See House (under Kilmore in Bence-Jones), Kilmore, Co Cavan
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. 174. “The palace of the C of I Bishops of Kilmore, near their cathedral, which stands on a wooded hill surrounded by meadow – one of those cathedrals in the coutry that are a feature of Ireland. A three storey Grecian block of the 1830s, built “on a more eligible site” than the earlier palace; from its resemblance to Rathkenny, in the same county, it can fairly safely be attributed to William Farrell. Three bay entrance front; wide strip-pilasters at corners and framing centre bay, which is pedimented. Enclosed pilastered porch with die between two tripartite windows. Four bay side elevation with two bay breakfront; entablatures on console brackets over ground floor windows.”
https://archiseek.com/2015/1837-bishops-palace-kilmore-co-cavan
1837 – Bishop’s Palace, Kilmore, Co. Cavan
Architect: William Farrell
Described in the late 1830s: “The new palace is built in the Grecian Doric style and covered with Roman cement. It appears too lofty, and in other respects is not well proportioned. The drive from the public road is badly managed, being tortured into short curves, for which the character of the ground is not fitted.” The rear elevation has pilasters flanking a wider east bay, and a shallow bow of three central bays. Now sits empty after a more manageable house was constructed closer to the cathedral.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/40402506/see-house-kilmore-upper-co-cavan
Detached Grecian Revival three-bay three-storey over basement former bishop’s palace, built 1835-7, having pedimented central bay with single-storey limestone ashlar portico, recessed bay to west with single-storey side entrance. Irregular five-bay rear elevation with pilasters flanking wide east bay, shallow bow to central bays. Roof concealed by parapet, tall cut stone chimneystacks with cornice details, cast-iron rainwater goods hopper heads having egg-and-dart and bead-and-reel detail. Ruled-and-lined render over squared rubble stone walls. Ashlar pediment, tympanum having Episcopal coat of arms, ashlar cornice frieze and blocking course, with pilasters marking bays, having platband over ground floor and plinth course to basement. Graduated window openings having cut stone sills, with six-over-three sashes to second floor, six-over-six to first, tripartite windows to ground floor having nine-over-six sashes and corresponding side lights set in cut-stone surrounds comprising pilasters with entablature supported by fluted consoles. Ashlar portico having paired Doric pilasters, supporting entablature, and flanking four-panelled timber door with overpanel, approached by flight of cut stone steps, with six-over-nine barred windows to side. Entablatures supported on fluted consoles to ground floor windows to east side elevation. Tripartite window to east bay of rear elevation and round-headed window to west side elevation. Side door opening flanked by cut stone pilasters having entablature on fluted consoles with timber panelled door approached by cut stone steps. Complex of outbuildings with belfry to west.
An impressive classical revival house in an austere Grecian style, attributed to the Dublin architect William Farrell (d.1851), on account of its similarity to Rathkenny House near Cootehill by the same architect. The former bishop’s palace is substantially intact, retaining its original character and form, and its setting within a mature demesne landscape. The architectural form of the house is enriched by many original features and materials, such as cut stone details, timber sashes with historic glass, panelled doors, and decorative rainwater goods. Built as the bishop’s palace of the Church of Ireland diocese of Kilmore, it has a long ecclesiastical association, having replaced an earlier bishop’s palace to the north of the former cathedral, and the later nineteenth-century Kilmore Cathedral. The house is the centrepiece of an architectural group consisting of fine outbuildings, gate lodge, and entrance gates, and is part of the significant ecclesiastical complex of Kilmore Cathedral, the old Cathedral, and nearby graveyard.
€900,000 on 18/11/21
15 beds
Kilmore Palace is a fine Georgian country property-built c. 1835. The three bay, three storey over basement property is set on approx. 16.5 acres (6.67ha) within a mature demesne landscape. Connected to the building are inner and outer courtyards. The entire is located 6.5km from Cavan town. ACCOMMODATION Kilmore Palace is an imposing three storey over basement Georgian residence, approached by a long sweeping avenue with beautiful verdant countryside views. On entering the property, the reception hall and the stairs hall are particularly fine, and the four reception rooms are bright and spacious with many special original features. The staircase is most elegant and leads to a return landing with a large window before separating in two to the 1st floor. On the first floor there are seven bedrooms and on the upper level off a central corridor with a large roof atrium are 8 further rooms with a variety of uses. The property has a bright and dry semi basement with high vaulted ceilings. Throughout the house are original Georgian features, including, exceptionally intricate cornices and ceiling roses, ornate antique fireplaces, recessed sash 9 over 6 pane windows with shutters and panelled doors with architrave surrounds. The main property has not been lived in in many years but remains in remarkably good condition. However, it will require full modernisation and refurbishment. Over the years upgrading was carried out as required, including a completely new roof and considerable window refurbishment. The property boasts huge potential as a manageable country house, boutique hotel, private retreat, or a wedding venue subject to planning.
