King’s Fort or Kingsfort, Moynalty, Co Meath

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.

“(Chaloner/LGI1912; and sub Enniskillen, E/PB) A brick-built house of ca 1740, two storeys over basement, in which the ground floor rooms are vaulted over and formerly had good mid C18 stucco decoration on the vaults. One room had plaster panelling. The house is now in ruins, through fragments of the stucco work 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.

…the seat of Richard Chalener in 1814.

http://meathhistoryhub.ie/houses-k-p/

Kingsfort House was located near Moynalty in north Meath. Nearby Cherrymount was the first home of the Chaloner family before their new home of Kingsfort was constructed. Kingsfort was completed in 1736 by John Chaloner. The house takes its name from the townland in which it is situated Rathinree, which is the Irish for the fort of the king. There are five ringforts nearby. 

Described as a big regular house set in pleasantly rolling countryside Kingsfort was a brick built house of two storeys over basement. A number of rooms had plasterwork and even though the house is ruined fragments of the plasterwork are still visible. 

Rev. John Chaloner was born in Shropshire in 1658, studied at Trinity College and became a clergyman in Errigal, Co. Donegal. He became a navy chaplain on board ‘The Royal Sovereign’ a ship despatched to the West Indies to combat piracy. Tradition is that Chaloner managed to acquire a considerable sum of money during this period and in 1704 having returned to Ireland purchased the estate of Captain Stopford near Moynalty. 

John Chaloner succeeded his father in 1732 and completed the new house at King’s Fort in 1736. In 1778 John Chaloner was succeeded by Richard who was responsible for major landscaping at Kingsfort. 

Richard laid out the Glen, a valley between the two Chaloner houses. He constructed a waterfall, a small lake with an island, a dog’s graveyard and a small two roomed lodge. He was known to his friends as ‘Dicky of the Glen’. Richard Chaloner showed his party allegiance to the Whig party by planting oaks on his estate at Kingsfort. In 1784 Richard Chaloner was appointed High Sheriff of Meath for the year. 

Richard Chaloner kept a diary of domestic events from 1810 to 1817, the title page bears the inscription – ‘To record domestic happenings, in which I took a considerable part. It will be a pleasure at some time to bring them back to mind.’ Portions of the diary were reproduced in “Not so much to one side” by Valentine Farrell and there is a copy in the local studies section of the County Library, Navan. Richard made changes to the interior of the house around 1815 and he also rebuilt the staircase. 

Richard Chaloner died in 1832 leaving Kingsfort to his eldest daughter’s second son, Richard Cole-Hamilton, who took the name Chaloner. 

In 1835 Kingsfort House was described as “a superb building, with suitable offices and a garden attached. It is situated in the centre of the townland and is the seat of Richard Chaloner. The estate is elegantly adorned with plantations, lakes and ornamental grounds.” 

In the 1860s the family possessed a mighty bull which they named Sovereign in honour of the Navy ship of Rev. John Chaloner. The bull won many prizes at the RDS and at shows up and down the country. The bull survived an attack of foot and mouth and when it died was buried in one of the ring forts at Kingsfort, renamed in his honour, ‘Sovereign’s Fort.’ A poem was even written in honour of the bull. 

In 1876 Richard Chaloner of Kingscourt, Moynalty held 2,100 acres in County Meath. Richard Chaloner was a noted breeder of Shorthorn cattle. In 1879 Richard Chaloner’s shorthorn bullock won first prizes in all the major shows in Britain and Ireland. Richard Chaloner died in 1879, leaving Kingsfort to his nephew Claud Cole –Hamilton who assumed the name of Chaloner in the terms of his great-grandfather’s will. Claud died on 21st June 1917. He was succeeded by his son, Claud Willoughby Chaloner who was a Major serving with the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers. He and his wife settled at Cherrymount and leased Kingfort for a period before selling it in 1937. The Chaloner family married into the Bomford family and Peter Bamford’s website on the Bomford family  is a brilliant source of information on the Chaloner family and their relatives, the Bomfords. 

The last of the Chaloners, Desmond, attended Trinity College and served in the British Army from 1943 to 1947 during the Second World War. His grandfather had died at Kingsfort in 1917 and his grandmother had lived on there until 1927.  His father had lived at Cherrymount and it was here that Desmond was born. Desmond Chaloner died in England in 2010. 

Kingsfort was sold to Mr. Forest and then to  Mr. Anthony McCann, who stripped the house. The slates and roof were removed in the 1950s. The estate had been broken up by the Land Commission in 1936.