Monthly Archives: June 2025

Comfortable in Every Respect


‘We strongly recommend “Mr Hunter’s Inn, Newarth Bridge” as a most pleasant resting place, from which excursions may be made to Wicklow town, Rosana, Dunran and, above all, “the Devil’s Glen” – where a day may be well spent. Mr Hunter is an adept in the mystery of angling, and likes to accompany his guests to the neighbouring streams, or to Lough Dan…’
From Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, &c. By Mr & Mrs S.C. Hall, Vol.II (1842)
Although recent decades of relative affluence have brought many advantages to Ireland, this has had the effect of obliterating much tangible evidence of the country’s history: the tide of modernity has swept away all in its path. There are now, for example, few commercial establishments that date back much past the late 20th century and even many of these have been given so thorough a make-over that they might only have just opened for business. Which is what makes the survival of Hunter’s Hotel in County Wicklow so precious.





‘At Neweath Bridge we find good post-horses and carriages, at Hunter’s excellent hotel, its proprietor boasting, and justly so, of the entire approbation bestowed upon his admirably-managed establishment by patrons of the highest rank. It is most pleasantly situated on the left bank of the charming and trout-stored Vartry, on the sea-side road leading from Bray to Wicklow…’
From The Tourist’s Illustrated Hand-Book for Ireland (1852)
In the second half of the 17th century, the lands on which Hunter’s Hotel stands were granted by the English crown to Sir Abraham Yarner, elected first President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. The original building is believed to have been a forge, erected next to a ford across the river Vartry, but by the 18th century this had evolved into a post house, known as the Newry Bridge Inn, providing respite for travellers on the road from Dublin to Wexford. The proprietorship of this establishment passed through various hands until 200 years ago when, in 1825, a young couple called John and Catherine Hunter, obtained a lease on the inn, stable yard and seven acres of garden from its then-freeholder, Henry Tighe of nearby Ballinapark. John Hunter had been butler to the Tottenhams of Ballycurry while his wife had hitherto worked for the same family as housekeeper. The extensive and appropriate experience they brought to their new role as innkeepers served them well, since, as can be read, they were soon receiving favourable reviews from visitors to the area.





‘Leaving Glendalough not much later than six 0’clock in the afternoon, the tourist may be at the Killoughter, or Newrath-bridge station of the Wicklow railway in time for the last up-train for which, should he be late, he will consider himself by no means unfortunate in being thereby thrown into one of the most comfortable hotels in the county, “Hunter’s Newrath-bridge Hotel”, on leaving which he will no doubt confirm the testimony we have just received from a tourist friend lately sojourning there-”My experience sojourning there was comfortable in every respect, landlord most obliging, servants a pattern of civility and attention”.’
From Dublin: What’s to be Seen and How to See It, with Excursions by W.F. Wakeman (1853)
Two hundred years after John and Catherine Hunter assumed responsibility for the Newrath Bridge Inn, their descendants remain in charge of the premises, a rare example of uninterrupted ownership in this country. Likewise, relatively little has changed either inside the hotel or outside in the gardens, both of which attest to the value of continuity. With its low ceilings, thick walls and antique furnishings, Hunter’s Hotel still retains the charm of an old coaching inn, one in which generations of guests have enjoyed generous hospitality from the proprietors. That’s a difficult thing both to acquire and to maintain, and one that more modern establishments can’t hope to realise. Continuity of character is hard to find in contemporary Ireland. Winning accolades since 1825, long may Hunter’s Hotel remain unchanged.


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Upon Entry



After Monday’s post about the main house at Woodbrook, County Laois, here are the the south gate lodge and gate screen into the estate. The lodge itself is a curious structure which may, or may not, have been designed by James Shiel at the same time as he was coming up with proposals for the house. The facade is dominated by an substantial ashlar pediment with window beneath, the latter flanked by deep recesses, one of which has a door into the building. So generous are the recesses that the pediment has to be supported by a pair of slender iron columns. The gate screen itself, of limestone ashlar and wrought iron, is more standardised with its piers, quadrant walls and arched niches in the outer sections. Here also is an old milestone advising that Dublin lies 47 miles distant.



