Detached three-bay two-storey over basement farmhouse with dormer attic, c. 1725. Renovated and extended to right, c. 1830, with door opening remodelled and interior remodelled. Group of detached outbuildings to site. Walled garden to site.
Record of Protected Structures:
Busherstown House, townland: Busherstown.
An early-18th century, three-bay, two-storey house over a basement dating from circa 1725 and remodelled about 1830. It has battered, rough-cast walls, gable ends, a round-headed doorcase with square-headed, granite dressings and lintel. The walls were rough-cast in recent years and the sash windows with two panels in each sash are recent replacements. The roof is high-pitched, with natural slates and end stacks. The house was extended on the right-hand side with a lean-to addition in the early 19th century. On the left-hand side is a wall with a very fine, early-18th century, limestone, carriage arch with beautifully-cut architraves. In front of the house is a walled garden with a small, 18th century summer house and a latrine
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.
p. 16. “The Newtons were a Lancashire family who settled in Ireland in 1688. The first three generations lived at Busherstown (Breens) before the Bennekerry seat was established by John Newton, who died in 1748. His eldest son, Bartholomew Newton, married Anne Bernard in 1767, through whom he acquired extensive property in Carlow town. It was their eldest son, Philip, who married Sarah Bagenal. The Bernards were a Laois family and the seat of the Carlow branch was at Strawhall, which was subsequently purchased by the Bruens.
Bennekerry Lodge, the home of the Doyle famil, was built by the Newtowns, whose land ownership in ht emiddle of the last century was just over 4000 acres.
p. 18. The last of the Bagenal family to live at Bennekerry House was Beauchamp Walter Bagenal, who spend his life in the Australian wine trade. It was his brother who lived at Bennekerry House from 1930-36, and then moved to South Africa. When Walter Bagenal died in 1952 without an heir, the representation of the family was vested in Hope Bagenal, the well-known London based acoustic architect who died in 1979. It was his father, Philip Bagenal, who wrote the family history of The Vicissitudes of an Anglo-Irish Family. The Bagenalstown property was left to Captain J.B. Blackett, a great-nephew. The present head of the family is John S. Bagenal whose career was in the Dept of Agriculturein Kenya, and who nowlives near Hertford in England.
Benekerry House, on 120 acres, was purchased in 1936 for £2000 by solicitor Samuel Roche and his wife, and was sold in the 1950s to Dan Morrissey, founder of the concrete products company to which he gave his name. The house is now owned by his son, Andrew Morrissey.”
Description: Detached three-bay two-storey over basement farmhouse with dormer attic, c.1725. Renovated and extended to right, c.1830, with door opening and interior remodelled. Group of detached outbuildings and a Walled garden to site.
Benekerry (or Bennekerry) House and Bennekerry Lodge, near Carlow, 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. 40. “[Newton sub. Bagenal/IFR] A house of 7 bays and 2 storeys, with an attic lit by dormers in the roof, dating originally from end C17 or early C18. In the late-Georgian period, a single storey neo-Classical addition was built along the whole length of the entrance front; consisting of an enclosed 3 bay porch in the centre, with a short open colonnade of Doric columns on either side. One room has an apsed end with a screen of two Grecian Ionic columns. In 1832, Philip Newton, son of Col. Philip Newton of Benekerry, assumed the name of Bagenal in accordance with the wishes of his mother and his grandfather, Col. Beauchamp Bagenal, of Dunleckney, Co Carlow. At about this time, 1st cricket ground in Co Carlow was here.”
Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement house with dormer attic, c. 1700, with hipped roof. Renovated, c. 1840, with rusticated granite porch and flanking Tuscan screens added and interior partly remodelled. Extended to side, c. 1978, comprising four-bay single-storey range. Interior retains timber panelled hall and staircase.
A large, seven-bay, two-storey house over a basement, dating from circa 1700 and renovated circa 1840. It has rendered walls with a slight batter, hipped roof with natural slates, wide eaves with brackets, dormer windows and a pair of stacks in the centre. A screen of Tuscan Doric columns with an enclosed porch of channelled, granite ashlar, was added across the façade in about 1840. The screen has a full entablature and the doorcase is square-headed with a bracketed cornice. The sash windows have six panes in each sash. The interior retains a timber panelled hall and staircase dating from the original building work. The interior was partially remodelled about 1840. A single-storey addition was added to the house in the late 1970s.
Detached five-bay single-storey over raised basement former dower house, c. 1830, on an L-shaped plan with granite columnar projecting porch, segmental-headed panels to window openings, eaves brackets and hipped roof. Remains of detached gate lodge to site. Now in ruins.
Record of Protected structures:
Bennekerry Lodge, townland: Bennekerry.
An early-19th century house of five bays and a single storey over a high basement. It has rendered walls, now covered with creeper, an asymmetrically-placed, granite, Doric porch approached by a tall flight of steps, tall windows, which now have uPVC glazing, wide eaves with paired brackets and a low-pitched, hipped roof with natural slates and a pair of stacks which are set parallel to the façade. The front area is protected by cast-iron railings.
