Bowen, Henry Cole (d. 1788)

Athlumney Castle, County Meath – ruin

by jenjunebug

Athlumney Castle, County Meath

Watercolour by Gabriel Berenger 1775 Royal Academy of Ireland digital collection RIA MS 3 C 30/7 h41633677.

https://www.discoverireland.ie/Arts-Culture-Heritage/athlumney-castle/49088

Beside Athlumney are the ruins of Athlumney castle which has a 17th century house attached. It was built in two periods. The older part is a Tower House built in the 15th century. It has three storey and its thick walls and slit windows speak of a time when castles were used for defence and not for comfort. Inside is a spiral staircase with little rooms opening off it. Holes for floor beams remain on the first floor level. 
The newer part of the castle is attached to the tower to its left. This was built in the late 16th century or early 17th century. It is three storey manor house with four sets of widely spaced mullioned windows. It had large corridors and its ground floor kitchen provided heat for the first floor rooms where the Lord lived. The doorway is cut limestone and there is an oriel window on its eastern wall.

In 1649 when Cromwell was attacking Drogheda, the Maguires who occupied the castle set fire to it to thwart Cromwell. Nearby are the ruins of a 14th century manorial church with triple belfry. In the vicinity there is a motte and bailey.

This is a settlement complex where one can trace the changing forms of a manorial building in Meath since the Norman conquest, it features a motte or artificial hill of the first settlement in the late 12th century.

Athlumney Castle, County Meath, Eason Photographic Collection c. 1912, NLI ref EAS_1732.

https://archiseek.com/2015/1630-athlumney-castle-co-meath

1630 – Athlumney Castle. Co. Meath

Constructed over several centuries – the classic form of the fortified Irish tower house visible as part of the Jacobean mansion. The mid-fifteenth-century tower house, built by the Dowdall family, was considerably enlarged around 1630 by a long, narrow gabled mansion with large mullioned windows and a fine oriel window. 

The tower house has four storeys, with an attic and four projecting corner turrets of different sizes containing the stair, latrines and small chambers. 

The house was now occupied by the Maguires who in 1649 set fire to the building rather than surrender it to Cromwell’s forces who were scouring the area razing all in their path to the ground. The Castle was again set alight around the time of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and has remained a ruin since.

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/14010042/athlumney-castle-convent-road-athlumney-navan-co-meath

Three-stage tower house, c.1500. Four-bay three-storey extension, c.1650, with mullioned windows and gables. Burnt in 1649. Now in ruins. Double-pitched roof with tall chimney stacks to extension. Rubble stone walls. National Monument in state care.

https://theirishaesthete.com/2020/03/09/athlumney/

‘Immediately approaching Navan, the river [Boyne] makes a bold sweep round the foot of the hill, from which rise up the ruins of Athlumney Castle, the dilapidated towers and tall gables of which shoot above the trees that surround the commanding eminence on which it is placed, while glimpses of its broad, stone-sashed and picturesque windows, of the style of the end of the sixteenth century, are caught through the openings in the plantation which surrounds the height on which it stands. This beautiful pile consists of a large square keep, with stone arched floors and passages rising into a tower, from which a noble view can be obtained on a clear day; and a more modern castellated mansion, with square stone-mullioned windows, tall chimneys and several gables in the side walls.’

‘Of the history of the castle of Athlumney and its adjoining church, there is little known with certainty; but, standing on the left bank of the Boyne, opposite this point, we cannot help recalling the story of the heroism of its last lord, Sir Launcelot Dowdall, who, hearing of the issue of the battle of the Boyne and the fate of the monarch to whose religion and politics his family had been so long attached, and fearing the approach of the victorious English army, declared on the news reaching him, that the Prince of Orange should never rest under his ancestral roof. The threat was carried into execution. Dowdall set fire to his castle at nightfall and, crossing the Boyne, sat down upon its opposite bank, from whence, as tradition reports, he beheld the last timber in his noble mansion blazing and flickering in the calm summer’s night, then crash amidst the smouldering ruins; and when its final eructation of smoke and flame was given forth, and the pale light of morning was stealing over that scene of desolation, with an aching and despairing heart he turned from the once happy scene of his youth and manhood, and, flying to the continent, shortly after his royal master, never returned to this country. All that remained of this castle and estate were forfeited in 1700. Many a gallant Irish soldier lost his life, and many a noble Irish gentleman forfeited his broad lands that day. We wish their cause had been a better one, and the monarch for whom they bled more worthy such an honour.’

