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
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.
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.
Irish Historic Houses 