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. 304. (Parker-Hutchinson/LGI1912) A C19 Tudor-Gothic house with a tower at one side…”
Ruins of detached multiple-bay two-storey country house, built c. 1840, having three-stage square tower at north-west corner, canted bay windows to north and south elevations and single-storey service wing to north. Tower has pointed windows with hood mouldings, slit windows and decorative trefoil corbel table to crellated parapet. Ruins of walled garden to north. No roofs remain. Rendered and triple octagonal chimneys. Rendered limestone walls with squared quoins and rendered plinth. Square-headed openings with label mouldings with decorative stops. Two-storey outbuilding to site with rubble walls and barrel-shaped roof.
Appraisal
The now ruined Timoney Park nonetheless presents an imposing edifice visible from nearby roads. It is of apparent architectural design and still retains decorative details such as label mouldings, trefoil carvings, and crenellations.
Timoney Park, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.Timoney Park, County Tipperary, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
In Blake, Tarquin. Abandoned Mansions of Ireland II: More Portraits of Forgotten Stately Homes. Collins Press, Cork, 2012.
“(Parker-Hutchinson/LGI1912) A C19 Tudor-Gothic house with a tower at one side…”
This house was the seat of the Hutchinson family in the 19th century. Lewis refers to the great improvements made by J.D. Hutchinson at Timoney. By the mid 19th century the house was valued at £51 and was held in fee. It was occupied by Standish Grady J. Hutchinson in 1906. It is now a roofless ruin.
Beechy Park (formerly Bettyfield), Rathvilly, Co Carlow
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. 35. “A 3 storey 5 bay mid to late C18 house. Diocletian window in centre of top storey of entrance front above window with entablature on console brackets, above later Doric porch. Bold string courses.”
Jimmy O’Toole, The Carlow Gentry: What will the neighbours say! Published by Jimmy O’Toole, Carlow, Ireland, 1993. Printed by Leinster Leader Ltd, Naas, Kildare.
Chapter: D’Israeli of Beechy Park
p. 85. Beechy Park has had many owners and even great number of tenant. The most famous and best remembered was Benjamin D’Israeli, whose relationship to his namesake (who was twice Prime Minister) has exercised the minds of countless writers during the last one hundred years. The general consensus was that the illegitimate Carlow Benjamin was uncle of Benjamin D’Israeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield.
By 1800, and still only 34, Benjamin had amassed savings and a large portfolio of property in Dublin, bought with profits from a lottery office in the city, and dealings on the Stock Exchange. He bought Beechy Park, and his his will of 1814, made five days before he died, he left £1000 for the building of a school, and a £2000 trust to pay a teacher, for the education of the poor children of Rathvilly. He also left £500 to be invested in Government securities and the interest to be used every Christmas eve for the purchase of provisions for the poor of the parish.
…The speculation is that Benjamin Senior sent his mistress and her child (b. 1766) to Ireland… and that £1000 was invested on the child’s behalf. This was an 18C example of an illegitimate son taking his father’s name….p. 86. Benjamin became apprentice to Richard Bayly, a Public Notary in Dublin whose business involved the state lottery office, stock broking, money lending and insurance. In 1779, the Irish Parliament had passed an Act introducing a national lottery and from which his Majesty would receive a sum of £2000. Between 1780 and 1800, 24 state lotteries were held. Selling lottery tickets was a lucrative business, though it had its critics.
After five years apprenticeship, Benjamin D’Israeli opened his own lottery office at 105 Grafton Street in 1788. One day, William Hoare Hume arrived in the office to buy a lottery ticket, and when D’Israeli saw his County Wicklow address, he enquired if there was a suitable property for sale in the county as he had £30,000 to invest. He was invited to Humewood, and he was driven by William Hume to Beechy Park, which he liked and decided to purchase.
In 1804, he leased Bettyville, as it was then known, to George Pilsworth, and he did not take up residency himself til 1809. He was appointed High Sheriff of Carlow by the Lord Lieutenant in 1810. He changed the spelling of his name to Disraell when he started in business. Having moved to his country seat, he ceased involvement in his Dublin business and in 1809 he transferred to goodwill to his associate Hugh Cuming, who had an adjoining estate at Bough near Rathvilly.”
p. 88. The house at Beechy Park was built aabout the middle of the 18C, and in 1777 in Taylor and Skinners Maps of Ireland is listed as the seat of the Bazlee family (also spelled Baisley). After D’Israeli’s death, the house and estate were acquired by the Hutchinsons, a family with estates in Roscommon and Tipperary. The family had three marriage connections with the Ducketts of Carlow. James Hutchinson married Anne Duckett of Phillipstown in 1712, and in 1791 William Hutchinson of Tipperary married Anna Dawson Coates, co-heiress of John Dawson Coates of Dublin. Her sister Elizabeth had married William Duckett of Duckett’s Grove a year earlier, and in 1819, their son, John Dawson-Duckett, married Sarah Summers Hutchinson, a daughter of James Hutchinson from a second marriage.