‘Tradition gives us another, but by no means so probable story about Athlumney Castle, which refers to an earlier date. It is said that two sisters occupied the ancient castles of Athlumney and Blackcastle, which latter was situated on the opposite bank of the river; and the heroine of the latter, jealous of her rival in Athlumney, took the following means of being revenged…’

‘…She made her enter into an agreement, that to prevent their mansions falling into the hands of Cromwell and his soldiers, they should set fire to them at the same moment, as soon as the news of his approach reached them, and that a fire being lighted upon one was to be the signal for the conflagration of the other. In the mean time, the wily mistress of Blackcastle had a quantity of dry brush-wood placed on one of the towers of the castle which, upon a certain night, she lighted; and the inhabitants of Athlumney perceiving the appointed signal, set fire to their mansion and burned it to the ground. In the morning the deception was manifest. Athlumney was a mass of blackened, smoking ruins; while Blackcastle still reared its proud form above the woods, and still afforded shelter to its haughty mistress.’

Extracts from The Beauties of the Boyne, and its Tributary, The Blackwater by Sir William Wilde (1850)

http://irishantiquities.bravehost.com/meath/athlumney/athlumney.html

Map Reference: N877674 (2877, 2674)

This is a 15th century tower-house with four storeys plus attic. There are projecting corner towers. The castle has a barrel vault above the ground floor and access to this level is through a modern doorway in the S wall. The original entrance was in the W wall and was protected by a murder-hole leading from a small room below the first floor level. 

Access to the upper floors is by a spiral stairway in the NW corner. There is a gallery in the N wall at the upper level of the vault. There is a fireplace at the first floor and a garderobe at the SE corner. A mural stairway in the S wall leads down to the small room from which the murder-hole leads. A mulit-gabled three-storey house is attached at the S and W. It is four bays long with fine mullioned windows and probably dates from the early 17th century. The large fireplace in the S wall is flanked by ovens and there is another oven near the N wall. A projection in the W wall near the S end housed the stairs.

There is an oriel window in the S wall at the first and second floors. The doorway in the E wall has pecked decoration and a small carved knot. The castle ws burned in 1649 by the Maguires to prevent its capture by Cromwell and again in 1690 after the Battle of the Boyne to deny William of Orange. 

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

Athlumney House, dates from the eighteenth century and sits on the east bank of the Boyne, just south of Navan. The Metge family were Huguenot refugees fleeing the persecution of Catholics in France. Peter de la Metgee was the first of the family to arrive in Ireland. Settling at Athlumney he married Joyce Hatch and had four daughters and a son. He died aged 70 in 1735 and was succeeded by his son Peter.

Peter held lands at Athlumney and Warrenstown, Dunboyne. Peter was married to Ann Lyon, a family from which a Queen Mother in England was to descend.  On the staircase of Athlumney there were some carved oak ornaments brought over from Glamis Castle by Janet Lyon. They had four sons and eight daughters. Peter Metge died in 1774. Two of his sons served as MPs in the Irish House of Parliament.

Peter Merge, eldest son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1783-4 and also served as magistrate and portreeve (Mayor) of Navan. Peter was a lawyer.  He served as M.P. for Boyle and became Baron of the Exchequer. Baron Metge was a local commissioner appointed to supervise the Boyne Canal in 1787.

John Metge, second son of Peter Metge of Athlumney, was MP for Ratoath 1784-90. A captain in the 4th Dragoons he acted as Henry Grattan’s second in his famous duel with Corry in 1800. Peter became deputy auditor general of the Irish Treasury. John later went on to represent Dundalk in the parliament in Westminister on three separate occasions. He served as a seatwarmer for the Earl of Roden who was patron of Dundalk. John also acted as a representative for Lord Roden and signed deeds on his behalf.

