Henn, William (d. 1857)

Bellevue, Delgany, Co Wicklow

by jenjunebug

Bellevue, Delgany, Co Wicklow

Bellevue, County Wicklow, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.

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. 38. “(La Touche/IFR: A house built 1754 by the wealthy Dublin banker David LaTouche…a chapel was built near the house, to the design of Richard Morrison… As well as building the house, David laid out a landscape garden, which he and his son Peter adorned with numerous ornaments and follies… by the elder and younger Francis Sandys or Sands.  Peter La Touche also constructed the remarkable glass conservatory or “glazed passage” which snaked across the lawn for more than 500 feet…Some years after the death of a subsequent Peter La Touche, in 1904, Bellevue was sold by his sisters and heiresses. The house was afterwards allowed to fall into disrepair. Parts of it were still standing in 1945,, but it was finally demolished in 1950s.”

Bellevue, County Wicklow, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Bellevue, County Wicklow, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Bellevue, County Wicklow, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photographic Collection, National Library of Ireland.

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. 

p. 155. “A two storey house built c. 1754 for David La Touche. Altered and enlarged c. 1790 to the design of Whitmore Davis and again in the early 19C when Richard Morrison added a chapel. Demolished in the 1950s.”

David Digges La Touche (1703-1785), of Bellevue, County Wicklow, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Peter La Touche of Bellevue (1733-1828) Date 1775 by Robert Hunter, Irish, 1715/1720-c.1803, photograph courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland.
Mrs La Touche of Bellevue by Stephen Catterson Smith 1806-1872, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland NGI 628.

https://archiseek.com/2015/1754-bellevue-house-delgany-co-wicklow

1754 – Bellevue House, Delgany, Co. Wicklow 

The Ballydonagh demesne was bought in 1753 by David La Touche, a rich banker from Dublin of Huguenot extraction. He built a house between 1754 and 1756 at a cost of £30,000 and named it Bellevue. In 1785 it was inherited by his son Peter. 

Described in ‘A view of antient and modern Dublin, with its latest improvements’ published in 1807: “He built the mansion house in 1754, and his son added the two wings. The whole is well planned; the offices also are commodious and numerous. The entire cost 30,000” and “The house is roomy and convenient furnished in good stile and contains some excellent stained glass particularly a chemist at work and fishermen bringing in their cargo by moonlight.” 

The house had massive glasshouses attached which snaked around the building ” … a 650-feet conservatory, which would house many exotic plants as well as an orangery, a cherry house, a peach house and a vinery. Completed in 1793, this magnificent creation was then the largest conservatory in Europe. …”  

The family finally left Bellevue in 1913 after which the house fell into decay and was pulled down in the early 1950s. 

Paradise Hill, Co Clare – ‘lost’ 

by jenjunebug

Paradise Hill, Co Clare – ‘lost’ 

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. 230. (Henn/IFR) a two-storey slightly Gothic Georgian house, with two curved bows and a Gothicized Venetian window in the Batty Langley manner as its doorway. 
 
High-pitched roofs and pointed dormer gables were added in the Victorian era; and iron balconies. Paradise Hill was burnt in 1970.” http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2016/03/paradise-hill.html

THE HENNS WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY CLARE, WITH 7,664 ACRES 

 
The family of HENN, one of English origin, was settled in County Clare for upwards of two centuries. 
 
RICHARD HENN obtained a grant of “Paradise Hill”, and various estates in that county, 1685, from the Earl of Thomond. 
 
WILLIAM HENN (c1720-96), second son of Thomas Henn (younger brother and devisee of Richard Henn, the grantee of Paradise Hill), was called to the Irish Bar and appointed a Judge of the King’s Bench, 1768. 
 
He married Miss Elizabeth Parry, and had (with three daughters) an only son, 
 
WILLIAM HENN, Master of the Irish Court of Chancery, 1793, who wedded, in 1782, Susanna, sister of Sir Jonathan Lovett Bt, of Liscombe Park, Buckinghamshire, and had issue, 
 

WILLIAM, of whom presently; 
Jonathan, QC; 
Richard, Commander RN; 
Eleanor; Susanna; Eliza; Jane; Frances. 

The eldest son, 
 
WILLIAM HENN (c1782-1857), who, like his father, became a Master in Chancery in Ireland, 1822, espoused, in 1809, Mary Rice, eldest daughter of George Fosbery, of Clorane, County Limerick, by Christiana his wife, daughter of Thomas Rice, of Mount Trenchard, in the same county, and had issue, 
 

William, died unmarried; 
THOMAS RICE, of whom hereafter; 
Jonathan Lovett, died unmarried; 
George; 
Richard; 
Christiana; Susanna; Mary; Ellen; Jane. 

The second son, 
 
THOMAS RICE HENN KC JP DL (1814-1901), of Paradise Hill, County Clare, Barrister, County Court Judge, Chairman of Quarter Sessions for County Carlow, 1859, and for County Galway, 1868, Recorder of Galway, 1878, married, in 1845, Jane Isabella, second daughter of the Rt Hon Francis Blackburne, LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND, and had issue, 
 

William, Lieutenant RN; dsp; 
FRANCIS BLACKBURNE, of whom we treat; 
Thomas Rice; 
Edward Lovett; 
Richard Arthur Milton, of Castle Troy House; 
Henry (Rt Rev), Bishop of Burnley; 
Adela Jane; Mary Rice. 

The second son, 
 
FRANCIS BLACKBURNE HENN JP (1848-1915), of Paradise Hill, Barrister, wedded, in 1880, Helen Letitia Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Gore, of Woodlands, County Clare, and had issue, 
 

WILLIAM FRANCIS; 
Thomas Rice, b 1901; 
Muriel Helen Isabella Rice; Lilian Adela Gore; Maud Susan Beatrice. 

The eldest son, 
 
WILLIAM FRANCIS HENN CBE MVO (1892-1964), of Paradise Hill, wedded, in 1915, Geraldine Frances Jane, daughter of Thomas George Stacpoole-Mahon, and had issue, 
 

WILLIAM BRYAN, AFC, b 1917; 
Francis Robert, CBE, b 1920; 
Margaret Geraldine, b 1922. 

PARADISE HILL, Ennis, County Clare, was a two-storey Georgian house, with two curved bows and a Gothicized Venetian window as its doorway. 
 
High-pitched roofs and pointed dormer gables were added in the Victorian era; and iron balconies. 
 

 
Paradise Hill was burnt in 1970. 
 
Francis Robert Henn, CBE, has compiled The Henn Family of Paradise, including early lineage and reminiscences. 
 
First published in March, 2016. 

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.

“Two storey, bow fronted, gable-ended house, much altered in the late 19C when the bows were given circular high-pitched conical roofs. Former seat of the Henn family. Destroyed by fire 1970.”