Crotto, Kilflynn, Co Kerry
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. 96. “(Ponsonby, sub Bessborough.E/PB) A house built 1669 by a branch of the Ponsonbys descended from Henry Ponsonby, younger brother of Sir John Ponsonby from whom the Earls of Bessborough and other Irish Ponsonbys descend. Of two storeys; entrance front consisting of five bays recessed between projecting wings with one bay forward-facing ends. Steep pediment-gable with lunette window over three centre bas; rusticated window surrounds. In 1705 Rose Ponsonby, the heiress of Crotto, married John Carrique; their descendents bore the additional surname of Ponsonby. Some alterations were carried out ca 1819 by a member of the Carrique Ponsonby family to the design of Sir Richard Morrison, who gave the wings “Elizabethan” gables with coats of arms and tall chimneys; he also added a curvilinear-gabled porch. In other respects, the exterior of the house kept its original character. The estate was sold by the Carrique Ponsonbys 1842. A few years later, the new owner leased the house to Lt Col H.H. Kitchener, whose son, the future Field Marshall Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, spent his boyhood here. Now demolished.”
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.
https://archiseek.com/2013/1669-crotta-house-kilflynn-co-kerry
1669 – Crotta House, Kilflynn, Co. Kerry
Architect: Richard Morrison
Original house of 1669, owned by the Ponsonby family. Additions of 1819 in a Jacobean style to the existing house by Sir Richard Morrison, who added gables and the curvilinear porch. The childhood hode of Lord Kitchener, whose father leased the house from 1850-63. Described as derelict by 1925, the ruins remained until the late 1960s. Now demolished, little remains bar a portion of a wing and the farm buildings.
Detached two-bay single-storey gate lodge with dormer attic, built c. 1850, originally with lancet arch openings to north gable end. Openings later remodelled. Now in use as private house. Pitched slate roof with added cement gable parapets. Random rubble stone walls with fragments of render. Pointed arch blocked openings in north gable and one in south gable. Red brick surrounded to first floor window. Later openings formed in west wall. Remains of rubble stone-built walls, built c. 1850, to south-west possibly originally part of walled garden. Crotto House demolished in latter part of twentieth century.
Irish Historic Houses 