Newtown Park, Blackrock, Dublin

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. 226. “Close/LGI1937 supp; Mainwaring-Burton/IFR; Maguire, sub Corballis/IFR) A late C-18 bow-ended house of two storeys over basement. Entrance front of three bays, centre bay breaking forward with later single-storey portico of coupled Corinthian columns. Five bay garden front, centre by breaking forward with Wyatt windows. Very sophisticated plan; circular entrance hall, oval central room with Adamesque ceiling incorporating painted oval. Possibly designed under influence of James Gandon; Ralph Ward, Surveyor-General of Ordnance, who lived here before his death 1788, having been the patron of Gandon’s friend, William Ashford, 1^st President of the royal Hibernian Academy. It could equally well, however, be an early work of Richard Morrison, having a likeness to several of his villas. In 1792, Alexander Crookshank, the Judge, was living here; in 1805 it was the house of John Armit, a wealthy Army agent and bankder who was Sec of the Ordnance Board, Sold 1839 to H.S. Close; passed by inheritance from the Closes to the Burton family. Bought 1946 by Senator Edward McGuire, who had a notable collection of C17 and C18 European paintings here; and who sold it 1976.”