John inherited Athlumney on the death of his brother, Peter and he was succeeded by his son, Peter Ponsonby. In 1830s Athlumney was home to Peter Ponsonby Metge and was described as “beautifully situated on the banks of the Boyne, commanding some pleasing views and the demesne is well planted and tastefully embellished.” In the 1800s an underground passage, a souterrain, was discovered at Athlumney and featured in many learned books of the era.

In 1876 Peter Ponsonby Metge of Athlumney held 788 acres in county Meath.  Peter’s brother, John Charles, settled at Sion and in 1876 J. C. Metge of Sion, Navan held  968 acres in Westmeath.

Peter Ponsonby died in 1873 and was succeeded by his nephew, Robert Henry Metge.

Robert Henry Metge was M.P for Meath from 1880 to 1884. He married Frances Lambart, daughter of Rev. Charles Lambert, rector of Navan and grand-daughter of Gustavus Lambert of Beauparc. Robert Henry died in 1900 and was succeeded by his son, Robert Henry. Another son Captain Rudolph Cole Metge died as a results of wounds suffered during the first World War. 

Robert Henry was born in 1875 and married Mary Galway Creagh of Mallow in 1914. Major Robert Henry Metge, fought in the Boer War and was a survivor of the siege of Ladysmith. He served as a captain in the Welsh regiment and was major in the Leinster regiment. When he returned to Athlumney he fished regularly in the Boyne. In 1930 he wrote a letter to the Irish Times complaining of the decline in the fishing stock in the Boyne and its tributaries.  Major Metge came into possession of the seal of the corporation of Navan. He lent it to the National Museum but it was later acquired by Randolph Hearst.  Metge supported the efforts of Sir Nugent Everard in promoting the growing of tobacco in the county. He also bred pedigree British Berkshire pigs. Major Metge was a member of the Navan branch of the British Legion. His wife died in May 1939.

In the early 1900s Athlumney was leased to a Mr. Collier, owner of Collier’s Weekly and New York magazine. The Duc d’Orleans visited Mr. Collier there. The Duke was the pretender to the throne of France. Some of the Metge Estate was purchased under the 1923 Land Act. Later the house was occupied by the McEntegart and Farrell families.

Metge’s Lane in the centre of Navan commemorates the family today.

Bowen’s Court, Kildorrery, Co Cork – demolished 1961 

by jenjunebug

Bowen’s Court, Kildorrery, Co Cork – demolished 1961 

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. 46. “A classic example of the tall and square C18 Irish house. Built by Henry Bowen and completed by 1776, the work having allegedly taken ten years; replacing an earlier house built by the Nash family, who from 1697 leased the estate which had been granted to the Cromwellian Col Henry Bowen – according to the family tradition, he was offered as much Irish land as his pet hawk could fly over, and it flew so far that people believed he had made a pact with the devil. The house is attributed to Isaac Rothery…Owing to rising costs of upkeep, Miss Bowen was obliged to sell Bowen’s Court 1959; it was demolished by its subsequent owner ca 1961.” 

https://archiseek.com/2016/1770-bowens-court-kildorrery-co-cork/

1770 – Bowen’s Court, Kildorrery, Co. Cork 

Architect: Isaac Rothery 

Bowen’s Court, County Cork, courtesy Archiseek.
Bowen’s Court, County Cork, courtesy Archiseek.
Bowen’s Court, County Cork, courtesy Archiseek.

Constructed in the early 1770’s for the Bowen family who owned the house until it was sold by the author Elizabeth Bowen in 1959. Bowen wrote a history of the house, entitled Bowen’s Court, in 1942 and it is featured in her 1929 novel The Last September. A local businessman bought it at auction, sold off most of the mature woodlands for timber, and then demolished the house in 1960. Only a gateway remains. 

The architect Isaac Rothery completed Mount Ievers, Co. Clare which was begun by his father John Rothery. He is also believed to be responsible for two other houses in Co. Cork – Newmarket Court and Doneraile Court. 

Featured in Irish Country Houses, Portraits and Painters. David Hicks. The Collins Press, Cork, 2014. 

p. 79. “Financial pressure in the 1950s brought [Elizabeth Bowen] to sell the house to an Irishman with a large family whom she thought would make it his home. She was to be sorely disappointed as Bowen’s Court was demolished soon after it was sold. 

