Bannow House (originally Grange House), Bannow, Co Wexford
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. 30. “(Boyse/LGI1912 and sub Bruen/IFR) A large two storey late-Georgian house. Entrance front with three bays on either side of breakfront centre with two bays in upper storey and entrance door flanked by two windows below, under single storey Ionic portico with iron balcony. Six bay side. Eaved roof on bracket cornice.”
Featured in The Wexford Gentry by Art Kavanagh and Rory Murphy. Published by Irish Family Names, Bunclody, Co Wexford, Ireland, 1994.
p. 59. Boyse of Bannow.
The nineteenth century Boyses were the epitome of what good landlords should be. Samuel Boyse and his son Thomas built a magnificent house, Bannow House on the 4,500 acreestate and laid out the beautiful four acres of gardens looking out over the sea towards the islands off the coast. In the process an army of local tradesmen and labourers were employed, not along on the house building but on land drainage, road building and cultivation. Twelve miles of road were laid down by the man who received a wage of 10p per day…. For their part in the land reclamation each workman received some acres of the reclaimed land at a very low rent. The Boyse family also gave £1000 towards teh building of aenw parish church and Miss Boyse donated a fine stained glass window as the backdrop to the main altar.
In another act of benevolet landlordism, unusual in the 1820s, Samuel Boyse helped his tenants improve their dwellings. Houses were thatched, new doors and windows were provided, and the wives of teh workmen were encouraged to grow flowers and vegetables in their garden plots.
But beneveloent as they were, they were stern taskmasters. If a tenant were found to be careless or indolent in playing his rent promptly they had no hesitation in evicting him. In 1848, when the evicted tenants sought shelter in [p. 60] the porch of the old Norman church, the entrance was blocked up and the unfortunates had to find shelter elsewhere.
p. 60 Samuel was the first Boyse to settle permanently in Bannow, as his predecessors were mostly absentee landlords.
p. 60. The founder of the Boyse family of Bannow was Nathaniel Boyse who settled in Co Wexford in 1658, having been granted the estate of Bannow following the Cromwellian Confiscations. Charles I confirmed Nathaniel as the owner of lands in Bannow, Grange, Cullenstown, Carrig and Danescastle in 1666. …His brother John Boyse, who was Deputy Governor under Lord Ormonde in 1641, and who commanded Duncannon Fort, were both descended from a very ancient Kentish family.
p. 62. Nathaniel Boyse and Eliz Rowe’s two sons both died unmarried and the estate passed to Thomas Carr of Waterford, who married Frances the youngest daughter. The estate then devolved on Thomas Carr’s younger daugther Frances who sold them to Samuel Boyse [1752-1839] the grandson of Samuel fo Cullenstown. He was the eldest son of Thomas Boyse.
p. 62. Samuel married Dorothy Carew. With this marriage considerable wealth became available to the Boyses, but it was the dowry brought by his son’s wife, the widow of Caesar Colclough, that was the cream on the cake. Later it was the widow’s attempt to claim all the residue of the Colclough estate that eventually drained much of the Boyse fortune. This law case was one of the most remarkable dispute of the century. It dragged on for years and the “finding” of a will behind some old furniture in Tintern was what destroyed the widow’s case. The dispute was acrimonious too and during that time there were hints that the widow had hastened the death of her husband by tampering with his medication.
Richard the third son…had one son, Augustus Freeman…
p. 63. The Boyse estate was kept intact until the land acts towards the end of the 19C and in fact by 1850 the Boyses had replaced the once powerful Colcloughs as the elite in the Shelburne area.
Following the death of Augustus Freeman, the estate passed to Margaret [dau of Samuel Boyse and Dorothea Carew], who had married Henry Holdsworth Hunt. Their family adopted the name Hunt Boyse. Margaret’s eldest son was Henry Hunt Boyse who married Emily the daughter of Colonel Steele of Rathbroe.
