ruin

Ardcandrisk House, County Wexford

by jenjunebug

Ardcandrisk House, County Wexford – ruin 

Ardcandrisk, photographer Robert French, Lawrence Collection NLI L-IMP_1336.

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. 8. “(Grogan-Morgan/LG1863; Deane, Muskerry, B/PB) A two storey Regency villa composed of three polygons of different sizes. Eaved roofs; Wyatt windows at one end. Tail blind panels on narrow faces of polygons.” 

http://barntown.ie/ardcandrisk-house/ 

Ardcandrisk House 

Written by Tom and Teresa Wickham 

  

Ardcandrisk House and estate 

The house, built in 1833 by Cornelius Grogan Morgan, was described as a two storied regency villa. It was designed without any right angled corners, being formed by three polygons of different sizes. A later addition, a billiards room to the rear of the main house, was a more orthodox rectangular structure. The living and reception rooms occupied the ground floor, the bedrooms and dressing rooms were on the first floor. The basement housed the kitchen quarters. The dairy, laundry and female living apartments were close by in the kitchen yard. A tunnel led from the house to the stable yard where the bachelor workers lived. To the rear of the stables, separated from them by a belfry arch were the farm yard and cow byres. 

The bell was rung three times daily: 6am to start the day; 12 noon for dinner; 6pm to cease work. Many of the buildings were constructed of bricks manufactured locally at the Polehore brickyard. 

  

The gardens 

The front of the house had a terraced garden and pleasure grounds with many scenic walks around its manicured lawns. Rhododendrons of many beautiful colours and other exotic flowering shrubs enhanced the walkways. The grounds had three tennis courts, said to be the finest in County Wexford. Archery was also a favourite sport on the lawns, and practiced by the ladies and gentlemen alike. One walk led down a step-way, across a bridge over the railway tracks to Lady Dane’s yacht on the Slaney in which she sailed with her companions to attend religious services at St Iberius Church in Wexford. The walled orchard and vegetable garden provided the produce necessary for the house and kitchen. The flower garden, carefully tended, gave the ladies and visitors a beautiful tranquil area to stroll around or sit and enjoy. 

Employees 

Members of nearly every family in the area depended on the estate for employment. Although the Ardcandrisk estate contained only eighty four acres, none of which was under tillage, the annual corn threshing is said to have continued for a week. Grain crops were carted by her tenants for the event, from as far afield as Blackwater and Curracloe. Twelve men were employed in the gardens with an additional six men in the stable and farm yard. A further ten house servants were employed under the supervision of Miss Bell. Two fine two-storied houses, situated near the orchard, were occupied by the head steward and head gardener and their families. These two houses are in excellent condition and are still occupied today. Lady Dane was considered to be a good landlady who treated her employees fairly. At Christmas time, her butcher Mr Gaul from Taghmon slaughtered her best animal to provide a stone of beef for each worker. They also received one pound of tea and one stone of sugar each. The female servants were given a red petticoat made by the resident seamstress. The workers, servants, their families and neighbours were invited to a Christmas party at the house held in the billiards room (See Appendix 1 for names and occupations of some employees). 

‘Lady Dane’ 

Born Elizabeth Geraldine Grogan in 1830, daughter of Hamilton Knox Grogan Morgan of Johnstown Castle. She married Robert Tilson Fitzmaurice Deane son of 3rd Baron Muskerry of Co Cork in 1847. Their only son Hamilton Matthew Tilson Fitzmaurice Deane-Morgan was born in 1854. Her husband Robert died in 1857. Her son on the death of his grandfather in 1868 inherited the title 4thBaron Muskerry. After her husband’s death, the Honourable Elizabeth Deane-Morgan inherited the Morgan estate at Ardcandrisk and became known locally as ‘Lady Dane’. During the second half of the nineteenth and the greater part of the twentieth centuries the name ‘Lady Dane’ was synonymous with Ardcandrisk. Lady Dane’s cousin, Miss Florence Gonne-Bell came from Mayo to Ardcandrisk as lady companion and assisted in the management of the household. 

Animal Welfare 

Lady Dane was renowned for her love of animals and was rarely seen without her two pet Irish wolfhounds, Rae and Lou and some small Pekinese dogs by her side. She was a superb horsewoman and as patroness of County Wexford Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals she was successful in having drinking troughs strategically placed along the roads in the area. One can be seen on the roadside near Ferrycarrig and another, the famous Swan in the Faythe, in Wexford town. 

There is an oral tradition in the neighbourhood of Ardcandrisk that after the death of Hamilton K.G. Morgan his daughters, Elizabeth (Lady Dane) and Jane being co-heirs to the estate at Johnstown agreed to settle ownership of the castle on the result of a horse race from Ardcandrisk. The first rider to enter the castle gates would become the new owner. Lady Dane, being careful of her animal’s welfare stopped to water her horse, while Jane continued on her way arrived first at the gates and claimed the castle and the estate as her prize. This must surely rate as one of the richest races in history! 

The Primrose League 

Lady Dane socialised with the rich and famous of her time and was a member of numerous organisations, one being the famous Primrose League, founded in honour of Benjamin Disraeli (his favourite flower) to promote Tory Party politics. She was one of the founder members of the League in Wexford. It was a society of the local ascendancy including Knights and Dames. The first meeting was held in Ardcandrisk House in 1886 and named the Wexford Habitation [branch](Ardcandrisk No. 1084). The minutes of the Habitation meeting in 1895 as reported in the Primrose League Gazette of that year: 

A meeting of the above Habitation was held on September 11th 1895, by the kind invitation of the Honourable Mrs Deane Morgan, the dame-president, at her residence, Ardcandrisk, near Wexford. About one hundred and fifty members attended and after partaking of a substantial luncheon, provided by the dame-president the party adjourned to the terrace where, on the chair being taken by the ruling councillor, Mr Francis A. Leigh, of Rosegarland, speeches were delivered by Mr Richard Wright, delegate from the Grand Council, Mr Hussey-White, and Mrs Orpen pointed out the advantages of the League. Miss Susie Elgee, the Hon. Secretary and treasurer of the Habitation was presented with special service bars for the years 1893 and 1894, and the resolution was passed requesting Grand Council to grant a distinction of the Grand Star (First Class) to Mrs Deane Morgan and Miss Elgee for their services to the Habitation. The weather was very fine and a most enjoyable afternoon was spent. A vote of thanks was passed to Mrs Deane Morgan for her kindness in giving Ardcandrisk for the meeting, and the National Anthem having been sung, the meeting then dispersed. 

The death of Lady Dane 

Lady Dane’s health deteriorated in the early twentieth century. She became very frail and was eventually confined to a wheelchair. Two servants pushed her chair around the house and gardens. A lift was installed in the house which was operated by a winch from the attic to give access to the bedroom floor. Lady Dane died in May 1920 in her ninety-first year, leaving an employment crisis in the neighbourhood, with many people unemployed for the first time in their working lives. 