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Making A Swift Connection



The name Woodbrook has been given to a number of houses in different parts of Ireland, and the natural assumption would be that it derives from the property having once had a brook in woodland. In the case of Woodbrook, County Laois, however, it combines the second syllable of original owner Knightley Chetwood’s surname along with the first syllable of that of his wife Hester Brooking: hence Woodbrook. An article written by Walter Strickland and published in the Journal of the Archaeological Society of the County of Kildare in 1918 provides a detailed account of the origins of the Chetwood family and their arrival in Ireland following the restoration of Charles II in 1660. There is some uncertainty as to how Knightly Chetwood, whose family had been impoverished English gentry, managed to acquire the lands in County Laois on which Woodbrook now stands: Strickland proposes that it may have come to him via his spouse, but without being able to say precisely how this should have been the case. In any case, some years after the couple’s marriage in August 1700, despite living contentedly in County Meath, he embarked on a project to build a residence on his midland’s property, albeit with some reluctance: at one stage he implored a friend to find him another house in Meath, since otherwise he would be condemned to ‘go and live in a bog in a far off country.’ Indeed, being as Strickland says ‘an uncompromising Tory,’ following the accession of George I in 1714, Chetwood found it best to live, if not in a bog then certainly in a far-off country, spending a number of years in mainland Europe before returning to Ireland around 1721 when he took an oath of allegiance to the Hanoverian monarch and abjured the Stuart pretender. It may have only been after this time that serious work commenced on the house at Woodbrook.





We know more about the early development of the Woodbrook estate than would usually be the case thanks to surviving correspondence between Knightley Chetwood and Dean Swift, who not only provided its proprietor with advice but visited the place on a number of occasions. There was likely some kind of residence already on the site, not least because Chetwood was able to write letters from there even before his new house had been built. Strickland cites a note from Swift to his host dated 6th November 1714 and composed when he had arrived at Woodbrook to find the Chetwoods away from home. The following month, after the dean’s departure, Chetwood informed him, ‘This place I hate since you left it.’ Swift is believed to have been responsible for planting a grove of beech trees close to the house, although these were cut down in 1917 for sale to the then-Government. The two men also make regular reference to an area of the estate called the ‘Dean’s field.’ Once Chetwood returned from his self-imposed exile and turned his attention to erecting a new house, Swift’s opinion was again sought, the dean recommending in June 1731, ‘I can only advise you to ask advice, to go on slowly and to have your house on paper before you put it into lime and stone.’ Unfortunately, it was around this time that the friendship of almost twenty years came to an end. Chetwood seems to have had a tricky, volatile character. He had already become estranged from his wife, husband and wife formally separating in 1725, and he was inclined to find himself embroiled in rows on a regular basis: that he and Swift should fall out accordingly seems to have been inevitable. Chetwood died in London in 1752 and Woodbrook then passed to his elder surviving son, Valentine but since he spent most of his life out of Ireland, it was the younger son Crewe Chetwood who stayed in Laois. The next generation, Jonathan Cope Chetwood, did live at Woodbrook from the time he inherited the property in 1771 until his own death in 1839. As he had no immediate heir, the estate went sideways passing to Edward Wilmost, a great-grandson of Crewe Chetwood, who duly took the additional surname of Chetwood. However, following the death during the Boer War of Edward Wilmot-Chetwood, Woodbrook passed to another branch of the family, being inherited by Major Harold Chetwood-Aiken; his widow lived there until 1965 when what remained of the estate was taken over by the Land Commission. 