The next heir, Henry Arthur Hunt Boyse, a JP…married Emly Clare, dau of Rev Harvey of Kent. They had one son, Henry Thomas Arthur Shapland Boyse…their son Mervyn Anthony Arthur Rudyerd Boyse, of Bannow, married Gladys Patricia Bruen the only daughter of Captain Henry Arthur Bruen of Oak Park, Carlow. He disapproved of the match and left her only £6 per week for life… He cut his wife out of his will entirely as she had left him some years earlier for a Montenegran prince, Milo Petrovic-Njegos…
Detached seven-bay two-storey country house, built 1835-8, on an E-shaped plan centred on single-bay full-height breakfront with (single-storey) prostyle tetrastyle Ionic portico to ground floor; six-bay two-storey side elevations centred on single-bay (two-bay deep) full-height central return (west). Occupied, 1901; 1911. Sold, 1948. Resold, 1961. Now in occasional use. Hipped slate roof on an E-shaped plan centred on hipped slate roof with pitched slate roof (west), clay ridge tiles, paired granite ashlar central chimney stacks on granite ashlar bases having cut-granite stringcourses below capping supporting crested terracotta tapered pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on slightly overhanging eaves having paired timber consoles retaining cast-iron octagonal or ogee hoppers and downpipes. Rendered, ruled and lined walls on granite ashlar chamfered plinth with rusticated rendered quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening behind (single-storey) prostyle tetrastyle Ionic portico approached by flight of four cut-granite steps with cut-granite columns having responsive pilasters supporting dentilated “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice on blind frieze on entablature below wrought iron parapet, and cut-granite surround framing timber panelled double doors. Square-headed flanking window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing nine-over-six timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings centred on paired square-headed window openings (first floor) with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing nine-over-six (ground floor) or six-over-six (first floor) timber sash windows centred on one-over-one timber sash windows (first floor). Interior including (ground floor): central entrance hall retaining carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers with carved timber surrounds to opposing door openings framing timber panelled doors, and decorative plasterwork cornice to ceiling on decorative plasterwork frieze centred on “Acanthus”-detailed ceiling rose; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers. Set in landscaped grounds.
A country house erected by Thomas Boyse JP DL (1785-1853), one-time High Sheriff of County Wexford (fl. 1841), representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of south County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, ‘a new mansion…exceedingly handsome and of large extent’ (Hickey alias Doyle 1868, 43-4), confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on scenic vistas overlooking Saint George’s Channel with the Keeragh Islands and the Saltee Islands in the distance; the symmetrical frontage centred on a pillared portico not only demonstrating good quality workmanship in a honey-hued granite, but also ‘very similar in style to Woodbrook [suggesting] that they are by the same architect’ (Craig and Garner 1975, 55); the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression; and the decorative timber work embellishing the roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where contemporary joinery; Classical-style chimneypieces; and decorative plasterwork enrichments, all highlight the considerable artistic potential of the composition. Furthermore, adjacent outbuildings (see 15704544); and a substantial walled garden (see 15704545), all continue to contribute positively to the group and setting values of an estate having historic connections with the Boyse family including Reverend Richard Boyse (d. 1864) ‘late of Bannow House County Wexford’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1864, 32); Captain Henry Samuel Hunt Boyse (né Hunt) (1809-80) ‘late of Bannow House County Wexford’ (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1881, 57); Major Henry Thomas Arthur Shapland Hunt Boyse JP DL (1848-1902), one-time High Sheriff of County Wexford (fl. 1882; Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1902, 30); Arthur Boyse (—-) ‘of Bannow House’ (cf. 15704608); and Mervyn Anthony Arthur Rudyerd Boyse (1914-70). NOTE: Thomas Moore (1779-1852), on a visit to Thomas Boyce in August 1835, wrote in his diary: “When we arrived at Graigue House, the speeches from Boyse and myself took place; Boyse very eloquent and evidently in high favour with the people. I then went with him to his new house, or rather the few fragements of the old one he had left standing; the offices being all that are as yet built of the new. He had told me before I came that I was literally to done in one cokc-loft and sleep in another; but I found he had given me up his own bedroom…made very comfortable by dint of green baize curtains, &c. &c.”.
http://www.bannowhistory.ie/sermons_items/bannow-house-built-1835-repeat/
Irish Historic Houses 