the approach from the Carlow side, is a carriage turn surrounded by a high granite wall.
Revealing the story of Oak Park House
By Suzanne Render
This item was previously published in the Nationalist 10th March 2000.
ONE NEVER fails but to be impressed by the grandeur and splendour of Oak Park House. Imposing itself on the landscape amid hundreds of the country’s most fertile agricultural acres, its reputation as a centre for agricultural research is unrivalled.
But what of the origins of Oak Park House?
Continuing in its series of fascinating lectures, the Old Carlow Society will host an evening devoted to Oak Park House and lands on March 15 at 8pm.
The lecture will be given by Paddy Comeford, a retired station manager at Oak Park who will discuss the building itself, the families that live there and the house’s progression from the seat of a landlord’s family to a modern research centre run by Teagasc. An interesting aspect of the lecture is that it will be held in
Oak Park House itself, thus adding atmosphere to the occasion.
Having worked in Oak Park House from 1961 to 1998, Paddy’s interest in the building’s rich history quickly developed. Over the years he has extensively researched the families who lived in the house and the development of the estate which originally consisted of approx. 1600 acres.
Paddy will guide those who attend the lecture through the history of Oak Park House, first lived in by the Cooke family and from 1775 onwards five generations of the family of Henry Bruen.
The original Oak Park property purchased by the first Bruen consisted of 6000 acres, by 1843 this had increased to 21,000 acres.
Paddy will reveal that when the last Henry Bruen died in 1954 he left the property to his first cousin Francis Bruen, a move zealously contested legally by his daughter.
A court case ordered everything to be sold and the proceeds divided evenly between both parties, thus leading to the end of Oak Park House at a residence.
At the auction the land was purchased by Brownshill Farms which a number of years later was taken over by the Land Commission. In the division that followed, An Foras Taluntais purchased the building. In subsequent years An Foras Taluntais joined with Acot to form Teagasc.
Today the exterior of Oak Park House remains the same as when it was occupied by the Bruens. The inside, however, has changed substantially, with most of the upstairs converted into offices and laboratories.
Source: The Nationalist 10th March 2000. & Michael Purcell
THE BRUENS WERE THE LARGEST LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY CARLOW, WITH 16,477 ACRES
JAMES BRUEN, said to have been of Tarvin, Cheshire, went to Ireland in Cromwell’s Army and settled at Abbeyboyle, County Roscommon.
He was administrator to his brother, Henry Bruen, of Dublin, in 1700.
His son,
MOSES BRUEN, of Boyle, County Roscommon, purchased land and property in counties Carlow and Wexford from the Beaucamp, Grogan and Whaley families.
Thereafter, the family settled at Oak Park, County Carlow, and Coolbawn, County Wexford.
This Moses, who died in 1757, left issue,
Moses; HENRY, of Oak Park; Bridget; Mary; Elinor Catherine; Margaret; Elizabeth.
The second son,
COLONEL HENRY BRUEN MP (1741-95), of Oak Park, MP for Jamestown, 1783-90, County Carlow, 1790-95, removed, about 1775, to estates which he purchased in County Carlow.
He married, in 1787, Harriette Dorothea, daughter of Francis Knox, of Rappa Castle, County Mayo, and had issue,
HENRY, his heir;
John, of Coolbawn;
Francis, of Coolbawn;
Maria; Margaret; Harriett.
The son and heir,
COLONEL HENRY BRUEN (1789-1852), of Oak Park, and Coolbawn, County Wexford, married, in 1822, Anne Wandesforde, daughter of Thomas Kavanagh MP, of Borris House, County Carlow, by Lady Elizabeth his wife, daughter of John, 17th Earl of Ormonde, and had issue,
HENRY, of Oak Park;
Elizabeth; Harriet; Anne.
Colonel Bruen was succeeded by his only son,
THE RT HON HENRY BRUEN JP DL (1828-1912), of Oak Park and Coolbawn, MP for Carlow, 1857-80, High Sheriff of County Carlow, 1853, Privy Counsellor, who married, in 1854, Mary Margaret, third daughter of Colonel Edward M Conolly MP, of Castletown, County Kildare, and had issue,
HENRY, his heir; Edward Francis, Captain RN; John Richard; Arthur Thomas; Charles; Katherine Anne; Mary Susan; Elizabeth; Eleanor; Helen; Grace.
Mr Bruen was succeeded by his eldest son,
HENRY BRUEN (1856-1927), of Oak Park, and Coolbawn, Lieutenant, Royal Artillery, High Sheriff of County Carlow, 1886, Wexford, 1909, who wedded, in 1886, Agnes Mary, youngest daughter of the Rt Hon Arthur M Kavanagh, of Borris, County Carlow, and had issue,
HENRY ARTHUR BRUEN (1887-1954), of Oak Park, Captain, 15th Hussars, who wedded, in 1913, Jane Catherine Gladys, daughter of Arthur George Florence McClintock, and had issue,
GLADYS PATRICIA BREUN (1914-), of Oak Park, who married, in 1939, Mervyn Anthony Arthur Rudyerd Boyse, son of Major Henry Thomas Arthur Shapland Hunt Boyse. They had four sons.
She lived in 1976 at Maryvale, Church Road, Ballybrack, County Dublin.
OAK PARK, near Carlow town, is a large Victorian classical house by W V Morrison.
It has two storeys, the entrance front having a five-bay central block with a pedimented portico of four huge Ionic columns.
The main block is prolonged by wings of the same height, initially set back though returning forwards with Wyatt windows at their ends.
The garden front of thirteen bays is duller in appearance.
