Bellevue, Delgany, Co Wicklow

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. 38. “(La Touche/IFR: A house built 1754 by the wealthy Dublin banker David LaTouche…a chapel was built near the house, to the design of Richard Morrison… As well as building the house, David laid out a landscape garden, which he and his son Peter adorned with numerous ornaments and follies… by the elder and younger Francis Sandys or Sands.  Peter La Touche also constructed the remarkable glass conservatory or “glazed passage” which snaked across the lawn for more than 500 feet…Some years after the death of a subsequent Peter La Touche, in 1904, Bellevue was sold by his sisters and heiresses. The house was afterwards allowed to fall into disrepair. Parts of it were still standing in 1945,, but it was finally demolished in 1950s.”

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. 155. “A two storey house built c. 1754 for David La Touche. Altered and enlarged c. 1790 to the design of Whitmore Davis and again in the early 19C when Richard Morrison added a chapel. Demolished in the 1950s.”

https://archiseek.com/2015/1754-bellevue-house-delgany-co-wicklow

1754 – Bellevue House, Delgany, Co. Wicklow 

The Ballydonagh demesne was bought in 1753 by David La Touche, a rich banker from Dublin of Huguenot extraction. He built a house between 1754 and 1756 at a cost of £30,000 and named it Bellevue. In 1785 it was inherited by his son Peter. 

Described in ‘A view of antient and modern Dublin, with its latest improvements’ published in 1807: “He built the mansion house in 1754, and his son added the two wings. The whole is well planned; the offices also are commodious and numerous. The entire cost 30,000” and “The house is roomy and convenient furnished in good stile and contains some excellent stained glass particularly a chemist at work and fishermen bringing in their cargo by moonlight.” 

The house had massive glasshouses attached which snaked around the building ” … a 650-feet conservatory, which would house many exotic plants as well as an orangery, a cherry house, a peach house and a vinery. Completed in 1793, this magnificent creation was then the largest conservatory in Europe. …”  

The family finally left Bellevue in 1913 after which the house fell into decay and was pulled down in the early 1950s.