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.
p. 17: “Bennekerry Lodge, the home of the Doyle family, was built by the Newtons [see Dunleckney], whose land ownership in the middle of the last century was just over 4000 acres. [p. 18] The last of the Bagenal family to live at Bennekerry House was Beauchamp Walter Bagenal, who spent his life in the Australian wine trade. It was his brother who lived at Benekerry House from 1930-6, and then moved to South Africa. When Walter Bagenal died in 1952 without an heir, the representation of the family was vested in Hope Bagenal, the well-known London based acoustic architect who died in 1979. It was his father, Philip Bagenal, who wrote the family history The Vicissitudes of an Anglo-Irish Family. The Bagenalstown property was left to Captain J.B. Blackett, a great-nephew. The present head of the family is John S. Bagenal whose career was in the Dept of Agriculture in Kenya, and who now lives near Hertford in England.
Bennekerry House, on 120 acres, was purchased in 1936 for £2000 by solicitor Smauel Roche and his wife, and was sold in the 1950s to Dan Morrissey, founder of the concrete products company to which he gave his name. The house is now owned by his eldest son, Andrew Morrisey.”
Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement house with dormer attic, c. 1700, with hipped roof. Renovated, c. 1840, with rusticated granite porch and flanking Tuscan screens added and interior partly remodelled. Extended to side, c. 1978, comprising four-bay single-storey range. Interior retains timber panelled hall and staircase.
Bennekerry House was inhabited by the Newton family since 1702 when Bryan Newton obtained a lease of it from Bishop Vigors who held it. The Newton family came to Ireland with William III from Lancashire. In 1785 Colonel Philip Newton of Bennekerry married Sarah Westrop Bagenal, sister of Walter Bagenal above-mentioned, and their son, Philip Newton adopted the name Bagenal. Hence it was that the name Bagenal carried on in Bennekerry until 1936 when the property was sold to its present occupant Mr. S. Roche.
Leaving Castle Hill and walking to the left extremity of our triangle we reach Bennekerry House. This in Dineley’s time belonged to William Ewers, Esq., but I have been unable to find any reference to this individual. Bennekerry is of interest to us in being at one time the residence of Walter Bagenal, the last male heir of the Bagenal family. Walter Bagenal died in Staplestown in 1814 and is buried in the local Church. A monument erected to his memory by his widow Elizabeth, and daughter Maria, can still be seen in the church. The monument was probably erected when the new church was built in 1821, or else it was removed from the old church.
BENEKERRY, otherwise BUSHERSTOWN, a parish, in the barony of RATHVILLY (but locally in that of Carlow), county of CARLOW, and province of LEINSTER, 2½ miles (E. N. E.) from Carlow; containing 135 inhabitants. This parish is situated on the road from Carlow to Tullow, and is bounded on the south-west and east by the river Burren: more than four-fifths consists of meadow and pasture land, and the remainder is arable, with a few acres of woodland. In the ecclesiastical divisions it is not regarded as a parish, but as forming part of that of Urglin, the incumbent of which receives the tithes, except of about ten acres, which pay tithe to the incumbent of Ballinacarrig or Staplestown.
Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement house with dormer attic, c. 1700, with hipped roof. Renovated, c. 1840, with rusticated granite porch and flanking Tuscan screens added and interior partly remodelled. Extended to side, c. 1978, comprising four-bay single-storey range. Interior retains timber panelled hall and staircase.
Record of Protected Structures:
The Turrets,
Bennekerry House,
Staplestown
Ruins of a house built about 1660 by Sir William Temple. The ruins consist of two main structures: the first is arched and is built of rubble stone with some brick and the other is a two-storey structure also built of rubble stone. The two structures are no longer connected. There is also a stone wall between them.
The Turrets were replaced by Staplestown Lodge, occupied by Mrs. Ireland up to a recent date, and now owned by Mr. O’Neill. The house is of Elizabethan style and built of granite, which is plentiful in the district. The house has probably been reconstructed and renovated since that time. It was originally occupied by a Mr. Henry Watters, J.P., also of Lincoln’s Inn. He is probably the Mr. Watters who once owned the mill close by.
A seven-bay, two-storey house, dating originally from the early 18th century, and perhaps built for the Newton family, soon after they first rented the estate from Bishop Vigors in 1702; they later acquired the freehold. In about 1840, a single-storey neo-classical addition was built along the whole length of the entrance front, consisting of an enclosed three-bay granite porch in the centre, with a short open colonnade of Doric columns to either side. The dormers in the roof are a 20th century addition. In 1978 a four bay, single-storey wing was added to one side. Inside, the house has a panelled hall and staircase, and one room has an apsed end with a screen of two Grecian Ionic columns, which sounds as though it may also date from c.1840.
Descent: Rt. Rev. Bartholomew Vigors (1644-1721), who leased it to Bryan Newton…John Newton (d. 1748); to son, Bartholomew Newton (d. 1780); to son, John Newton (d. c.1807); to brother, Col. Philip Newton (1770-1833); to second son, Philip Newton (later Bagenal) (1796-1856); to widow, Georgiana Thomasina Bagenal (c.1814-97); given (c.1870?) to son, Beauchamp Frederick Bagenal (1846-1930); to son, Beauchamp Walter Bagenal (1873-1952); sold 1936 to S. Roche…sold to Andrew Morrissey (d. c.2008)…
p. 42 of Jimmy O’Toole:
“Labelled the “Carlow Land War” by the media, its leader was Kathleen Brady of Bennekerry, the daughter of a neighbouring small farmer [neighbour to Myshall Lodge], who was one of the founders of the local land club. The writer Brendan Behan called her the Joan of Arc of the small farmers fight for land in County Carlow, and the land club had an even more important literary ally in another radical of the period, Peader O’Donnell… as a result the Harold syndicate sold Browne Hill House to the Land Commission.”
Irish Historic Houses 