Obituary notice from the Free Press, May 15 1920: 

The death occurred on Thursday, 13th May of the Hon. Mrs Elizabeth Geraldine Deane Morgan at her residence, Ardcandrisk. The deceased lady was the widow of the late Hon. Robert Fitzmaurice Tilson Deane and eldest daughter of the late Hamilton Knox Grogan Morgan of Johnstown Castle. For many years she was confined to her residence. She was the owner of extensive estates in county Wexford and many southern counties and was one of the few landlords to maintain a permanent residence in the county. She was possessed of a very benevolent disposition and was a generous contributor towards all projects for charitable purposes. She enjoyed the esteem of the people residing in the neighbourhood of Ardcandrisk who always found her willing to render any assistance in her power for the advancement of their material welfare. In the management of Wexford County Infirmary, of which she was a life governor, she took a deep interest and frequently sent donations to assist in the alleviation of the lot of its inmates. She contracted a cold which developed into an attack of bronchitis. Her medical advisor, Dr T. J. Dowse was called in attendance but, owing to her advanced years, she never rallied. She passed away peacefully having attained the ripe old age of ninety-one years. She leaves one son, the Earl of Muskerry who resides in Springfield Castle, Dromcollogher, Co. Cork, whilst Lady Maurice Fitzgerald, Johnstown Castle is her niece. 

  

Her funeral took place to the family vault at Rathaspeck where the Service at the graveside was conducted by Rev. T.R.G Condell, Kilscoran, Rev. W.L. Shade, Rathaspeck and Rev. Mr Cook, Wexford. The chief mourners were her son Lord Muskerry, Lady Muskerry, daughter-in-law, Mr Cecil Deane-Morgan, grandson, Lady Maurice Fitzgerald, niece and Mrs Massey, wife of the late Hon. Hamilton Deane-Morgan.  

  

On the death of Lady Dane, her cousin and life-long companion Miss Florence Gonne-Bell inherited Ardcandrisk house, but survived her benefactor by a mere nine months. Her obituary read: 

  

Sunday, February 6th, 1921, at Ardcandrisk Wexford, Florence Gonne Bell in her eighty second year, only surviving daughter of the late Edward de Tour Gonne Bell Esq., of Streamstown Co. Mayo and the Grange Castleconnell Co. Limerick. Funeral from Ardcandrisk at ten-thirty today (Wednesday) morning. Interment at Castleconnell at two o’clock, Thursday. 

Miss Bell bequeathed the estate to her niece Mrs Florence Harvey (née Irvine) but the Harvey family’s occupation was brief and in December 1921 a two day auction was held to dispose of the lifetime collection of Lady Dane’s goods and chattels. (See appendix 2) 

Captain N Cookman 

Captain Nathaniel Cookman of Monart, a First World War hero who saw action in Flanders and Ypres, became the next owner of Ardcandrisk estate. He was a first cousin of Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, their mothers being sisters, of the Jameson whiskey family of Enniscorthy. Like Marconi, he had a flair of electricals and gadgetry and had the first electrical plant in the area installed. He and his family lived in the house while the land was let to Mr Patrick Broaders. It was rumoured that Captain Cookman witnessed a ghostly apparition on the stairs, the description of which resembled that of the late Miss Bell. His dog became very agitated and attacked his master. After this incident Captain Cookman would not stay overnight in the house but retired nightly to his yacht on the Slaney. This signalled the beginning of the end of Ardcandrisk House as he sold every item of value in numerous auctions. The house declined to the empty shell we see today and is now covered by undergrowth and ivy. 

When Captain Cookman departed, Mr Patrick Broaders purchased the estate which is now farmed by his grandson Mr Kevin Curtis. 

http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2013/06/springfield-castle.html

THE BARONS MUSKERRY WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY WEXFORD, WITH 9,412 ACRES 

This family possessed large estates in Somerset as far back as the reign of HENRY II. 

The third son of MOSES DEANE, of Deane’s Fort, Somerset, 

MATTHEW DEANE (c1626-1711), settled in Ireland during the reign of JAMES I, and took up his abode at Dromore, County Cork, where he purchased considerable estates. 

Mr Deane, who bequeathed large sums towards the erection of almshouses and other charitable purposes, was created a baronet in 1710, designated of Muskerry. 

He married firstly, Mary, daughter of Thomas Wallis, of Somerset; secondly, Martha, daughter of the Most Rev Richard Boyle, Lord Archbishop of Tuam; and thirdly, Dorothy, Countess of Barrymore; by the first of whom he left, at his decease, in 1711, a son and heir, 

 
SIR ROBERT DEANE, 2nd Baronet, who wedded Anne, daughter and co-heir of William Boltridge, one of CROMWELL’S officers; and dying in 1712, was succeeded by his son, 

SIR MATTHEW DEANE, 3rd Baronet, MP for Charleville, 1713-14, County Cork, 1728-47, who espoused Jane, only daughter of the Rev William Sharpe, son of the Archbishop of St Andrew’s, the ill-fated primate of Scotland, and had issue, 

MATTHEW, his successor; 
Thomas, dsp; 
ROBERT, 4th Baronet; 
Meliana; Dorothy; Jane. 

Sir Matthew died in 1747, and was succeeded by his eldest son, 

 
SIR MATTHEW DEANE, 4th Baronet (c1706-51), MP for Cork City, 1739-51, who wedded Salisbury, daughter and sole heir of Robert Davis, of Manley Hall, Cheshire, by whom he had three daughters, viz. 

Salisbury; Mary; Charlotte. 

Sir Matthew dying thus without male issue, the title devolved upon his brother, 

THE RT HON SIR ROBERT DEANE, 5th Baronet (c1707-70), Barrister, Privy Counsellor, MP for Tallow, 1757-68, Carysfort, 1769-70, who married, in 1738, Charlotte, second daughter of Thomas Tilson (uncle to Lord Castlecoote), and had issue, 

ROBERT, his successor; 
Jocelyn; 
Charlotte; Grace; Eliza Salisbury; Jane; Alicia; Frances. 

Sir Robert was succeeded by his eldest son, 

SIR ROBERT TILSON DEANE, 6th Baronet (1745-1818), MP for Carysfort, 1771-6, County Cork, 1776-81, who was raised to the peerage, in 1781, in the dignity of BARON MUSKERRY. 

He wedded, in 1775, Anne, daughter of John Fitzmaurice, and sole heir of her grandfather, John Fitzmaurice, of Springfield Castle, County Limerick (nephew of Thomas, 1st Earl of Kerry), and had issue, 

JOHN THOMAS FITZMAURICE, his successor; 
William; 
MATTHEW, 3rd Baron. 

His lordship was succeeded by his elder son, 

 
JOHN THOMAS FITZMAURICE (1777-1824), 2nd Baron, CB, Major-General in the army, who married, in 1815, the second daughter of M Haynes, of Bishop’s Castle; but died in 1824, without male issue, when the honours devolved upon his only brother, 

MATTHEW FITZMAURICE (1795-1868), 3rd Baron, who wedded, in 1825, Louisa Dorcas, second daughter of Henry Deane Grady, of Lodge, County Limerick, and Stillorgan Castle, County Dublin, and had issue, 

ROBERT TILSON FITZMAURICE, his successor; 
Henry Standish Fitzmaurice; 
Matthew James Fitzmaurice. 