Sarah’s brother, Summers Hutchinson, lived at Beechy Park until his death in 1881, and he was survived by his only son, William Frederick, who moved to live in Cambridge. Another of Sarah’s brothres, Joseph Fade Hutchinson, who lived at Dungar, co Offaly, was High Sheriff of Co Carlow. In 1871, Joseph Hutchinson of Roscrea was listed as owner of 1280 acres in Co Carlow, and Anne Hutchinson had 503 acres.
Parts of the Hutchinsons lands were variously rented by the Whittys, who lived at nearby Ricketstwon Hall, the Humes and the Burgesses. In 1924, Beechy Park was purchased by Harry burgess, and isnow owned by his daughter, Mrs Burgess, widow of Edmond M. Burgess.”
Bettyfield House a Georgian period mansion (c.1760 to 1800)
A detached five-bay three-storey over basement house, c.1780, with carved granite dressings including door cases and Diocletian windows to front and to rear. Renovated, c.1825, with portico added, granite window surrounds added to centre and interior remodelled. Stable complex, c.1825, to site.
It was once owned by Benjamin D’israeli, the uncle of the man of the same name who made quite a name for himself as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1874 to 1880). D’israeli (the elder) purchased Beechy Park in 1800. I can’t find any information about who originally built the house.
Benjamin D’Israeli of Beechy Park, Rathvilly, bequeathed £3000 for the establishment and support of a non- denominational school “for the education of the poor of Rathvilly”. Bough School was completed in 1826 and still stands today, not far from Beechy Park. I think I’m right in saying D’Israeli won some form of early 19th century lottery. The house was later the home to the Rev. Quintin Dick Hume (1806-1871), son of Captain Fitzwilliam Hume of Humewood, Co Wicklow (see:
Detached five-bay three-storey over basement house, c. 1780, with carved granite dressings including doorcases and Diocletian windows to front and to rear. Renovated, c. 1825, with portico added, granite window surrounds added to centre and interior remodelled. Stable complex, c. 1825, to site.
Record of Protected Structures:
Beechy Park, Ricketstown, Rathvilly. Townland: Ricketstown or Bettyfield.
A very unusual house being an early-18th century classical house from the school of Sir Edward Lovett Pierce remodelled about 1825. The house has essentially matching facades – front and back- of five bays and three storeys over a basement. The walls are lime rendered and painted, there are platbands between each floor, raised coigns up to the first floor and a heavy cornice. The granite, square-headed doorcase at the front of the house, approached up a flight of granite steps which have carved lips, has a remarkable, pulvinated, carved frieze. The panelled door is original and the tetrastyle, Doric, granite porch dates from circa 1825. The sash windows have a large proportion of the original crown glass. The central window of the first floor on both facades has a granite aedicule with a bracketed cornice and there is a diocletian window on the top floor. The rear façade is similar though the doorcase is different having banded ionic pilasters and a triple keystone (This is a remarkable design and shows the hand of a superb architect). The side elevations are slate hung and there are end stacks set against the hipped roof which has oversailing eaves. This roof probably dates from the early-19th century and is covered with small, natural slates. The interior of the house was remodelled about 1825.
TOP RACEHORSE trainer Jim Bolger has forked out €5.35m for Beechy Park, a 224-acre estate in Co Carlow.
It’s a few miles from Coolcullen where he has trained some outstanding flat horses. Earlier this year the trainer was summoned before the dreaded tribunal to explain the life and death of an unfortunate nag that was sold to Frank Dunlop for £64,000 back in 1992. The foal broke its neck and died after colliding with another horse a year afterwards. There is nothing on the record to show that Frank bought a replacement horse to run at Fairyhouse, close to his home.
Let’s hope that Bolger also has better luck with his bloodstock at Beechy Park, which was in the same family for 100 years.
A residence formerly owned by Benjamin Disraeli, uncle of the British prime minister and his namesake, was sold at auction on Wednesday for €5.35m.
Beechy Park, Rathvilly, Co Carlow was the biggest holding to come on the market this year and huge interest was generated in its sale.
While the attention of the country focused on the sale of the Carlow estate, the purchaser’s anonymity remains intact. The property was knocked down to a Kill, Co Kildare-based solicitor acting in trust, giving rise to speculation about who the new owner is and what plans are in store for the estate.
Originally, the joint selling agents, Knight Frank and Browne Corrigan, were quoting a guide price in the region of €6m — the hammer fell at €5,350,000.
The property was offered for sale in two lots, but the real interest was in the entire.
Beechy Park house is an 18th century, imposing residence which had been in the ownership of the Burgess family since 1924 and run as a beef and tillage enterprise. Prior to the Burgesses, the estate was owned by the Hutchinsons, who purchased it from the Disraelis in 1881. There is still a strong Disraeli connection in Rathvilly. What is now the parish hall was formerly Disraeli’s school and was donated by the family to the community.
Over 100ac are in barley and beet stubble and another 129ac is laid out in pasture. The sale also included a courtyard, gardens and entitlements worth about €25,000. There is some road frontage onto two country roads.
The land is well-fenced and an abundance of mature trees, including beeches, provide shelter and add character to the estate.
Irish Historic Houses 