The interior has splendid plasterwork in the style of Morrison; while the Hall boasts giant, free-standing Ionic columns.
Part of the former Oak Park estate, once the home of the Bruen Family, from 1775 to 1957, is now the 127 acre Oak Park Forest Park.
The Oak Park demesne was bought by Colonel Henry Bruen in 1775, after making his fortune in the American Army.
He was the grandson of James Bruen, of Tarvin, Cheshire, who came to Ireland with Oliver Cromwell and received land at Abbeyboyle, County Roscommon.
The Bruens intermarried with the County Mayo families, Knox of Rappa and Ruttledge of Bloomfield.
HMS Drake, the wreck of which lies at Church Bay, Rathlin Island, was torpedoed in 1917. One of her Captains was Edward Bruen, son of the MP. He was Captain when the ship was flagship on the Australian station circa 1912/13.
The Senior Naval Officer in Australia at the time was Admiral King-Hall (Admiral Sir George Fowler King-Hall KCB CVO) who had a very strong Ulster connection. Captain Edward Bruen RN was married to Olga Ker, one of the Montalto and Portavo family.
Captain Bruen later went on to command HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Jutland.
The Bruen estate was mainly in the counties of Carlow and Wexford where they had houses at Oakpark in Carlow and at Coolbawn, Enniscorthy.
Francis Bruen was married to Catherine Anne Nugent, daughter of the Earl of Westmeath.
Three townlands in the barony of Athenry were offered for sale in the Landed Estates court in 1866.
All this land gave the Bruen family political power and, in 1790, Henry Bruen was returned to Parliament, winning the seat of a neighbouring family, the Butlers.
However, the Butlers reclaimed their seat five years later with the sudden death of the Colonel in December, 1795.
This allowed his son, also called Henry, to assume control of the estate.
The Bruen estate in County Galway amounted to over 700 acres in the 1870s but was part of an estate of almost 25,000 acres in total.
Manuscripts in the Irish Genealogical Office would suggest that the family held lands at Boyle, County Roscommon, in the 18th century.
These lands seem to have been at the centre of a legal case between the Bruen family and Richard St George.
Henry Bruen attended Harrow School alongside the poet Lord Byron and Robert Peel, with whom he would later serve as a Conservative MP.
Peel was Home Secretary at the time of Catholic Emancipation, a Bill which Henry Bruen supported.
Bruen quickly amassed the land surrounding Oak Park.
In 1841, a survey of every Bruen farm revealed that the family’s estates in County Carlow covered 20,089 acres.
In the 1841 election, Henry defeated the Liberal candidate, Daniel O’Connell, Jnr., son of “The Liberator”.
However, the Bruen hold on the seat lapsed with the death of Henry in 1852; but his son, also confusingly called Henry, returned to the House of Commons in 1857 and held his seat until 1880, which marked the end of the family’s 90-year history of political involvement over three generations.
The current mansion house at Oak Park is the result of four periods of expansion and remodelling carried out between 1797 and 1902.
Twenty-two years after he arrived, Henry employed Michael Boylan to redecorate the house.
In 1832, the second Henry Bruen commissioned William Morrison to re-model the house and in 1876 Samuel Bolton, a builder, signed a contract for a major extension, which took three years to complete.
However, on 22nd February, 1902, the house was gutted by fire.
After eight hours of fighting the blaze, all that remained was the north wing. Fortunately, a large number of paintings, furniture and books were saved by the workers.
The house was rebuilt under the supervision of William Mitchell.
The last male Bruen, the fifth Henry, died in 1954.
By then, the estate had reduced in size to a relatively small 1,500 acres.
He left nothing to his estranged daughter Gladys, who had several years earlier marriedPrince Milo of Montenegro.
The remainder of the estate was bequeathed to a cousin in England, minus a weekly income for life of £6 to his daughter, Patricia.
In 1957, the estate was purchased at auction for £50,555 by Brownes Hill Estates, who already owned the nearby estate in which a Norfolk farmer was principal partner.
However, within three years the property was back on the market after fierce protest from smaller farmers in opposition to the purchase by the Norfolk farmer.
The estate was bought by the Irish Land Commission for £68,000, and seven hundred acres were divided up among small holders, while the house and the remaining land were taken over as a research centre for the Irish Agricultural Institute (Teagasc).
The last member of the Bruen family to be buried in the family’s private burial ground at the Mausoleum was Gladys, the estranged wife of Henry (d 1969).
The Beauties of Ireland, Being Original Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Biographical, of Each County – James Norris Brewer
“…The family of Coke was seated at Paynestown through many generations. Thomas Coke, Esq. dying without legitimate male issue, his estates passed to the late Earl of Kenmare, by whom this place was sold to the father of the present owner.”
“The façade of Oak Park, County Carlow, designed by William Vitruvius Morrison in the early 1830s for Colonel Henry Bruen. The building incorporates an earlier house and was originally a grand villa, of two storeys and five bays, one on either side of the giant tetrastyle portico. The latter, featuring four Ionic columns with wreaths in the frieze above, is almost identical to that at Ballyfin, County Laois and can also be seen at Barons Court, County Tyrone and Mount Stewart, County Down, on all of which buildings the Morrisons, father and son, worked. Oak Park was greatly extended in the 1870s and also extensively restored after a fire in 1902, but some of the original interior decoration survives, notably in the entrance hall and the former library. The last of the Bruen family to live in the house died in 1954; some time earlier his wife had run away with an impoverished Montenegran prince, Milo Petrovic-Njegos. After various legal disputes and changes of ownership had occurred, Oak Park and several hundred acres was acquired by the Irish State; today it serves as the headquarters of Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority.“
Irish Historic Houses 