The heir apparent is the present holder’s only son, the Hon Jonathan Fitzmaurice Deane. 

ARDCANDRISK HOUSE, near Wexford, County Wexford (above), is a two-storey Regency villa of about 1833, comprising three polygons of differing sizes. 

It has eaved roofs and Wyatt windows at one end. 

It was built by the Grogan-Morgans, though was acquired by the Deanes, Lords Muskerry, though marriage. 

Arch Hall, Wilkinstown, Co Meath – a ruin

by jenjunebug

Arch Hall, Wilkinstown, Co Meath – a ruin 

Arch Hall, County Meath, courtesy Colin Colleran photographer facebook page.

Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.

p. 7. “(Garnett/LGI1912) A three storey early C18 house attributed, as is the arch in the garden, to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Curved bow in centre of front, doorway with pediment and blocking; curved ends, with round-headed windows. Top storey treated as an attic. In the C19, the house was given a high-pitched roof on a bracket cornice, the curved ends being given conical roofs, so that they looked like the round towers of a French chateau. Also in C19, the windows in the attic storey were replaced by rather strange Romanesque windows in pairs. 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. 113. “A very interesting early 18C house attributed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The house is in fact a smaller version of Wardtown, County Donegal. The top floor was altered during the first half of the 19C. In 1814 the seat of J. N. Payne Garnett. Now a ruin.”

Record of Protected Structures: 

Arch Hall, townland: Arch Hall, town: wilkinstown. 

A large early Georgian house. Three-storey, nine-bay 

entrance front with cylindrical turret surviving. Incl. 

Outbuildings 

Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.  

p. 109. “The fragmentary shell of a large early Georgian house whose design has been attributed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. All that survives is a three-storey, nine bay entrance front with cylindrical turret-like bows at each end and a broader three-bay semicircular bow at the centre of the façade. Thoroughly reworked in the c19, the façade, formerly of brick, is now drably rendered in cement. It has curious paired Romanesque windows and Italianate sills to the attic storey. Thus an early Georgian castle idiom was here transformed into a hybrid Victorian chateau; conical slated roofs added to the end bows completed the Chambord effect. 

“The destruction of Arch Hall is unfortunate as it was one of a small group of Irish buildings – Wardtown in Co Donegal (also now in ruins) is another – which may be considered as descendants of Vanbrugh’s castle style and his geometrical designs, making rare use of bow windows and circular rooms at an early date. Behind the façade the house is only one room deep, built over a brick-vaulted basement. The hall, originally a large space with curved ends, was flanked by a reception room on each side. The room to the r. maintains its original dimensions of roughly 18 ft (5.5m) square. Throughout the fabric, fragments of plaster panels cling to the brickwork, and in one of the corner towers a shallow saucer dome is ornamented with plaster coffering and egg-and-dart mouldings.” 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2014/12/15/the-untriumphal-arch/

Arch Hall, County Meath, the house shown above, is a tantalising mystery. Who was the architect? When was it built? And for whom? Answers to all these questions, and others, have been proposed and while convincing they cannot be absolutely verified. Today what remains of Arch Hall stands on flat ground in the middle of open fields, and the greater part of the ornamental park with which it was once surrounded has been lost. A painting from 1854 by the Yorkshire-born artist James Walsham Baldock depicts the wife of Arch Hall’s then-owner Samuel Garnett and the couple’s two young sons on horseback with the house visible behind. Evidently at the time it was surrounded by a belt of mature trees but most of these have now gone leaving the building isolated and even more exposed to the elements than would otherwise be the case. At some date obviously it was abandoned and left to fall into ruin but – another question – when? 

Arch Hall appears to derive its name from the rustic arch lying some distance to the south of the house and serving as point of access to the original avenue. Placed on an axis and intended to offer an unexpected vista of the property, the arch is composed of a single broad entrance with pinnacle above and flanking buttresses. From this point Arch Hall looks like a very substantial building, but the impression is deceptive because despite rising three storeys over basement the house was only one room deep. Its most striking feature is the nine-bay facade which on either side concludes in cylindrical bows and is centred on a larger, three-bay semi-circular bow. This has a handsome stone pedimented Gibbsian doorcase but the rest of the building was constructed of locally-produced red brick. At some – also unknown – date in the 19th century, the exterior was covered in cement render marked out to imitate cut stone. Presumably at the same time the topmost storey windows were paired in Romanesque style and Italianate sills added, while the end bows were capped with conical roofs presumably in an effort to make the place resemble a French château. Inside the front door was a large hall with curved ends and reception rooms on either side, each measuring some five and a half metres square. These in turn gave access to small circular rooms in the front corners. Despite long exposure, the two end rooms retain traces of their decorative plasterwork, that on the western flank somehow still having a shallow saucer dome with plaster coffering and egg-and-dart moulding. Almost all the rear of the house has been lost, as well as part of the front wall, making Arch Hall’s long-term survival unlikely. 

For a number of reasons the design of Arch Hall is usually ascribed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. Believed to have been born at some date in the late 1690s in County Meath, Pearce was the son of an English general and an Irish mother (her father was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1676-77). Most importantly for his son’s future career, General Edward Pearce’s first cousin was Sir John Vanbrugh. The latter appears to have had an influence on the young architect, if only stylistically, but Pearce’s work in Ireland was also shaped by time spent in mainland Europe in 1723-24 during which he studied Palladio’s buildings in the Veneto. Thus while essentially a classicist, he sometimes liked to feature elements of the baroque. Such is the case with Arch Hall if indeed it was designed by Pearce. Another Irish house, alas now also a ruin, with which it has strong similarities is Wardtown Castle, County Donegal. Built for John Folliott, Wardtown is deeper than Arch Hall but, as Maurice Craig noted in 1996, it shares ‘the Vanbrughian feature of cylindrical towers and semi-circular projections.’ In fact the design of the two houses is so alike, the inevitable conclusion is that either they were by the same hand or one was a copy of the other. 

