Maryborough, Douglas, Co Cork – Maryborough Hotel €€
The website tells us:
“Located in the leafy suburbs of Douglas, yet minutes from Cork City Centre, The Maryborough has a character and style all of its own. Set in 18 acres of 300-year-old listed gardens and woodland, our family-owned boutique hotel affords guests an experience in luxury itself and is among the top hotels in Cork. The Maryborough Hotel is unique with its charming 18th Century Mansion accompanied by the creatively designed contemporary extension. All of this combined makes The Maryborough the perfect destination.
“The hotel delivers a unique experience in an exceptional atmosphere. From the moment you enter, we will guarantee you a level of personal service and care designed to match the exquisite surroundings of our 300-year-old listed gardens. Guests can enjoy an award-winning restaurant in Cork, state of the art Leisure Club and luxurious ESPA spa.
Our History
“The Maryborough Hotel & Spa is one of the most renowned 4 star hotels in Cork today. The Maryborough’s Georgian Manor House was built in 1710 by Mr Richard Newenham [note that a Richard Newenham of Maryborough married Sarah Devonsher, niece of Abraham Devonsher of Kilshannig]. Descendants of the Newenhams as well as other families lived there up until the 1990s when it was purchased by the O’Sullivan family. In 1997 the family opened what is now The Maryborough Hotel, a 4 star luxury hotel in Cork with 93 bedrooms.
“Since becoming a hotel, the Mansion House has fortunately retained its striking original architectural features. Some of the rooms at The Maryborough still showcase Adam style decoration – notably the entrance hall and some mantelpieces. This adds to the historical relevance of the manor house and contributes to the decadence and luxury of this boutique hotel in Cork.
“The former eighteenth-century stately home is set amid acres of woods and beautiful gardens, just south of Cork’s historical city centre in Douglas. John Newenham, a younger brother of the last Newenham owner of The Maryborough was a great gardener and collector of trees. Thanks to his inspired work the gardens at The Maryborough still host quite a collection, in particular of rhododendrons, making it one of the reasons for The Maryborough being one of the best hotels in Cork.
“The Maryborough works to continually develop a deluxe guest experience merging the hotels history with beautifully appointed accommodations. In order to incorporate the elegant grandeur of the old house into the hotel, several splendid suites were built on the upper floors of the Mansion House. Read more about our luxury suites in Cork.
“To compliment the opulent charm of the old house, the hotel’s contemporary extension was built. It is here you will find our Deluxe, Executive and Family Rooms. Spectacular architecture blended with effortless service and genuine hospitality makes the Maryborough one of the top hotels in Cork.“
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. 204. “(Newenham/IFR; Sherrard, sub Morrough/IFR) A three storey seven bay mid-C18 house with a lower late-Georgian bow-fronted addition. On the garden front, the house is weather-slated; and the main block is joined by a curving corridor to an office wing with a high-pitched sprocketed roof. Hall with ceiling of Adamesque plasterwork and floor of black and white pavement. Dining room with plasterwork frieze. Staircase of handsome C18 joinery, with Corinthian newels. Upper hall with ceiling of rococo plasterwork in the manner of Robert West. In the late-Georgian wing, there is an oval cantilevered stone staircase with an iron balustrade; the wing also formerly contained a ballroom and library, but these were destroyed by fire 1914 and rebuilt as kitchens. Originally the seat of a branch of the Newenham family; passed at the beginning of the present century to the Sherrard family.”
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
p. 27. Of mid-C18 Palladian interiors, good representative examples with panelled dados, lugged architraves, fielded panelling and chunky cornices are found at Coole Abbey House, Assolas, Cloghroe, Kilshannig, and Blackrock House. Curiously, the heavy Palladian lugged architrave remained in use in the county long after it fell out of fashion elsewhere. At Lisnabrin, Dunkathel, Burton, Rockforest and Muckridge, the form is encountered in late C18 Neoclassical interiors, suggesting an innate conservatism among local joiners. The finest joinery in most houses is reserved for the staircase, and in many cases these have survived. The best early C18 staircases, at the Red House and Annes Grove, have alternating barley-twist and columnar balusters, big Corinthian newel posts, ramped handrails and carved tread-end brackets. Mount Alvernia (Mallow), Carrigrohane and Cloghroe all have good mid-C18 staircases of a similar type; that at Lota is exceptional in its use of mahogany and for its imperial plan. Good Neoclassical staircases, geometrical in form with delicate ironwork balustrades, survive at Maryborough, Newmarket Court and Castle Hyde; the destruction of those at Vernon Mount is a particularly sad loss.