HISTORY Kilmore Palace has a long ecclesiastical association, originally built as the Bishop’s Palace of the Church of Ireland diocese in Kilmore. Located in a very historic area, it is believed Kilmore was home to Ireland’s first church in the 6th or 7th century by St. Felim. In 1400 a church was built which the then Bishop of Kilmore, Andrew Mac Brady approved as his cathedral in 1454. This cathedral was replaced in 1860 as the original had become inadequate for the number of attending parishioners. Kilmore Palace has been home to each acting bishop ever since. LANDS The lands which extend to approx. 16.5 acres (6.67 ha) comprise of the area immediately surrounding the house including the courtyards, an attractive long avenue which leads to the front of the house and beyond to the courtyards. There is a field to the front of the house which is in grass and former gardens to the rear, bounded by mature woodland. OUT BUILDINGS There are two delightful cut-stone courtyards, which have been totally reroofed but otherwise requiring considerable refurbishment. The inner courtyard has four rooms including former bakery, washroom and laundry room with six further rooms over ground and first floor. The outer courtyard has two double coach houses, tack room, three cut stone barns with several standing stalls with overhead accommodation including five separate rooms.
THE LOCATION Kilmore Palace is located 6.5km south west of the busy Cavan Town, which is the principal centre in the North Midlands and will provide all daily requirements of shopping and dining. Nearby in the surrounding area, golf is available at Cavan Golf Club and the Farnham Estate Golf Course. Equestrian activity is available at Cavan Equestrian centre which hosts many weekly and international shows and hunting is available with the Ballymacads and Fermanagh Hunt. Fishing is renowned in Cavan with many lakes and rivers to choose from offering a boater’s paradise. The neighbouring Farnham Estate will also offer new owners a world class health spa and entertaining rooms. Crossdoney 4 km Cavan 6.5 km Dublin (M50) 120 km Dublin Airport 124 km
BER Details
BER: Exempt
Viewing Details
Please contact Marcus Magnier to arrange a viewing marcus.magnier@colliers.com
One of the lesser-known episodes of Irish history is the Tithe Wars of the 1830s. Tithes, a payment to support the religious establishment and its clergy, had existed in the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic church but from the 16th century onwards, this obligatory contribution went to the Church of Ireland even though its members were always in a minority of the population. The tithe payment was expected to represent ten per cent of the value of certain kinds of agricultural produce. Prior to the Tithe Composition Act of 1823 it was possible to pay tithes in kind instead of in cash. To complicate matters further, a tithe was not payable on all forms of land, and there was even variation from place to place on the types of land subject to tithes. After legislation passed in 1735, for example, pasture (usually held by landowners rather than tenants) was deemed exempt, while tillage land was not. Likewise only certain produce was judged taxable: potatoes, the most widely grown crop for the majority of the population, could be subject to a tithe in one part of the country and not in others. Following the Composition Act tithes were required to be monetary and surveys were carried out in each parish to assess its likely income. Understandably tithes were much resented, and not just by the majority non-Anglican population. Therefore following the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 (popularly known as Catholic Emancipation) it was inevitable the payment of tithes would come under attack.
One of what might be termed Ireland’s pocket cathedrals: that dedicated to St Feidhlimidh at Kilmore, County Cavan. The present building was designed by London-based architect William Slater who received a number of such commissions in this country. Consecrated in 1860, it replaced an older and much altered structure which by the mid-19th century was deemed unworthy of purpose and therefore almost entirely cleared away. The only surviving trace of its predecessor is a much-weathered Romanesque doorway set into the north wall of the chancel, although it has been proposed that this feature originally belonged to another church, that of the Premonstratensian Priory of Holy Trinity of nearby Lough Oughter (although this was founded about a century after the doorway was likely carved). The cathedral is one of a group of buildings on this site that also includes the now-empty early 19th century Bishop’s Palace, or See House (for more on this read See and Believe, September 14th 2015) and one section of a much older palace. The see’s most famous incumbent was William Bedell who as Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh was responsible for commissioning the first Irish translation of the Old Testament.
In the aftermath of the 1829 act, and with a rise in numbers of Roman Catholic clergy and the construction of many new churches throughout the country – both of these funded by local communities – opposition to the payment of tithes grew. Opposition was further stimulated by the publication of lists of defaulters and orders being issued collection for the seizure of goods and chattels, most often livestock. The first open resistance occurred in March 1831 in Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny where the civil authorities unsuccessfully attempted to seize 120 cattle from the local parish priest Fr Martin Doyle: he had arranged for the people of the area to place their livestock in his care. He had the support of a cousin James Warren Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin who famously wrote of the Irish people to Thomas Spring Rice (then-Secretary of the Treasury), ‘An innate love of justice and of indomitable hatred of oppression is like a gem on the front of our nation which no darkness can obscure. To this firm reality I trace their hatred of tithe. May it be as lasting as their love of justice.’ The revolt against tithes soon spread and led to several ugly incidents: in June 1831, for instance, the Irish Constabulary fired on a crowd resisting the seizure of cattle in Bunclody, County Wexford, killing a number of them (the figure cited seems to vary from twelve to eighteen). Three years later in Rathcormac, County Cork a similar incident occurred (over the non-payment of a tithe valued at 40 shillings) which resulted in at least twelve deaths. Eventually in 1838 the Tithe Commutation Act for Ireland was passed. This reduced the amount payable directly by about a quarter and made the remainder payable in rent to landlords who would then pass on the funds to the relevant authorities. In effect, tithes thus became another form of rental payment but the outcome was an end to open confrontation. Tithes were not abolished until the Irish Church Act of 1869 which disestablished the Church of Ireland.