So when was Arch Hall built, and for whom? Sir Edward Lovett Pearce died in 1733 so if he were the house’s architect, work on its construction would most likely have begun before that date. At the time, the townland of which it is part, Newtown-Clongill was owned part-owned by the Payne or Pain(e) family: a deed of 1714 records the transfer of 510 acres in the area from John Raphson to William Paine. In 1737 his granddaughter Anne Paine married Benjamin Woodward of Drumbarrow, near Kells, County Meath. Her settlement included the town and lands of Clongill and Newtown-Clongill. Somehow by the early 19thcentury the property had transferred into the ownership of another local family, the Garnetts who were associated with a number of houses in the county, not least Williamstown and Summerseat. The first of them to live at Arch Hall was John Pain Garnett, second son of Samuel Garnett of Summerseat. John Pain Garnett’s middle name would imply some kind of connection with the previous residents but there appears to be none: the Garnetts tended to marry cousins, or else members of the Rothwell and Wade families. Arch Hall was subsequently inherited by John Pain’s son, another Samuel Garnett who in 1841 married Marianne Tandy: it is she and the couple’s two sons who appear in the 1854 painting by James Walsham Baldock. Burke’s 1871 Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland list the family as still in residence, but at some date thereafter they must have left and the place began its slide into dereliction. But when and why was Arch Hall permitted this most untriumphant end? So many unanswered questions…

https://meathhistoryhub.ie/houses-a-d/

The rustic arch flanked by obelisks to the south of the house on the original avenue provided the name of the house. The arch contains a decorated stone from Neolitic times. Other follies included two bridges over a narrow canal that is diverted from the Yellow River. There was a large lake to the south-west of the house. With a lodge at the entrance gates there was a walled garden and extensive outbuildings. 

A local story says that there were two Chilean pine trees planted, one each side of the arch to celebrate the birth of two boys to the Gilliat family. Captain Glennie Gilliat died of wounds in October 1914 while his brother, Captain Reginald Gilliat was killed in action at Neuve Chapelle in April 1915.  

Arch Hall is associated with the Payne and Garnett families. The lands at Newtown-Clongill were in the hands of the Payne family from the time of the Cromwellian confiscations. William Paine acquired a lease of 510 acres at Arch Hall in 1714. William had two sons, Lawrence and John. Anne, daughter of John Paine, married Benjamin Woodward of Drumbarrow in 1737. 

The house was probably constructed in the 1730s and designed by Edward Lovett Pearce. Arch Hall is one of a small group of Irish buildings in Vanbrugh’s castle style making use of bows and circular rooms at an early date. 

In 1835 John Payne Garnett retained the townland of Arch Hall in his hands and had most of the townland under pasture, raising sheep and black cattle.  Mr. Garnett’s house was described as a beautiful old-style residence with a fine garden and offices, an artificial pond with a number of islands on which ducks and widgeon feed.  On the western boundary was a beautiful decoy. The well-wooded demesne comprised about 350 statute acres. Garnett also kept the townland of Fletecherstown in his hands raising sheep and cattle. The sheep were mostly of the Galway breed and the cattle chiefly the long-horned Irish breed. John Payne Garnett was High Sheriff of Meath in 1821. 

John Paine Garnett died 1846 and was succeeded by his son, Samuel. Samuel Garnett of Arch Hall married Mary Anne Tandy in 1841. In 1845 Samuel Garnett, Esq., J. P., was a member of a company promoting the construction of a railway from the south of Ireland to the north, from Limerick to Clones. In the 1850s Samuel Garnett held lands at Arch Hall, Fletcherstown, Oristown and Clongill. Samuel was High Sheriff of Meath in 1858. In 1876  Samuel Garnett of Arch Hall owned 1,336 acres in county Meath. Samuel’s son, John, married Edith Singleton of Aclare but died in 1872 leaving an only son, John, born in 1866, who succeeded to the estates of his grand-father in the 1880s. A Justice of the Peace John died unmarried in 1894. 

The property then came into the hands of the Gilliat family who were involved in banking in London and trade in Liverpool. In the 1901 and 1911 censuses Edith Gilliat and her daughter, Constance, resided at the house with their servants. 

Arch Hall, the property of the late Mrs. Gilliat, was  burned in April 1923. The house was unoccupied at the time. Before it was destroyed, one of the rooms was reputed to be made entirely in gold, from the paint on the walls to the furniture and picture frames. All that survives today is the facade and some remains of the front rooms. Mulligan described it as a “romantic decaying shell.” 

Ardtully, Co Kerry – burnt 1921, a ruin

by jenjunebug

Ardtully, Co Kerry – burnt 1921, a ruin 

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. 12. “A Victorian Baronial house.. built by Sir Richard Orpen on the site of an earlier house which in turn had replaced an old MacCarthy stronghold. Burnt 1921.”  

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.

https://archiseek.com/2011/1847-ardtully-house-kilgarvan-co-kerry

1847 – Ardtully House, Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry 

Ardtully, County Kerry, courtesy Archiseek.

Ardtully House was constructed in 1847 by Sir Richard Orpen, a Dublin based solicitor whose family had connections to the area. Built on the site of the old Ardtully castle which was finally destroyed by Cromwell during the civil wars, only ruins remain as it was itself burned down in 1921. 

Portrait of the Artist’s Homestead

In Ireland few painters are better known or more admired than Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), examples of whose work today fetch some of the highest prices for a picture at auction. Yet Orpen’s background is relatively little studied, and his links with County Kerry are accordingly overlooked. Like many families, the Orpens were inclined to give themselves a more distinguished pedigree that was actually the case. So in Burke’s Landed Gentry of 1847 it is claimed that ‘The family of Orpen is of remote antiquity, and is stated to trace its descent from Erpen, second son of Varnacker (maire of the palace to Clothaire I), who was the son of Meroveus, and grandson of Theodorick, son of Clovis, King of France.’ This places their origins back in the sixth century, so that by the time William, Duke of Normandy won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he was of course accompanied by a knight called Robert d’Erpen who thereafter settled at Erpingham in Norfolk. According to this version of events, the family turns up in Ireland in the second half of the 17th century already long established as members of the landed gentry on the other side of the Irish Sea. Such would have been the story of his forebears likely known by William Orpen. However the year before his death a cousin, the historian Goddard Henry Orpen produced an alternative, and somewhat less distinguished narrative. From this it would appear that the first Orpen to come to Ireland, a descendant of humble English yeomen, did so some time in the 1650s/60s when he acquired land around the area of Killorglin, County Kerry and that by the mid-1670s his son, Richard Orpen was employed as a land agent by the region’s greatest landowner, Sir William Petty. All of which is not quite so splendid as the lineage proposed by Burke but, as Goddard Henry Orpen wrote, ‘it is the truth I seek and not a (faked) illustrious ancestry and, after all, is it not better to rise than to fall?’ 

So, the earliest Orpens to settle in Kerry did so in the second half of the 17th century and prospered thanks to their association with the Pettys, later Petty-Fitzmaurices and ultimately Marquesses of Lansdowne. As a result they were able to acquire their own substantial landholdings, including the area around Ardtully in South Kerry. Until the 17th century this property was under the control of the MacFineens, a branch of the powerful MacCarthy clan but according to the Books of Survey and Distribution (compiled c.1650-80) during the course of the Confederate Wars, Colonel Donough MacFineen forfeited Ardtully, on which then stood ‘two good slate houses, a corn-mill, a castle, malthouse, barn, and tuck mill, likewise there are iron-mines and a silver mine in the quarter of Ardtully.’ The lands here were granted by the crown to one John Dillon but subsequently acquired on a long lease by the descendants of the original Richard Orpen: following a marriage between the latter’s grandson and Anna Townsend of Bridgemount, County Cork in 1766 the family’s name became Orpen Townsend. Ultimately in the first half of the 19th century the Ardtully estate was first leased and then purchased through the Encumbered Estates Court by a cousin of Richard Orpen Townsend: this was the successful solicitor Richard John Theodore Orpen. Founder of a legal practice still in existence today (as Orpen Franks) he would act as President of the Law Society from 1860 until his death sixteen years later. Knighted in 1866, he was the grandfather of the artist William Orpen and builder of a house still just extant at Ardtully. 

