Drewstown, Athboy, Co Meath
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 107. “(McVeagh/LGI1958) An imposing three storey stone house of ca 1745, attributed to Francis Bindon, built for Barry Barry. Seven bay entrance front with three bay central breakfront; round-headed window framed by pilasters and segmental entablatures in the centre of each of two upper storeys; ground floor windows with rusticated surrounds, shouldered architraves round windows in upper storeys. Later enclosed porch with fanlight and Ionic columns and pilasters. Curved bow in one side elevation, but not in the other. Two storey hall with the staircase rising behind a bridge-gallery; a rare feature in Irish country houses at this date, though there is another example of it only a couple of miles away across the Westmeath border at Ballinlough Castle. As at Ballinlough, both the stair and gallery have slender wooden balusters; and there is C18 panelling on the walls. The doorcases, both upstairs and down, have heavy triangular or segmented pediments; and the ceiling is decorated with somewhat bucolic plasterwork. Drewstown was bought 1780s by Major Joseph M’Veagh, who married Margery, daughter of Governor Alexander Wynch of Madras, a wealthy East Indian “Nabob”. It remained in the M’Veagh or McVeagh family until 1950.”
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/14402301/drewstown-house-drewstown-great-co-meath
Drewstown House, DREWSTOWN GREAT, County Meath
Detached seven-bay three-storey country house, built c.1745, with three-bay central breakfront and later single-storey porch addition. Curved full-height projecting bay to east elevation. Hipped slate roof with carved limestone parapet and rendered chimneystacks. Ashlar limestone walls with quoins. Carved limestone and block-and-start surrounds to window openings. Timber panelled door with fanlight, flanked by engaged Ionic columns and pilaster, with cornice above.
Appraisal
This imposing country house is attributed to Francis Bindon and was built for Barry Barry. Architectural design and detailing are apparent in the execution of this imposing house. The architectural form of the building is articulated by the masonry detailing, which defines the breakfront, parapet and window surrounds. The later porch addition adds further artistic interest to the building, with finely carved columns, pilasters and fanlight.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/14402302/drewstown-house-drewstown-great-co-meath
Ranges of former stables set around a central courtyard, comprising of range to the west c.1745, range to the north c.1850 and range to the east c.1870. Pitched slate roofs. Stone walls with dressings to the openings. Timber sash windows with stone sills. Related outbuildings and remains of former walled garden to the site.
Appraisal
These three ranges of former stables and outbuildings were built at various times, which is apparent form their design and detailing. The retention of many original features and materials makes a significant contribution to the architectural heritage significance of the group. The related outbuildings to the site and the remains of the former walled garden enhance the setting of these buildings. These outbuildings form part of an interesting group with Drewstown House and entrance gates.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/14402303/drewstown-house-drewstown-great-co-meath
Two pairs of ashlar limestone gate piers, built c.1745, with cast-iron double and single gates. Chamfered ashlar limestone with carved detailing and caps. Set in dressed limestone walls.
Appraisal
These entrance gates form part of an interesting group with Drewstown House, outbuildings and the remains of the walled garden. Of apparent architectural design, these piers were clearly executed by skilled masons and exhibit finely carved detailing. Located at a road junction, these entrance gates make a notable and positive contribution to the surrounding area. 
Record of Protected Structures:
Drewstown, townland: Drewstown Great, town: Fordstown. Country house/school
Detached seven-bay three-storey country house, built c.1745, with later single-storey porch addition. attributed to Francis Bindon and was built for Barry Barry. incl gates.
https://archiseek.com/2019/1745-drewstown-co-meath
1745 – Drewstown, Co. Meath
Architect:
Attributed to Francis Bindon by the Knight of Glin in the 1960s, Drewstown is a slightly gauche, oddly proportioned country house almost certainly designed by an amateur. Whether of not that amateur is Bindon is a point for discussion. Like much of Bindon’s work, the architectural form of the facade is articulated by the masonry detailing, which defines the breakfront, parapet and window surrounds. There is a fine galleried and panelled entrance hallway albeit with some slightly awkwardly sited doors.
In 1952 when the house and some of the estate was sold to an American mission agency which first ran an orphanage and then a biblically-based boarding school on the site. It is now a retreat centre.
