Ardmulchan, Beauparc, Co. Meath
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. 10. [Taaffe; Galvin, sub. Law] “Originally a house of the Taaffe family; bought 1904 by Mrs. F.G. Fletcher (later Mrs R.W. McGrath), who replaced it by an Edwardian mansion to the design of Sidney, Mitchell & Wilson, of Edinburgh; mostly in the plan, gabled and mullioned Tudor manor house style, but with a large Baronial tower, and an English Renaissance doorway: an elaborate confection of coupled Doric columns, a Doric frieze, scroll pediments and heraldic beasts. In recent years, it was the home of Mr & Mrs Riddell-Martin; it in now the home of Mr and Mrs Sean Galvin.”
Not in National Inventory
Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
p. 122
Record of Protected Structures:
Ardmulchan House, townland: Ardmulchan.
Tudor/Scotch baronial style, dated 1904, of red brick with
Dumfries sandstone window dressings and elaborate
renaissance doorcase. Contemporary stables and farmyard.
http://www.navanhistory.ie/index.php?page=church-ruins
Ardmulkin Demesne – Ordnance Survey Fieldname Book 1836
The demesne is situated in the north west part of the townland of Ardmulchan. It is the seat of R. Taafe Esquire. There is a good dwelling house with office houses and a garden. The River Boyne and the Drogheda Canal bounds it to the northwest. It is bounded on the southeast by the road from Navan to Drogheda.
(Photos: © Navan & District Historical Society)
(above) Ardmulchan House viewed from across the river at Dunmoe Castle.
*
Ardmulchan Castle is a Scottish Baronial cum Elizabethan hunting lodge dating to 1904. The house was built for a Scottish landowner, Fitzroy C. Fletcher, who died before the house was completed. Set dramatically high up on the south banks of the river Boyne below Navan the house has been described as a Scotsman’s house in Ireland by Casey and Rowan. The house was built for entertaining with five guest bedrooms and plenty of space for staff. It has a very ornate porch, front door and portico. The house had its own electricity provided by a powerhouse near the river with the front door of the old house was re-used as the door of the powerhouse. The tower of the house with its battlements stores the water tanks. The long internal hall is at right angles to the door with the principal rooms overlooking the Boyne. The hall has high oak panelling. The rooms have plasterwork ceilings created by G. Rome & Co, a firm which practised in Dublin and Glasgow. All the rooms have elaborate chimney pieces and a number have angle nooks.
The Taaffes acquired Ardmulchan in the eighteenth century and erected a plain Georgian style house overlooking the river. The family burial ground is at Ardmulchan cemetery. Taaffe‟s lock on the Boyne Canal commemorates their financial contribution to the canal company.
Fitzroy Charles Fletcher of Angus in Scotland married Frances May Grant, from Australia in 1890. Fletcher enjoyed hunting and regularly visited his friend, Robert Gradwell of Dowth Hall, County Meath. Fletcher rented Slane Castle from the Conynghams for a number of hunting seasons, hunting in Ireland from November to March Fletcher decided to purchase a permanent residence in Ireland. With the assistance of Gradwell he found and purchased Ardmulchan House in 1900. The existing Georgian style house was not suitable for Fletcher’s requirements and he decided to demolish the house and replace it with a hunting lodge.
The architect Fletcher selected was a Scotsman Sidney Mitchell of Edinburgh. Materials and workmen were despatched from Scotland. Lord Aberdeen, the Viceroy, appealed to Fletcher to use Irish craftsmen and materials but to no avail. Apart from some welding on some dog grates the rest of the works was all provided by Scottish workers. The sandstone for the windows was carved from a quarry on Fletcher’s Scottish estate and transported by ship to Drogheda and then by barges along the canal to Ardmulchan. All the materials with the exception of the bricks were also Scottish. Casey and Rowan wrote that Fletcher can hardly have been popular in Meath for importing such a quantity of tradesmen. Fletcher’s poor health forced him to delegate much of the work and decisions to the manager of his Scottish estates, James Stirling.
Construction made good progress but Fletcher died in August 1902. His will provided for £7,000 for the completion of Ardmulchan. His wife Mary Frances was given a life rent of all her husband’s estates. Thomas Fletcher inherited Ardmulchan on the death of his mother. A noted horse breeder and huntsman, Thomas was director of Proudstown Park racecourse, Navan, from its inception in 1921. During the 1930s the house was rented to Sir Alexander Maguire of Maguire and Patterson matches. In 1939 his horse “Workman” won the Grand National, an event celebrated in Navan with an address by the Urban District Council to Sir Alexander. After the Second World War Thomas Fletcher moved across the Boyne to Dunmoe cottage and he died in 1950.