Sir Richard John Theodore Orpen was clearly very proud of his family, if somewhat deluded about its pedigree, and assembled whatever information he could about his ancestors. He also built up a considerable land holding in County Kerry, amounting to over 12,000 acres by the time of his death. A fine residence in the centre of this property was required, and duly built at Ardtully in 1847. Its architect unknown, the house is customarily summarised as being in the Scottish Baronial style but this seems more a flag of convenience than an accurate description. In truth Ardtully looks to have been a typically Victorian grab-bag of architectural elements, its most prominent feature being a castellated round tower and turret on the south-east corner. Looking towards the river Roughty, the entrance front features a porch topped by the Orpen coat of arms (now damaged), another attempt by Sir Richard to demonstrate his lineage. Inside the house looks to have contained the usual collection of reception and bedrooms ranged over two storeys, the roofline marked by a succession of stepped gables and dormers. A substantial range of service outbuildings lay to the north. A handsome coloured illustration of Ardtully appeared in County Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland (published 1870): conveniently the author of this six-volume work was Sir Richard’s nephew, the Rev. Francis Orpen Morris. The estate was eventually inherited by another Anglican clergyman, Sir Richard’s second son, the Rev. Raymond Orpen, Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe. Uncle of the painter Sir William Orpen, he retired from office in 1921 and the same year Ardtully was burnt by the IRA. It has remained a ruin ever since, the link with one of this country’s greatest artists forgotten. 

https://www.castles.nl/ardtully-house

Ardtully House lies in a field west of the village of Kilgarvan, in County Kerry in Ireland. 

According to tradition the first building at this site was a 13-th century monastery which was replaced, using its stones, by a castle of the McFineen McCarthys. This castle was destroyed in the mid-17th century during Cromwell’s conquest. Later the Orpen family buit a mansion house here, within the remains of the old castle. 

In 1847, Sir Richard Orpen Townsend demolished the earlier house and the remains of the castle, replacing it with a fine 5-bay 2-storey Scottish-Baronial style house of which we see the remains today. It had 27 rooms, a circular 3-storey battlemented corner tower on the southeast corner and a 3-storey corbelled circular turret on the east corner. 

In 1921, during the Irish War of Independence, Ardtully House was burned down by the IRA. It was never rebuilt. 

Ardtully House can freely be visited. The ruin itself can not be entered due to the risk of falling stones. Just north of it are the remains of a walled garden. A very nice ruin. 

Ardfry, Abbey, or House, Oranmore, Co Galway – ruin

by jenjunebug

Ardfry, Abbey, or House, Oranmore, Co Galway – ruin 

Ardfry, County Galway, entrance front c. 1870. Copy 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.

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. 9. “(Blake/IFR) A long, two storey house probably of ca. 1770 on a peninsula jutting out into Galway Bay where previously there had been a castle which, during the Civil War, Sir Richard Blake garrisoned in the service of Charles I. Principal front of nine bays with a central pediment and a higher, pyramidal-roofed pavilion at either end. On the front face of each pavilion is a two storey curved bow roof with a shallow half-dome. Hall with alcoves supported by pairs of columns edmbeeded in the wall. Dorothea Herbert and a cousin called here in 1784 during the celebrations for the wedding of Joseph Blake, afterwards the Lord Wallscourt, to a daughter of the Earl of Louth; when an unfortunate incident was caused by the cousin’s dog (to which he was in the habit of feeding “ripe peaches and apricots”) “dirtying the room and Lord Louth’s blindly stepping into it.” At the time of 3rd Lord Wallscourt’s marriage to the beautiful Bessie Lock 1822, the house had been empty for some years and was very dilapidated; at first they thought it was beyond repair, but then they decided to restore it; the work was completed by 1826. It was probably then that the house was given its few mild Gothic touches: a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles beneath a quatrefoil window; battlements on the end pavilions; and a Gothic conservatory with stone piers. The rather strange four storey block at teh back of teh house which has hood mouldings over its small windows may either have been built, or re-faced, at this time. The 3rd Lord Wallscourt, a man of exceptional strength and often very violent, liked walking about the house naked; his wife persuaded him to carry a cowbell when he was in this state so as to warn the maidservant of his approach. In the early years of the present century, the 2nd wife of 4th Lord Wallscourt sold the lead off the roof to pay her gambling debts; so that the house gradually fell into ruin. It was recently re-roofed and re-windowed so as to be used for the film Macintosh Man; now, wiht the film-property roof a skeleton and the windows falling out, the house seems like the ghost of what it was in an earlier stage of its decay.” 

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.

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/30409429/ardfry-house-ardfry-county-galway

Ardfry House, County Galway, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.

Roofless remains of detached two-storey over basement double-pile country house, built c.1780, renovated c.1820, now roofless. Comprising central block having nine bays to front and six bays to rear, having two-bay two-storey towers of c.1820 terminating each end, projecting slightly to front of front pile and having two-bay two-storey bows to front elevations. Further single-bay three-storey block to north-east re-entrant corner. Towers have crenellated parapets with quatrefoils to centre, and decorative carved stone pinnacles to corners. Rendered chimneystacks. Rendered rubble limestone walls with limestone render string course to eaves and moulded render eaves and sill courses to towers. Square-headed chamfered window openings with stone sills. Label-mouldings to windows of four westmost bays of rear elevation, and moulded quatrefoil opening above front entrance. No frames survive. Upper windows to north elevation have moulded heads and upper jambs of medieval limestone work, that to tower having decorative vegetal detailing. Pointed arch door opening with carved limestone doorcase and flaning clustered columns, with ogee detail above having decorative pinnacle, and with moulded lintel to doorway proper. Remains of courtyard to rear, with pseudo-three-centred arched carriage opening with cut-stone voussoirs to north wall. Set outside Oranmore village on a peninsula jutting into Galway Bay. 

Appraisal 

Built in the late eighteenth century on the site of an earlier castle owned by the Blakes, Ardfry House has been much altered and added to during its life. The first documented restoration was completed in 1826 when some features were added in the then fashionable Gothic Revival style, including pinnacles, crenellations and the quatrefoil window above the entrance door. The house was residence to Lord Wallscourt, about whom it is said that liked to roam naked and was made to wear a cowbell by his wife to warn the maids of his approach. The house received another brief facelift during the early 1970s when it was re-roofed and refenestrated for use in the Paul Newman film, ‘The Mackintosh Man’. Now ruinous, it nonetheless creates an interesting eyecatcher in the landscape. 