Exactly fifty years ago this month, writing inthe Irish Georgian Society’s Bulletin, the late Knight of Glin proposed that Francis Bindon had been responsible for the design of Drewstown, County Meath. Aside from the presence of certain stylistic details, of which more in due course, one of his reasons for this attribution, given in a footnote, was ‘Verbal information from George McVeagh of Dublin whose family owned the house from c.1780-1950.’ The Knight also noted, as have others, that the house was built for a certain Barry Barry: in the 1993 guide to North Leinster written by Christine Casey and Alistair Rowan, the authors state ‘Little is known of its reputed builder, Barry Barry, who was evidently a man of some sophistication.’
Barry Barry was indeed a man of sophisticated taste, since in due course he would commission work from James Wyatt, but he was not the owner of Drewstown at the time it was built. Barry Barry was born the Hon Barry Maxwell, second son of John Maxwell, first Baron Farnham. In 1757 he married Margaret King whose father Robert owned Drewstown and to which, it appears, she was the co-heiress. But his mother had also been an heiress, her name being Judith Barry of Newtownbarry (now Bunclody), County Wexford. In 1771, when his mother died and presumably for the advantage of an inheritance, Barry Maxwell changed his name to Barry Barry. At that stage it must have seemed unlikely he would inherit the main Maxwell estate in County Cavan. However, in 1778 his elder brother’s only son died, as did the elder brother just a year later. Accordingly the Farnham estate passed to Barry Barry who reverted back to his original surname of Maxwell, and in due course – like his late sibling – he was created Earl of Farnham. Tellingly the Drewstown estate was sold to the McVeagh family the year after he had come into possession of that in Cavan where he asked Wyatt to work on the house. One can see why, until now, confusion has arisen so at least in this respect there is clarification.
To revert to Drewstown, the Knight’s attribution of its design to Francis Bindon is one of a number he made in 1967. Astonishingly these have never since been reconsidered. Bindon’s name has occurred here many times before (as recently as last Saturday), and in regard to such houses as Bessborough, County Kilkenny (In the Borough of Bess, November 25th 2013), New Hall, County Clare (New Blood for New Hall, August 25th 20014), Woodstock, County Kilkenny (Of Wondrous Beauty Did the Vision Seem, May 13th 2013) and St John’s Square, Limerick (When New Becomes Old, March 24th 2014). The Irish Architectural Archive’s Dictionary of Irish Architects features twenty-one entries for Bindon, the majority of them once more relying on the Knight’s attributions. Yet one must wonder whether Bindon was capable of producing as much as has been proposed, given that he was also a portrait painter, a Member of Parliament and a landowner in Counties Limerick and Clare.
We do not know the date of Bindon’s birth but he is recorded as being in Italy in 1716, the year in which his brother Samuel married Anne, daughter of Thomas Coote of Cootehill, County Cavan and aunt of the architect Edward Lovett Pearce. As an architect he was an amateur, in the sense that it was not his full-time profession. In his work in this field, he was associated with Pearce and also with Richard Castle, while as a painter he produced portraits of friends such as Jonathan Swift (no less than four such likenesses) and in Dublin was given the freedom of the Guild of St Luke (to which all painters belonged) in 1733. Some years later he received an official pension of £100 and was reported to have died ‘suddenly in his chariot on his way to the country’ in June 1765.
Here is the Knight’s fifty-year old description of Drewstown, with an explanation why he believed the house to have been designed by Bindon: ‘There, in the detailing, we see the usual concern with moulded block architraves, for the ground floor of the seven-bay entrance is composed with them. A later porch makes the front more awkward than needs be, though as a whole the windows are uncomfortably placed. The richly voluted and pilastered central first floor widow with its segmental entablature carries up to a further pilastered and segmcntally capped attic window which in typical Bindon manner breaks through the frieze of the house. A bow window forms the main ornament on the East front which faces the lake in not dissimilar fashion to Castle’s Rochfort, Co. Westmeath. As an exterior it is best viewed from the south-east for here the contrast of bow and breakfront make a not unsatisfying, solidly plump and peaceful image. The front door opens immediately into a galleried panelled hall with a grand staircase at one end. Heavy segmental and triangular pedimented doors lead off into the other rooms, all of which are relatively plain. The plasterwork in the hall is somewhat crude though the Apollo and rays surrounded by trophies over the stairs are pleasingly executed. As an interior feature this galleried hall is an important hallmark for it rarely occurs in houses of this date in Ireland and it seems always to be associated with buildings that are attributable to Francis Bindon…’
Today leading nowhere, here is the former main entrance to Drewstown, County Meath. The paired ashlar limestone gate piers date from c.1745 and proclaimed the importance of this estate, now sadly diminished (the lodge on the other side of the wall is an overgrown ruin) but thankfully with the important Georgian house at its centre still standing.