The evolution of the house now standing at Woodbrook is complex, even by Irish standards. The original building commissioned by Knightley Chetwood can be seen in a pencil drawing reproduced in Strickland’s 1918 article and shows the long east-facing entrance front, seemingly single-storey but with two-storeys visible to one side and dominated by a great doorcase beneath a steeply-pitched roof. A 1770 ground floor survey is described by Colum O’Riordan in House and Home as depicting ‘a vaguely L shaped building with an indeterminate number of accretions around an older core.’ Much of this structure appears to have been damaged or destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century, after which Jonathan Cope Chetwood undertook extensive alterations to the house, not least the addition of a new neo-classical entrance front facing south. Designed c.1815 by James Shiel, it included a spacious hall off which opened drawing and dining rooms. The older part of the building contained the library and staircase, and, beyond these, service quarters including a double-height kitchen one wall of which was filled with a great dresser and above which, according to Strickland, were painted the words ‘BE CLEANLY. HAVE TASTE. HAVE PLENTY. NO WASTE.’ Later in the 19th century, further changes took place, not least in the drawing room where the walls were covered with 15 murals representing scenes of the Scottish Highlands: still extant (although some are currently undergoing restoration), they were painted in 1840 by artist David Ramsay Hay, commissioned by Lady Jane Erskine, daughter of the 25th/8th Earl of Mar and wife of  Edward Wilmot-Chetwood, as reminders of her native country. At some unknown date, a five-storey polygonal tower was added towards the rear of the house on the east side.
Alas, the later decades of the last century were not kind to Woodbrook. All the ancient trees, not least those lining the avenue to the house, were all cut down in 1969. The lake to the immediate east, created by Jonathan Cole Chetwood, also suffered devastation causing the loss of what was said to have been the largest heronry in the country. Then, in the 1970s, the owners of the house demolished almost all of what had stood behind Shiel’s early 19th century extension, everything that had remained from the original building constructed by Knightley Chetwood, along with the great kitchen and the polygonal tower. This strangely truncated property somehow survived until the present century when another owner ambitiously reconstructed the sections that had been reduced to rubble just a few decades earlier. In consequence, at least on the exterior, Woodbrook looks much as it did when still occupied by the last members of the Chetwood family. Just under two years ago, the house and surrounding lands changed hands once more, and the current owners have embarked on an ambitious and admirable programme of restoration and restitution, with thousands of trees being planted, the lake being brought back to life and the surrounding lands improved. Similar considerate work is taking place inside the building so that in due course Woodbrook will once again take its place among County Laois’s finest country houses. It’s always thrilling to visit a property which is undergoing renewal, and the owners of Woodbrook deserve all the applause and support they can get. 


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Larkin’ about




What survives of the little parish church of Ballylarkin, County Kilkenny, its name derived from the Irish Baile Uí Lorcáin meaning Town of Ó Lorcáins (they being the family who initially controlled this part of the country). The building is believed to date from the 13th century but inside on the south wall is a later piscina and a triple sedilia probably inserted in the 14th century. 




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Sacred Origin and Pious Association


‘From childhood it has been my fortune to see, many times, as fine a specimen of a round tower as time and the ravages of man allowed to remain in our midst. It was situated at a remote village, called Kilbannon, distant some three miles from the ancient archiepiscopal town of Tuam. Standing at the northern side of a little graveyard and upon a perfectly level plain, it is visible for miles round. Near it are the ruins of an old Dominican monastery or nunnery (for it is variously described in old annals)…The name of the place, “Kilbannon”, is indicative of its sacred origin and pious association ; and tradition ascribes to the ruins the fame of a Saint Bennan, who is supposed to have been a disciple of Jarlath, the first Bishop of Tuam, after whom that See was called in ecclesiastical history. St. Jarlath was believed to have been an intimate follower of the glorious Apostle himself, and we may note, that but a few short miles, as the crow flies, from the Church of Bennan was the illustrious school of Cluan-fois, otherwise Cloonfush, founded by St. Jarlath, and in his time and long after known as “the mother of many memorable missionaries”.’
From ‘The Round Tower of Kilbannon’ by Richard J. Kelly, The Irish Monthly, Vol.14, 1886