Ardfry House, County Galway, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
https://www.antaisce.org/buildingsatrisk/ardfry-house-oranmore
Ardfry House, County Galway, photograph courtesy of An Taisce

Photograph Credit: google.com/maps 

Details 

  • NIAH Ref: 30409429 
  • Date: 1760 – 1800 
  • Rating: Regional 
  • Orig. Use: Country House 
  • Townland: Ardfry 
  • County: Galway 
  • Last Reviewed: August 2019 

Criteria for Risk 

  • Suffering from structural problems 
  • Abandoned ruin 

Assessment 

  • Condition of Structure: Ruinous 
  • Level of Risk: High 

Appraisal 

The building is a roofless shell. None of the original fabric remains other than the external walls. It is suffering from structural problems that could lead to full or partial collapse, and there is an immediate threat of further deterioration. 

The house dates to circa 1770 and belonged to the Blake Family with later alterations. It adjoins the earlier medieval castle. The house has been in ruins since the mid 20th century. A development for works at this site was granted permission in 2004 by Galway County Council, however, this has not proceeded. The structure is of significant historic importance and requires conservation works to prevent further deterioration. 

Recommended Use 

  • Conservation 

Featured in Mark Bence Jones, Life in an Irish Country House. Constable, London. 1996. 

Now a ruin. 

The land was garrisoned by Richard Blake in the service of Charles I. In about 1770 Joseph Blake built a new house here. 

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/owners-of-listed-building-in-galway-warned-against-unauthorised-work-1.1361215

Archaeologist describes removal of stone from Gothic-style ruin Ardfry, once home to Irish literary revival figure Valentine Blake, as ‘wanton vandalism’ 

April 16, 2013 by Lorna Siggins. 

“Galway County Council has issued the owners of a late 18th century Gothic-style mansion with an enforcement notice, following demolition of part of its ruined structure. 

The local authority has ordered immediate cessation of any further “unauthorised” work at the listed building, which was once home of Irish literary revival figure Valentine Blake, and has directed the owners to consult with the county council heritage and conservation offices on remedial works. 

It warns the owners, Kathleen and William Greaney of Cregboy, Claregalway, Co Galway, that they may be guilty of an offence if steps outlined by it are not taken. 

The removal of stone from the two-storey ruin overlooking Galway Bay was witnessed by archaeologist Michael Gibbons who has described it as “wanton vandalism”. He reported it to the Office of Public Works, the local authority and Birdwatch Ireland. He has also contacted the Royal Irish Academy, urging it to place the destruction of monuments by “public and private bodies” on its agenda. 

Ardfry was built in 1770 by Joseph Blake on whom was conferred the title of Lord Wallscourt. It was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was built on the site of an earlier medieval castle owned by the Blakes, one of the tribes of Galway. 

It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers.  

The home fell into ruin after the fourth earl’s second wife reputedly gambled away the family money. Architectural historian Tarquin Blake, author of Abandoned Mansions of Ireland and an associated website, says it had many eccentric owners, including one who was known to walk around naked  

carrying a cowbell to “forewarn the maids”. 

In 1950, the fourth earl’s three granddaughters reclaimed the house and 33 acres of the esstate, and lived in an outhouse close to the ruin. It was used as a set for the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, in the 1970s, when it was given a new roof and windows and then burned for the film’s purposes. 

The land and property was valued at about £1.6 million (sterling) when put up for sale in 2001, and was listed for sale again several times.  

The new owners were granted planning permission for holiday apartments, but this has expired. 

The ruin, which is a nesting site for owls and is frequented by herons and egrets, is on a peninsula which is rich in archaeological sites, including one of the largest kitchen middens on Galway Bay.  

Mr Gibbons says the house was almost certainly built on the medieval castle site, and describes the area as an “archaeological park”. An experimental oyster farm was established at Ardfry in 1902. 

“The destruction highlights the lack of protection afforded to our architectural heritage – even on high-profile sites such as this with their rich literary and scientific background,” he says. 

All Washed Up

Irish landlords, that small band of men who once owned the greater part of the country, do not enjoy a good reputation here. Judged to have been rapacious and, still worse in the popular imagination, foreign, it cannot be denied that many of their number often put personal interest ahead of concern for the condition of tenants, with disastrous results following the onset of the potato blight in the mid-1840s. However, it would be wrong to tar all landlords with the same blackening brush, since there were a few of them who sought to improve circumstances on their property. Among this unusual group, none was more out of the ordinary than Joseph Henry Blake, third Lord Wallscourt, of Ardfry, County Galway. 
The Blakes were one of the Tribes of Galway, fourteen merchant families who dominated life in the western city from the 13th century onwards. They liked to claim descent from Ap-Lake, one of the knight’s of King Arthur’s round table, but in fact they were originally called Caddell, the first of them coming to Ireland in the 12th century with Strongbow: in the early 14th century Richard Caddell, Sheriff of Connacht in 1303, was known as Niger or Black, from which the name Blake evolved. 
Like others among the Galway Tribes, the Blakes soon began to acquire land in the surrounding area, a process that accelerated from the late 1500s onwards. Thus in May 1612 Robert Blake of Galway received a grant by letters patent from James I of Ballinacourt (later Wallscourt) and Ardfry, both in County Galway, as well as additional property in County Mayo. His eldest son Richard Blake, a lawyer by training, was knighted in 1624, served as Mayor of Galway 1627-28, and M.P. for the County of Galway in 1639 before becoming Speaker or Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Irish Confederation which sat at Kilkenny from 1647 to 1649. Although the Blakes subsequently lost their lands during the Cromwellian confiscations, they received them back after the Restoration and remained in possession thereafter, basing themselves at Ardfry which lies on the southern shores of Galway Bay. 

Sir Richard Blake’s direct descendants died out in 1744 but a kinsman, Joseph Blake bought the estates from trustees and moved to Ardfry where around 1770 he built a house on the site of an old castle. The new property was long and low, at least nine bays wide and of two storeys over basement, with pyramidal pavilions at either end. Here in 1787 came the Hon Martha Herbert, wife of the rector of Cashel-on-Suir, County Tipperary, together with her daughter Dorothea (author of the celebrated Retrospections published a century after her death). On arrival they found ‘a large party of grandees’ whom Dorothea judged to be a ‘formidable set’ and were informed by their hostess that at Ardfry ‘they seldom or ever sat down to a meal with less than a hundred in family’, the latter term being used more loosely then than would now be the case. 
Hitherto the Blakes had remained Roman Catholic but Joseph’s son, Joseph Henry Blake conformed to established church and was thus able to stand for election to the Irish parliament, to which he was elected in 1790. He retained his seat until the Act of Union a decade later and having voted in favour of this legislation was rewarded with a peerage, becoming Baron Wallscourt of Ardfry. However, his marriage to an heiress, Lady Louisa Bermingham, daughter of the first Earl of Louth, did not produce a son and so it was arranged that the title would devolve by special remainder to one of his nephews. Thus following his death in 1803 at the age of 37, Joseph Blake, son of the first Baron’s younger brother, became second Lord Wallscourt. The latter in turn dying in 1816 aged 19, his cousin Joseph Henry Blake (son of another of the first Baron’s brothers) became third Lord Wallscourt. 