Astonishingly it was during this troubled period that George de la Poer Beresford, who had been Bishop of Kilmore, County Cavan since 1802, decided to embark on the construction of a new residence for himself and his successors. A bishop’s palace already existed close to the site of the present building; when John Wesley visited in 1787 he declared the earlier house, dating from the early 18th century, ‘is finely situated, has two fronts and is fit for a nobleman.’ But apparently not fit enough for Bishop Beresford who in the mid-1830s commissioned its replacement from the Dublin-born William Farrell. In 1823 the latter had been appointed the Board of First Fruits architect for the Church of Ireland ecclesiastical Province of Armagh (a position he held until 1843) and in this capacity designed a number of churches and other buildings in the region. Accordingly even if Beresford’s wish for a new house seems odd, it made sense for him to use Farrell. One suspects at least part of the reason for this expensive enterprise was so that the bishop could commemorate himself: the tympanum of the façade’s pediment carries the Beresford coat of arms. Writing in 1837, Jonathan Binns harshly passed judgement: ‘The Bishop has lately erected a palce in lieu of the old one. The new palace is built in the Grecian Doric style and covered with Roman cement. It appears too lofty and in other respects is not well proportioned.’ Apparently always known as the See House the building is unquestionably stark, of three storeys over semi-raised basement, its three-bay front is relieved a large limestone porch and flanking Wyatt windows on the ground floor. The garden front is asymmetrical owing to the insertion of an off-centre bay window with another tripartite window to one side but not the other. There are two fine yards, separated by a block with a clock tower.
The dominant feature of the See House’s interior is height: the ground floor ceilings must rise to some twenty feet. Beyond the porch, a square entrance hall has a circular ceiling supported on pendentives. Then comes the staircase hall from which open a series of reception rooms, all characterized by their severity and scale. Doors and chimneypieces shrink to insignificance in these spaces, as do the ceilings’ modest plasterwork and cornicing. The current empty condition of the building exacerbates this feature but it must always have been an echoing barn. The bifurcating staircase further emphasizes the See House’s overblown proportions, rising to a return lit by a vast round-headed window before climbing up to the spacious landing off which run a succession of bedrooms. The top floor, reached via stone service stairs is equally substantial, its centre gallery lit by a wonderful octagonal lantern. One of the rooms on this level, presumably used as a nursery or schoolroom, has walls painted with trees. Otherwise here, as elsewhere in the building, decoration is minimal. The See House appears to have been occupied by Bishops (since 1841 of the combined dioceses of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh) until the beginning of the present century. It is now in private hands and although not at present occupied has been well maintained. Perhaps the last episcopal residence built by an Anglican cleric in Ireland, the See House is an example of the purpose to which at least some of those much-hated tithes were put.
http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2015/09/kilmore-palace.html
THE bishopric of Kilmore was established in the 13th century, and in the 15th century changed its ancient name of Breffny into that of Kilmore.
It lies parallel to, and south of the diocese of Clogher, extending fifty-eight miles in length and between ten and twenty in breadth, through four counties, viz. Cavan, Leitrim, Meath, and Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.
The See House, Kilmore, County Cavan, was built by the Right Rev George de la Poer Beresford, Lord Bishop of Kilmore, 1802-39, and of Kilmore and Ardagh, 1839-41.
It was occupied by a further sixteen prelates.
It is believed that the last bishop to reside at the palace was the Right Rev Michael Mayes, Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh from 1993-2000.
A new see house was built at a different location near the cathedral hall in 2013.
THE SEE HOUSE, Kilmore, County Cavan, is a Grecian-Revival mansion of three storeys over a basement.
It was built between 1835-7.
This former episcopal palace, attributed to William Farrell, comprises a three-bay entrance front.
There is an irregular five-bay rear elevation with pilasters flanking wide east bay, and a shallow bow to central bays.
The roof is concealed by a parapet.
The house is rendered over squared rubble stone walls.
An ashlar pediment, and tympanum with episcopal coat-of-arms.
The ashlar portico has paired Doric pilasters.
This is an impressive classical-revival house in an austere Grecian style.
The former bishop’s palace is substantially intact, retaining its original character and form, and its setting on a wooded hill surrounded by meadow, near the Cathedral.
The architectural form of the house is enriched by many original features and materials, such as cut stone details, timber sashes with historic glass, and panelled doors.
The old see house has a long ecclesiastical association, having replaced an earlier episcopal palace to the north of the former cathedral and the later 19th-century Kilmore Cathedral.
The old see house forms the centrepiece of an architectural group consisting of fine outbuildings, gate lodge, and entrance gates, and forms part of the significant ecclesiastical complex of Kilmore Cathedral, the old Cathedral, and nearby graveyard.
Irish Historic Houses 