Elizabeth was the first female to inherit the Bowen ancestral home in Co Cork. 

Bowen’s Court was part of a 6,740 acre estate of which the bulk was located in Tipperary. …p. 80. The site of the former house is located in the village of Farahy, which is not far from Kildorrery on the Mitchelston Road, 21 km from Mallow and 1.5km from Fermoy. 

Bowen’s Court was built of limestone in the classical style and completed in 1775 by Henry Bowen. He built the house after his marriage and the three storey-over basement structure had a commanding presence in the surrounding countryside. The estate land was granted to the first Henry Bowen, a colonel in Cromwell’s army in the mid-17th century. According to a story handed down through the generations to Elizabeth, Cromwell was responsible for the death of one of Bowen’s hawks and to make amends he was offered as much land as a second hawk could fly over. The hawk reputedly flew and circled 800 acres of land, wiht some saying that Henry’s success was thanks to a pact he made wiht the devil. Col. Bowen set up home in a castle that was situated on the banks of the Farahy River. A portrait of the colonel wiht his hawk hung at the top of the stairs at Bowen’s Court until it sale in the 1950s. 

It was the colonel’s great grandson Henry who built the house that became known as Bowen’s Court. His wife, Margaret, preferred the house built by a family called Nash at Farahy in the 1760s and she saw no need for a new house. This older house supposedly stood on a site immediately to the rear of the 1775 house. She worried about Herny’s grandiose architectural plans for its replacement. At this time they were living in a house called Annabella, which Henry had leased in Mallow. Henry wished not to argue with his wife over retaining the existing house so he sent her away on an extended vist and during this time he had the house pulled down. Margaret returned to find a pile of rubble and had no choice but to agree to the construction of a new home. The architect of Bowen’s Court is believed to be Isaac Rothery. The house took ten years to build…soon Henry ran out of money. P. 81. In order to finish the job, money was borrowed and economies were implemented which reduced the size of the planned house. Henry hoped taht future generations woudl be able to complete the house and fix the mixtakes of his hurried build. 

…p. 82. Margaret had fourteen children seven whom survived birthy. The new house was filled with furniture and silver from Cork city emblazoned with a hawk, a tribut e to their ancestral story. In 1788 blood poisoning, caused by a scratch, lead to Henry’s arm being amputated and the shock of the operatino killed him. His eldest son, also named Henry, inherited teh property. 

p. 84. In he 1860s, Bowen’s Court had eight indoor servants and it was at this time that Elizabeth’s grandfather made many improvements on the house. As a result of his marriage (and his wife’s dowry) he added teh ‘tower’ to the house…The house passed down through the generations to Elizagerth’s father, Henry Cole Bowen, a barrister-at-law…who secured a large practice. He wrote an exhaustive book dealing with the Land Purchase Act and acted as counsel to the Pembroke Estates. In 1890 he married Florence, daugther of the late Henry Fitz-George Colley, of Mount Temple, County Dublin. The Colley family at one time had an estate in Kildare – Castle Carbery [p 85] but it had lain in ruins for many years and the fmaily now lived at Mount Temple, a Victorian house in Clontarf.  

p. 85. Elizabeth’s father had a mental breakdown when she was a child and as a result of his uncontrolled rages she and her mother moved to England. Elizabeth’s mother died of cancer in 1912, having been predeceased by her sister from consumption and her brother on the Titanic in the same year. P. 86. Elizabth and her mother spent their last summer togetherat Bowen’s Court, their first lengthy stay there for five years. When her mother died, Elizabeth was 13 and she was brought up by aunts who were dispersed between Ireland and England. In a newspaper report in 1904 it is noted that “Miss Cole-Bowen, of Bowen’s Court, County Cork, has got over her recent delicacy, and will stay at Kingstown with her aunt, Mrs Disney, during the early winter months.” Elizabeth was educated at boarding schools in England and, in an effort to console herself from the previous traumatic years, she began to write storeis, encouraged by her headmistress. Elizabeth returned to Cork on occasions and was at Bowen’s Court when the Great War broke out. It was in this summer that her father had a number of the rooms redecorated and Elizabeth’s aunt Sarah looked after the house. In the same year she attended a garden party at Mitchelstown Castle. However, the onset of war heralded the end of a way of life for hte Anglo-Irish. 