Although he had grown up at Ardfry where his father served as land agent, the new Lord Wallscourt had not expected to inherit the estate. At the time of his cousin’s death he was just eighteen and serving as a lieutenant in the army which he had joined after leaving Eton three years earlier. It is often stated that on coming into the title he immediately indulged in reckless spending but one must wonder how much there was to squander: Dorothea Herbert’s observations indicate that the late 18th century Blakes were already living beyond their means, and around 1795 more than 1,500 acres of the original estate (including the townland of Wallscourt) was offered for sale, while another parcel of land was also put on the market. What remained was some 2,834 statute acres (the greater part of it at Ardfry) yielding a notional annual rental of £3,200, although this always depended on the ability and preparedness of tenants to pay what was expected. Lord Wallscourt had financial obligations to meet regardless of actual revenue: various family members and retainers were entitled to an income for the duration of their respective lifetimes to an annual total of £800, and there was a further £7,000 owing, mostly to relatives. Thus the young peer would have found he had little enough to fritter away, especially after 1820 when creditors had the estate placed in trust so as to maximise income and pay off all debts. Under the new arrangement Lord Wallscourt was permitted a yearly allowance of £500. 
Thankfully a couple of years later he married a 17-year old English heiress, Elizabeth Lock who was beautiful as well as rich and who would be painted by a family friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1825: this portrait hung in Ardfry until the last century. That same year she and her husband, who had now regained control of his estate, came to look at Ardfry which had been sadly neglected and required extensive renovation. ‘The woods and the walks are certainly very pretty,’ Lady Wallscourt wrote to her mother, ‘and some of the trees very old and remind me of those poor dear old woods at Norbury, but the house is even in a worse state than I had expected, and you know I was not prepared to find grand chose. The building at a distance looks very well and is very handsome, but it seems to me impossible anything can be done to it. There is so much to do, repairing and building, to make it all inhabitable, that I am sure Wallscourt will not attempt it.’ Contrary to expectations, her husband did undertake the necessary work and by the end of the following year, after the building had been given some of the gothic flourishes it retains to this day, the couple moved in with their young children, the occasion marked by a ball given for the servants and tenants. At this event, after some initial hesitancy on the part of the guests, ‘the great decorum and silence gave place to the most violent noise and rioting as they grew merrier, and they danced incessantly to a piper till five. They had enormous suppers of a whole sheep and two or three rounds of beef, and all went home mad drunk with drinking Henry’s health in “the cratur”, as they call whisky.’ Lady Wallscourt soon retired upstairs and allowed the nurse in charge of the children to join the throng where she became ‘quite the life of the party…springing and capering about in a most ludicrous way.’ 

And now let us touch briefly on efforts by Lord Wallscourt to improve the circumstances of his tenants. When travelling about Europe as a young man and through meeting sundry liberal thinkers of the period, he had become impressed by ‘some of the theories, then much debated, for lifting the labourer into the position of a partner with the capitalist.’ Following his return to Ireland, in 1831 he was interested to hear how the County Clare landlord and founder of the Hibernian Philanthropic Society John Scott Vandeleur had invited Manchester-born journalist and proto-socialist Edward Thomas Craig to establish a co-operative community on his own estate at Ralahine. This was duly visited by Lord Wallscourt who found much to engage him and having sent his overseer to study the system in more detail he set aside 100 acres at Ardfry for his own socialist experiment. Even if begun on a smaller scale, the scheme fared better and lasted longer than that at Ralahine (which Vandeleur, who was addicted to gambling, managed to lose in a bet in 1833, after which he fled to America leaving his poor former tenants to fend for themselves against unmerciless creditors). 
Lord Wallscourt also embarked on other philanthropic enterprises seeking to establish both a national school and an agricultural school as well as sponsoring the education of a number of boys in England and even as far away as Switzerland. He sought to improve the living conditions of tenants, building a two-storey slate-roofed house built as a model to replace the existing thatched cabins of the area. However it proved impossible to find anyone prepared to move into the new property, tenants apparently explaining ‘it would be mighty cold, and my Lord would be expecting me to keep it too clean.’ Eventually after standing empty for five years, a newly-wed couple took the place, on the grounds that it was ‘better than nothing at all.’ 
During the terrible years of the famine, Lord Wallscourt worked to ensure the well-being of his own tenants, and those on other estates in the area. He sat on a number of relief committees and on the Galway Board of Guardians, where he was critical of the operation of the poor law system and of his fellow guardians, who, he said, seemed ‘little disposed to transact the business for the discharge of which they were elected’. In 1847 he actively associated himself for the first time with the campaign for tenant rights and employed the distinguished agriculturalist Thomas Skilling (later first Professor of Agriculture at Queen’s University, Galway) to create a new tillage project employing labourers and tenants at Ardfry. He even started to establish an agricultural college on the estate. 

One suspects that Lord Wallscourt, however well-intentioned, did not tolerate opposition from his tenants or indeed from anyone else. Evidence for this was provided by his wife when she sought a divorce in 1846 ‘by reason of his cruelty and adultery,’ citing several instances when her husband had assaulted her. He was known to be a man of considerable strength and when young had been a keen boxer (more peculiarly he liked to walk about his house wearing no clothes: eventually Lady Wallscourt persuaded him carry a cowbell in his hand when nude so maidservants had notice of his imminent arrival). The couple suffered the loss of their two elder sons, and it was only during a brief rapprochement in late 1840 that an eventual heir was conceived. It may be that Lady Wallscourt did not care for her husband’s humanitarian enterprises. What, one wonders, must she have made for the welcome he gave to the 1848 Paris insurrection that led to the final overthrow of the French monarchy: he even presided at a celebratory public rally in Dublin. The following year he visited Paris with his young son and while there died after contracting cholera. 
His estranged wife now regained control, since the boy Erroll Augustus Blake was then aged only seven. The co-operative projects at Ardfry were abandoned and more familiar methods of estate management re-instated. On the other hand, upon reaching maturity the fourth Lord Wallscourt followed the parental example and undertook diverse improvements, most notably the establishment of an oyster fishery in Galway Bay which provided local employment. In other respects however, he could not be compared with his father, being so small in stature that he was known in the vicinity as ‘the lordeen’: Nationalist politician T.P. O’Connor later remembered meeting ‘a tiny little man, sad, deprecatory, almost timid in manner.’ This may have been because he was oppressed by money worries, especially after his second marriage. His new wife turned out to be a hopeless gambler: in the early years of the last century the lead was stripped from Ardfry’s roof to pay her debts and the contents – including that lovely portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence – sold. Nor did the Wallscourt peerage survive much longer: the fourth lord was succeeded in 1918 by his only son who died without children just two years later. 
And so we see Ardfry as it stands today, a shell of a monument to an abandoned social and agricultural experiment. Who knows what might yet have happened here had the third Lord Wallscourt not died in Paris in 1849, and what example it might have given to other landlords in Ireland. The shame is that his efforts to improve the lives of the country’s tenants are today so little known, and the estate on which he carried out his endeavours has been allowed to fall into such disrepair, the trees and hedges cut down, the walls tumbled, the outbuildings and estate cottages gone or, the the main house, little more than four walls. Dorothea Herbert called Ardfry ‘a beautiful place’ and Griffith’s Valuation of 1857 refers to a ‘beautiful and picturesque demesne, well planted with forest and ornamental timber.’ There’s little enough beauty here now. 

