The Neale, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo – lost
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. 222. “Browne, Kilmaine, B/PB) An early C18 house of two storeys over basement which replaced an old castle. Seven bay entrance front; pedimented porch on two columns, up broad flight of steps. Five bay side elevation, Small windows with thick glazing bars. Balustraded roof parapet, which was removed when the house was re-roofed 1860s. Doors with shouldered architraves in hall. Oval of mid C18 rococo plasterwork in centre of drawing room ceiling, surrounded by early C19 reeded mouldings entwined with foliage and fan decoration in corners. Mid C18 plasterwork frieze in dining room, with putti, cornucopias, swags and fruit. After he succeeded 1907, 5th Lord Kilmaine enlarged the house by building a free standing wing at an angle to it, so as not to take light from the windows; and joined to it by a curved bridge. Fine stables, built ca 1737 by Sir John Browne, 5th Bt, MP, father of 1st Lord Kilmaine. Well-planted park laid out by 1st Lord Kilmaine 1770s, divided by a large outcrop of rock (in the Irish aill, hence the name The Neale). The park contains a stepped pyramid designed by Lord Charlemont, an octagonal Doric temple and another C18 folly, probably made up of fragments of medieval carving with a strange inscription, known as “The Gods of the Neale.” 5th Lord Kilmaine sold The Neale to a former tenant of the estate 1925. The house was demolished ca 1939, the follies remain.”
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/31312101/neale-house-nealepark-neale-mayo
Remains of country house, built 1737; extant 1777; “improved” 1908, comprising: Detached four-bay two-storey wing on an L-shaped plan with single-bay (west) or two-bay (east) two-storey side elevations. Occupied, 1911. Sold, 1925. Mostly demolished, 1939. Vacant, 1945. Now in ruins. Remains of hipped slate roof on an L-shaped plan on collared timber construction with clay ridge tiles, ivy-covered rendered yellow brick Running bond chimney stacks with capping now missing, and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods on dragged cut-limestone “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice with downpipes now missing. Part ivy-covered fine roughcast walls over coursed rubble limestone construction with drag edged dragged cut-limestone quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with some retaining drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed yellow brick block-and-start surrounds with no fittings surviving. Square-headed door opening (north) with cut-limestone threshold, and drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start surround centred on triple keystone with no fittings surviving. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds.
Appraisal
An increasingly-ruined wing not only surviving as a relic of an eighteenth-century country house annotated as “The Neale [of] Browne Baronet” by Taylor and Skinner (1778 pl. 217), but also clearly illustrating the continued development or “improvement” of the country house for John Edward Deane Browne (1878-1946), fifth Baron Kilmaine, to a design attributed to Cecil Arthur Fowler (b. 1876) of Kilkenny and Sligo (IAA).
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“[Temple] This is one of a number of follies created at Neale Park, County Mayo, longtime seat of a branch of the Browne family, created Barons Kilmaine in 1789. Known as the Temple of the Winds, it is of relatively late date, some of teh other buildings in the park dating to the eighteenth century: there is, for example a stepped pyramid some thirty feet high erected by the first Lord Kilmaine, seemingly to a design of his brother-in-law, the architecture loving first Earl of Charlemont. Dating from 1865, the hexagonal temple rests on the vaults of an earlier, unfinished tower and it is unclear whether the later structure was ever completed, since it lacks a roof….1925 when Neale Park was sold and the demesne divided up: the greater part of the house was demolished in 1939 and teh surviving wing is now a roofless shell.”
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/31312102/neale-house-nealepark-neale-mayo
Freestanding monument, dated 1750; extant 1838, on a square plan. “Restored”, 1990. Set in unkempt grounds shared with Neale House. Additional photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A stepped pyramid erected by John Browne MP (d. 1762), de jure fifth Baronet Browne of The Neale, to a design attributed to James Caulfield (1728-99), first Earl of Charlemont (Bence-Jones 1988, 222), as a memorial to George Browne MP (d. 1737), de jure fourth Baronet Browne of The Neale: meanwhile, observations pertaining to ‘the nucleus of a cairn…maybe that erected over Slainge himself’ (Wilde 1867, 240-1) pinpoint the archaeological potential of the composition.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/31312103/neale-house-nealepark-neale-mayo
Freestanding folly, erected 1865; extant 1894, on a hexagonal plan with dragged cut-limestone Doric columns supporting “Cyma Recta” or “Cyma Reversa” cornice on “Triglyph”-detailed frieze on entablature. Set on mound in unkempt grounds shared with Neale House. Additional photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A “Temple of the Winds” folly erected by John Cavendish Browne (1794-1873), third Baron Kilmaine, atop the vaulted footings of an unfinished tower begun (1785) by John Browne MP (1726-94), first Baron Kilmaine.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/31312104/neale-house-nealepark-neale-mayo
Freestanding folly, dated 1753; extant 1782. Set in woodland in grounds shared with Neale House. Photography by James Fraher
Appraisal
A beguiling folly widely regarded as an intriguing component of the eighteenth-century built heritage of south County Mayo [National Monument 0359]: the inscription, ‘so nonsensical and complicated that one must reach the conclusion…that the entire object is merely the product of the peculiar humour of some former Lord Kilmaine’ (ITA 1945), reads: “The Irish Characters On The Above Stone Import/That In This Cave We Have By Us The Gods Of/Cons Bordtieiss Lett Us Follow Their Stepps Sick/Of Love With Full Confidenc In Loo Lave Adda/Yackene The Shepherd Of Ireland Of His Eraan Di/These Images Were Found In A Cave Behind The Place They/Now Stand And Were The Ancient Gods Of The Neale Which Took Its/Name From Them They Were Called Diane Ffeale Or The Gods/Of Felicity From Which The Place In Irish Was Called Ne Heale/In English The Neale LL Reignd AM 2577 PD 927 Ante c1496 And/Was Then 60 Œdna Reignd AM 2994 And 64 Of Edna Was ???? Con Moil Was Ye Son Of Heber Who/Divided This Kingdom With His Brother And Had The/Western Parts Of This Island For His Lott All Which Was/Originally Called From Con Conought Or Cons Portion/And His Son Loo Laveadda Who Founded The Druids Was/Thought To Have Drawn All His Knowledge From The Sun/Thus The Irish History NB The Smaller Letters On The Upper/Part Of The Great Plinth Import That It Was Erected By Edna/Loos Gods Were Adopted By Con And Edna Of The Line Of Heber Established/Their Worship Here/1753”.
Irish Historic Houses 