When she was in her 20s Elizabeth lived in London where she began her writing career, introduced into literary circles by the novelist Rose Macaulay. In 1023, her first book, a collection of short stories, was published and she married Alan Cameron. During her early married life, her literary career began to flourish. [p. 87. She and her husband lived in Oxford following Alan’s appointment to the City of Oxford Education Committee in 1925. When his career took them to London in the 1930s, her stature in literary circles grew. Elizabeth drew on her Anglo-Irish backgound as the basis for her writings, the culmination fo which was the publication in 1942 of a history of Bowen’s Court and her family. Between 1923 and 1968 she wrote ten novels, many newspaper and magazine articles, essays and more than 80 short stories, a sginificant nubmer of which were written to boost her finances after she inherited Bowen’s Court. 

During teh spate of house burnings in the late 1920s, the family portraits from Bowen’s Court and other valuables were removed from the hosue and stored in a nearby cottage. Her father had written to Elizabeth and warned her hat Bowen’s Court would probably be burnt down. The hosue was spare but, at one time, it was occupied by Republicans whose intention was to blow it up. It was the thought of the destructino of Bowen’s Court at this time that inspired the imaginary house called Danielstown in her 1929 novel, The Last September. In 1928 Elizabeth’s father retired and returned to live in Bowen’s Court but died there in 1930. Elizabeth, being his only child, inherited the hosue and she concentrated her efforts on trying to bring the house into the 20th century by having a telephone and electricity installed. Eliz continued to live in England, spenidng summers in Ireland, until interrupted by the second World War. 

It was not until 1952 when her husband retired that they returned to live full tiem at Bowen’s Court. Up to this time, the house was looked after by a single servant, Sarah, who had served three generations of the Bowen family. Roms were closed off and, during her time, Sarah had seen the number of servants decline from eight until there was only herself. The Second World War made it impossible for Elizabeth to visit the house. However, after 1945 it began to be used again [p. 88] 

p. 89. Elizabeth’s husband died in 1952, and she struggled to keep the house going for another seven years…Elizabeth moved to England. 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2019/06/22/13343/

Patrick Hennessy’s 1957 portrait of Elizabeth Bowen presides over a room dedicated to her memory in Doneraile Court, County Cork (her own home, nearby Bowen’s Court, was irresponsibly demolished in 1961). After being closed to the public for the past 25 years, Doneraile Court has once more been taken in hand by the Office of Public Works and officially reopens today. The decoration and furnishing of the ground floor rooms displays terrific flair, with a wonderful mixture of items, some in state ownership, others on loan from private collections, all blended together with aplomb. Having woken from its quarter-century slumber, Doneraile Court proves to be the sleeping beauty of Irish country houses: visits are strongly urged. 

Entrance Hall c. 1930, Bowen’s Court, County Cork. Photograph: Mrs Simms 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.

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/20901807/bowens-court-farahy-co-cork

Entrance gateway, erected c. 1850, to now demolished Bowen’s Court country house, now entrance to recent house. Gateway comprising square-profile cut limestone inner and outer piers joined by curved snecked cut limestone walls with copings. Decorative cast-iron railings with cut limestone plinths, flanked by decorative cast-iron piers in turn flanking pedestrian and double-leaf vehicular gates. Detached five-bay single-storey former gate lodge of c. 1870, opposite gates and having porch, now in ruins, with pitched roof (slate removed) with overhanging eaves, decorative bargeboards to gable ends, and rendered chimneystacks, rendered random rubble stone walls, segmental-headed stone dressed openings having six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows and stone sills. One of three gate lodges for Bowen’s Court demesne. 

This well-maintained entrance of cut limestone and cast-iron exhibits the fine quality of materials and craftsmanship that were employed in the nineteenth century both in stonework and ironwork. The lodge plays an important role in closing the vista to the south and is an integral part of the main entrance to one of the most important country houses in the area where the author Elizabeth Bowen resided. This country house entrance makes a notable landmark on this busy road. 

Bowen’s Court, County Cork, courtesy National Inventory.