For more information on the third Lord Wallscourt, I recommend John Cunningham’s truly excellent essay (to which I am much indebted) ‘Lord Wallscourt of Ardfry (1797-1849)’ in Vol. LVII (2005) of the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society. 

http://www.abandonedireland.com/ard.html 

Ardrey House was built in 1770 by by Joseph Blake, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt. This title became synonymous with the house that has now fallen to ruins. The Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl frittered away all the family money on gambling. She even sold the lead of every roof on the estate. The mansion was left empty and much of the contents stolen – a grand piano was later rescued from a barber’s shop. In 1922 the Walscourt title became extinct, but in 1950 the three granddaughters of the fourth Earl succeeded in legally reclaiming the house and 33 acres of the family estate. These three Blake sisters, known locally as the three gay mice lived in an outhouse close to the ruin. The family coat of arms, rescued from the ruin reads VIRTUS SOLA NOBILITAT, Virtue Alone Enobles. 

Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers.  

Ardfry (which means The Height of the Heather) has had a colourful past, thanks to many of its eccentric owners, one of whom was known to walk around the house naked carrying a cowbell to forewarn the maids.  

At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it was being leased by the trustees of Lord Wallscourt’s estate to Pierce Joyce when it was valued at £60. 

Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, when the house was re-roofed and re-windowed, and then burnt – destroying many remnants of the internal features. 

The lands also contain the ruins of an earlier castle, previously home to the Blakes, one of the 14 `tribes’ of Galway. 

In September 2001 the property and land was for sale in the region of £1.6 million 

The estate was again for sale in 2004, and also in 2006 with planning permission. 

An Bord Pleanala granted planning permission for redevelopment of the site – the development can only be used for the purpose of holiday apartments. 

Thankfully it appears changes to the original development plans have been made to ensure that the aesthetics of the original building are maintained. Other conditions include having an archaeologist and conservationist on site during the works and liaising with the local authority on materials used in the project. 

In August 2008 it appears no work has commenced on the proposed redevelopment of the site. 

https://visitgalway.ie/ardfry-castle/

Ardfry Castle dates to approx. 1770 and was built by Joseph Blake, member of the famous Blake Family, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt.  

Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays but was later renovated in 1826 to include gothic features and became adjoined to an earlier medieval castle on the lands.  

The Wallscourt title became synonymous with the house where the Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl gambled away all the family money. It was told that she even sold the lead of every roof on the estate in order to feed her gambling problem.  

The house fell to ruins and in 1922 the Wallscourt title became extinct. However in 1950, three granddaughters of the fourth Earl were successful in legally reclaiming the house. They were known locally as the three gay mice who lived in an outhouse close to the ruins.  

In later years, Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, where the house was temporarily rebuilt and then burnt, destroying many internal features which remained 

http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=828 

Lewis mentions the seat of Lord Wallscourt in the parish of Oranmore but refers to it as Wallscourt rather than Ardfry, which is actually located in the parish of Ballynacourty. The Ordnance Survey Name books mention it as Ardfry House, the residence of Lord Wallscourt At the time of Griffith’s Valuation it was being leased by the trustees of Lord Wallscourt’s estate to Pierce Joyce when it was valued at £60. The house was built in the late 18th century and altered in 1826. The seat of Lord Wallscourt in 1894 and in 1906. It has been in a derelict state since the mid-20th century. In 2006 it was offered for sale as part of a scheme to create luxury apartments in the building.  

https://www.her.ie/life/in-the-market-for-a-new-home-this-castle-in-galway-is-coming-up-for-auction-227661

Ever fancied yourself as an Irish Sleeping Beauty? We’ve got just the thing.  

The next Allsop residential auction takes place on Tuesday 21st of April, and while most of us are struggling to make our rent not to mind a 20 per cent deposit for a home – it’s fun to dream about owning an 18th century castle with 28.8 acres in Galway. 

   

Amongst the 331 properties going under the hammer in the auction is Ardfry House in Oranmore. 

The detached period residence was built in 1770 by Joseph Blake, who later gained the title of Lord Wallscourt. The Wallscourts lived there until the second wife of the fourth Earl lost the family money through gambling and even sold the lead of every roof on the estate. The mansion was left empty and much of the contents stolen – a grand piano was later rescued from a barber’s shop. In 1922 the Walscourt title became extinct, but in 1950 the three granddaughters of the fourth Earl succeeded in legally reclaiming the house and 33 acres of the family estate. These three Blake sisters were known locally as the three gay mice and lived in an outhouse close to the ruin. 

Ardfry was designed as a two-storey house with nine bays, a central pediment to the front and a raised roofed pavilion at either end. It was renovated in 1826 and updated with some gothic features including a pointed entrance doorway with pinnacles, battlements on the end pavilions and a gothic conservatory with stone piers. 

The lands also contains the ruins of an earlier castle, previously home to the Blakes, one of the 14`tribes’ of Galway. 

If you have couple of million to spare, you could be owning a piece of movie history too. Ardfry House was used in the Paul Newman film, The Mackintosh Man, when the house was re-roofed and re-windowed, and then burnt – destroying many remnants of the internal features. 

Planning permission was granted by Galway County Council in 2004 to develop Ardfry House into luxury holiday apartments which has now lapsed. 

This property is offered with an orchard, stone cottages and various outbuildings. 

  

The reserve range for the castle is €1,800,000 to €2,000,000. Of course, the properties require extensive restoration and modernisation. But as we mentioned last week, Dermot Bannon  is looking for some new Room To Improve candidates… 

The residential auction will be held on Tuesday 21stApril commencing at 9am and the Commercial auction will begin at 10am on Thursday 23rd April. Both auctions will take place at the RDS, Merrion Road, Dublin. 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/645416

Ardfry House County Galway 

By Michael J. Hurley 

The story of the House at Ardfry Co. Galway and of the Lords Wallscourt who lived there.  Less 

The Blake Family built the magnificent Ardfry House close to Oranmore County Galway Ireland around 1770. The family became the Barons Wallscourt shortly afterwards and for over a century were the landlords of the area of Ardfry. Changes of fortune overcame the family until the title became extinct around 1920. This is the story of the family, largely from newspaper accounts,and of their time at Ardfry.