The best early plasterwork is that of the Swiss-Italian brothers Paolo and Filippo Lafranchini at Riverstown, where highly sculptural late Baroque figurative ornament is applied to the walls and ceilings of the Saloon… Filippo alone decorated two rooms at Kilshannig, blending late Baroque figures with lighter acanthus arabesques and putti. Rococo plasterwork featuring scrolling acanthus and birds comparable to the Dublin school of the 1760s is encountered in the Saloon at Castlemartyr, and at Maryborough. At Laurentium (Doneraile) and the Old College (Youghal), it is rather more hesitant. For the most part, stucco workers remain anonymous, so it is a happy circumstance that Patrick Osborne’s accomplished work at the former Mansion House at Cork is recorded. He also probably worked at Lota, as well as at Castle Hyde. Good Neoclassical plasterwork in low relief and employing small-scale classical motifs of the type made fashionable by Robert Adam and James Wyatt is found at Maryborough, at Old Court House (Rochestown), and at the Old College and Loreto College at Youghal.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2025/02/24/maryborough/
A Handsome House
‘Not far from Douglas is a handsome house adorned with a cupola and good plantations, the residence of Mr Richard Newenham, merchant in Cork, a gentleman who is the largest dealer in Ireland in the worsted trade, and employs some thousands in different parts of this country in spinning bay yarn, which he exports to Bristol.’ From The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork by Charles Smith (1750).
The Newenhams are believed to have settled in Cork in the early 17th century and to have prospered as merchants: in 1671 one of their number, John Newenham, served as Mayor of Cork city. One branch of the family would come to live at Coolmore (see Trans-Atlantic Links « The Irish Aesthete). Believed to have been born around 1705, Richard Newenham was the son of another John, a clothier who some years earlier had become a Quaker. His father-in-law, Thomas Wight, who also began professional life as a clothier, was author of A history of the rise and progress of the people called Quakers, in Ireland, from the year 1653 to 1700. The eldest of seven children, Richard Newenham prospered and, as noted by Charles Smith, developed a thriving textile business. As Daniel Beaumont has noted, he may also have been involved in the manufacture of sailcloth, because the village of Douglas, close to Maryborough, had become an important centre for this industry. Newenham also went into partnership with a number of other men in the business of ‘sugar making and sugar boiling’ on the southern outskirts of Cork city. In 1738 he married Sarah Devonsher, member of another successful Quaker family which was responsible for building Kilshannig (see Exuberance « The Irish Aesthete).
Probably built not long before Charles Smith published his book on Cork in 1750 and thought to be on the site of an earlier house, Maryborough was then described as having a cupola, but that no longer exists. The main body of the house is rendered, of three storeys over a raised basement, and seven bays wide, the three-bay breakfront defined with limestone quoins. A substantial flight of steps leads up to the pedimented entrance doorcase, also of limestone. The rear of the house is similar, having a three-bay breakfront but with a Gibbsian doorcase and the two upper floors being slate-fronted, as is the upper section of an extension to the east. The latter’s two-storied facade is a substantial, three-bay bow. This part of the building is thought to be a later extension from c.1830 while behind it is another addition from the late 18th century, a gable-ended wing accommodating a cantilevered Portland stone staircase: Frank Keohane proposes this as the work of local architect Michael Shanahan (who also worked in Ulster for the Earl-Bishop of Derry). The interiors of Maryborough are relatively plain, as befitted the home of a member of the Quaker community, amongst whom there was strong disapproval of gratuitous ornament. However, one room on the first floor has an elaborately decorated rococo ceiling, heavily enriched with scrolling acanthus leaves and an abundance of floral bouquets.
Following Richard Newenham’s death in 1759, Maryborough was inherited by his only son John, and after the latter died in turn his son, another Richard, inherited the property. In 1837 it was described by Samuel Lewis as ‘the residence of E.E. Newenham Esq., a noble mansion in a spacious demesne, embellished with stately timber.’
Maryborough remained in the ownership of the Newenhams until the late 19th century, although rented out for some years before being sold to Thomas Sherrard in 1889. His descendants lived there until 1995 when the place was sold to the present owners who turned the house into an hotel, with a large bedroom extension added to the south and, more recently, an orangery/function room to the immediate west of the old building.
Irish Historic Houses 