Drewstown house situated on the road between Athboy and Oldcastle was home to the McVeagh family. Described by Casey and Rowan as an eccentric mid 18th century house of some pretension the house was constructed about 1745 to plans by Francis Bindon for Barry Barry, the then owner. The plan of the house was very old fashioned. There are some signs that the designer was not familiar with large-scale domestic design. Similar problems at nearby Ballinlough Castle suggest the same architect for both. A three storey house the staircase rises behind a bridge gallery, which is a rarity in Irish houses. A stained glass window dating to 1872 lights the entrance hall. Almost all the early Georgian joinery in the entrance hall survives. To the east of the house is the lake with a pretty rock work bridge and the remnants of the plantings of a picturesque walled garden. There is another lake to the front of the house. One was the White lake and the other was the Black lake. The ranges of former stables set around a central courtyard, date from 1745, 1850 and 1870. The gates of Drewstown with their limestone piers dating from 1745 are notable as they stand at a road junction.
The name Drewstown is said to be derived from a druid’s altar in the estate. The Plunket family held Drewstown in the middle ages. The Tandys then acquired the lands. In 1684 James Naper of Loughcrew married Elizabeth, daughter of James Tandy, of Drewstown. The lands at Drewstown were inherited in 1685 by the Napper family as a result of a marriage with a Tandy heiress. The United Irishman and rebel, James Napper Tandy, was descended from the Tandys of Drewstown and the Nappers of Loughcrew. James was a grandson of John Tandy of Drewstown.
Barry Barry is traditionally said to be the person who erected Drewstown house in 1745. The English agriculturalist and improver, Arthur Young, visited Drewstown when the Maxwell family were in occupation in 1776.
Drewstown was purchased in the 1780s by Major Joseph McVeagh, who married Margery, daughter of Governor Alexander Wynch. Wynch was Governor of Madras from 1773 to 1775. Joseph McVeagh was High Sheriff of Meath in 1790. He was succeeded by his son, Ferdiand.
An officer in the Inniskilling Fusiliers Ferdinand Meath McVeagh was High Sheriff of Meath in 1817. Ferdinand McVeagh married Charlotte Brooke and he died in 1866. They had a son Ferdinand McVeagh who was born in 1813. Their daughter, Flora Harriet, married Francis Ralph Sadlier, a clergyman who was the last Protestant curate of the parish of Kilallon. In 1837 Drewstown, the residence of F. McVeigh, Esq., was described as a handsome house in a highly improved demesne.
In 1847 Ferdinand McVeagh married Marie Rotherham of nearby Triermore in Athboy church. After the wedding the couple returned to Triermore where there was a splendid dinner, the evening concluded with a dance. The poor were not forgotten on this happy occasion, a substantial dinner being provided for them by Mr. Rotherham.
In 1876 Ferdinand McVeigh of Drewstown held 2,270 acres in County Meath. Ferdinand died in 1888 and his wife Maria in 1890 and they were buried at Athboy churchyard.
George Joseph McVeigh, born in Dublin about 1866, held Drewstown in the early years of the twentieth century. His son was Major Ferdinand Annesley McVeagh who served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers during World War I. Trevor George McVeagh, born at Drewstown in 1906, played cricket for Ireland between 1926 and 1934. A superb natural athlete he also played hockey, squash and tennis player. He died in Dublin in 1968.
The house remained in the hands of the McVeagh family until 1950. The McVeagh family moved from Drewstown to Galtrim Lodge.
In 1952 Drewstown House was purchased for use as a Christian Orphanage, then in the early 1960’s it was used as a Christian secondary boarding school. Since 1989 Drewstown has been used as a Christian camping and conference centre. Drewstown House is a centre made available to the public and to groups whose purpose is to advance the Christian faith. It is operated by the Drewstown House Trust.
Irish Historic Houses 