The Fletcher family remained in ownership of Ardmulchan until 1956 when the house and estate were sold to Anthony Riddell Martin and his family. When his young daughter died in she was interred in Ardmulchan cemetery and Riddell Martin had the intervening woods cleared so that the grave and cemetery could be viewed from the house. During the late 1960’s the castle was owned by a German called Von Trapp and the estate was managed by an Englishman Hogarth. In 1973 it was purchased by Sean Galvin as a family home and is still in use as a family home today. Kathleen G. Mac Leman recorded much detail of Ardmulchan in her book; Fitzroy C. Fletcher of Letham Grange and Ardmulchan. A few years ago the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society was graciously allowed to visit the house courtesy of its owners.
SOURCE: meath-roots.com
Ardmulchan Castle is a Scottish Baronial cum Elizabethan hunting lodge dating to 1904. The house was built for a Scottish landowner, Fitzroy C. Fletcher, who died before the house was completed. Set dramatically high up on the south banks of the river Boyne below Navan the house has been described as a Scotsman’s house in Ireland by Casey and Rowan. The house was built for entertaining with five guest bedrooms and plenty of space for staff. It has a very ornate porch, front door and portico. The house had its own electricity provided by a powerhouse near the river with the front door of the old house was re-used as the door of the powerhouse. The tower of the house with its battlements stores the water tanks. The long internal hall is at right angles to the door with the principal rooms overlooking the Boyne. The hall has high oak panelling. The rooms have plasterwork ceilings created by G. Rome & Co, a firm which practised in Dublin and Glasgow. All the rooms have elaborate chimney pieces and a number have angle nooks.
The Taaffes acquired Ardmulchan in the eighteenth century and erected a plain Georgian style house overlooking the river. The family burial ground is at Ardmulchan cemetery. Taaffe’s lock on the Boyne Canal commemorates their financial contribution to the canal company.
Fitzroy Charles Fletcher of Angus in Scotland married Frances May Grant, from Australia in 1890. Fletcher enjoyed hunting and regularly visited his friend, Robert Gradwell of Dowth Hall, co. Meath. Fletcher rented Slane Castle from the Conynghams for a number of hunting seasons, hunting in Ireland from November to March Fletcher decided to purchase a permanent residence in Ireland. With the assistance of Gradwell he found and purchased Ardmulchan House in 1900. The existing Georgian style house was not suitable for Fletcher’s requirements and he decided to demolish the house and replace it with a hunting lodge.
The architect Fletcher selected was a Scotsman Sidney Mitchell of Edinburgh. Materials and workmen were despatched from Scotland. Lord Aberdeen, the Viceroy, appealed to Fletcher to use Irish craftsmen and materials but to no avail. Apart from some welding on some dog grates the rest of the works was all provided by Scottish workers. The sandstone for the windows was carved from a quarry on Fletcher’s Scottish estate and transported by ship to Drogheda and then by barges along the canal to Ardmulchan. All the materials with the exception of the bricks were also Scottish. Casey and Rowan wrote that Fletcher can hardly have been popular in Meath for importing such a quantity of tradesmen.
Fletcher’s poor health forced him to delegate much of the work and decisions to the manager of his Scottish estates, James Stirling. Construction made good progress but Fletcher died in August 1902. His will provided for £7,000 for the completion of Ardmulchan. His wife Mary Frances was given a life rent of all her husband’s estates.
Thomas Fletcher inherited Ardmulchan on the death of his mother. A noted horse breeder and huntsman, Thomas was director of Proudstown Park racecourse, Navan, from its inception in 1921. During the 1930s the house was rented to Sir Alexander Maguire of Maguire and Patterson matches. In 1939 his horse “Workman” won the Grand National, an event celebrated in Navan with an Address by the Urban District Council to Sir Alexander.
After the Second World War Thomas Fletcher moved across the Boyne to Dunmoe cottage and he died in 1950. The Fletcher family remained in ownership of Ardmulchan until 1956 when the house and estate were sold to Anthony Riddell Martin and his family. When his young daughter died in 1952 she was interred in Ardmulchan cemetery and Riddell Martin had the intervening woods cleared so that the grave and cemetery could be viewed from the house.
During the late 1960s the castle was owned by a German called Von Trapp and the estate was managed by an Englishman Hogarth. In 1973 it was purchased by Sean Galvin as a family home and is still in use as a family home today.
Kathleen G. Mac Leman recorded much detail of Ardmulchan in her book ‘Fitzroy C. Fletcher of Letham Grange and Ardmulchan.’ A few years ago the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society was graciously allowed to visit the house courtesy of its owners.
Irish Historic Houses 