‘There is a pillar tower at Kilbennan, near Taam. Before the young Bishop Benignus, or Bennin, had come to the territory of Conmaicne, or Tuam, in the Barony of Dunmore, the place now called Kilbannon had been known by the name Dun-Lugaidh, i.e., Louis’s Fortress. When St. Benignus, in company with St Patrick, had come from Donach Patrick to Dun-Lugaidh, it is said that the saint dug a fountain, in the waters of which he baptized nine lepers, who became instantly healed of their leprosy. Niatha, the chieftain of that district, and all his followers and clients, and all the people of the entire country of Conmaicne — St. Jarlath’s cousins, himself and his father and relatives — were baptized in that fountain. That well, or fountain, is to be seen to this day at Kilbennan. Its waters gush forth from the foot of the Round Tower which to this hour is to be seen. Two things remain to this day to confirm the truth of the historical event — first, the “Dun” or pillar tower of Lughaidh ; second, the fountain gushing forth at its foot. At the time, say, A.D. 440, the Dun existed, it was the fortified home of the chieftain Xiatha.’
From The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language by the Rev. Ulick J. Bourke (1875)




‘Kilbannon: Sometimes called Ballygaddy, which is the name of the townland and bridge adjoining the site, is situated two miles N. W. from Tuam Railway Station. The Round Tower still remains, to the height of about forty-five feet. It is broken away on one side, but the doorway is nearly perfect, being of the ordinary form, round-headed, and with inclining jambs. The Church adjoining is a rude early Christian building. No vestiges of genuine antiquity have come under my observation, save the Round Tower, which is associated with the name of St. Bunaun-one of three brothers; another, St. Bernaun, being the reputed founder of Knockmoy.’
From The Towers and Temples of Ancient Ireland by Marcus Keane (1867) 


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A Philanthropist’s Bequest



The 19th century philanthropist Charles Sheils has appeared here before, in relation to the almshouses built according to the terms of his will in Dungannon, County Tyrone (see In Demand « The Irish Aesthete). Sheils spent the greater part of his life in Liverpool where he amassed a fortune through involvement with a trans-Atlantic mercantile partnership. On his death in 1861, as his will explained ‘I propose building alms houses…to relieve as many as I can of those who from their former lives are entitled to a better provision in old age than the Workhouse.’ The first of these were built in his native village of Killough, County Down, designed by Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon and incorporating a U-shaped terrace with belltower and superintendent’s residence. Further terraces in the same style were added in 1883 (by William Henry Lynn, formerly of Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon, who also came from this part of the country) and 1912 (by Young and McKenzie), so that eventually there were 31 units. By the start of the present century, the complex had fallen into disrepair, with a third of the houses in a derelict state. Fortunately in 2013 a £3 million programme of restoration began, assisted by a number of governmental and private bodies, and in 2021 the project won an Angel Heritage Award. Today the complex continues to serve the same purpose intended by Charles Sheils.



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This Beautiful Mansion


In May 1610 John Brownlow of Nottingham was granted by the English government some 1,500 acres of land to the south of Lough Neagh, undertaking to settle a number of English families in this area. Within a year, the Brownlows had begun building two bawns having brought over six carpenters, one mason, a tailor and workmen and by 1619, Nicholas Pynnar could report that there now stood a ‘fair Town, consisting of 42 Houses, all of which are inhabited with English Families, and the streets all paved clean through also to water Mills, and a Wind Mill, all for corn.’ This urban settlement came to be known as Lurgan and was to remain the Brownlows’ base for several centuries although, like many other settlers, they were temporarily displaced during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and their castle and bawn destroyed. Nevertheless, the family then returned to Lurgan and appear to have rebuilt the castle which, with various alterations and additions, continued to be occupied by them until in the early 1830s it was replaced by a new house. In the meantime, both the Brownlows and Lurgan prospered, the latter becoming a major centre for the development of Ulster’s linen industry: in 1708 Samuel Molyneux, on a visit to the town described it as being ‘at present the greatest mart of Linen Manufactories in the North, being almost entirely peopled with Linnen Weavers.’ Meanwhile, successive generations of Brownlows served as MPs for the area. Charles Brownlow succeeded to the estates in 1815 and continued to represent the constituency until 1832 when he lost his seat. It has been suggested that this may have been due to his advocacy of Catholic Emancipation and the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, neither popular stances in a fiercely Protestant part of the country. Perhaps as a consolation, he then embarked on constructing what is now known as Brownlow House, commissioning its design from Scottish architect William Henry Playfair. He was also created first Baron Lurgan in 1839. 






Ulster possesses a superfluity of country houses designed in the Tudor/Jacobethan manner but perhaps none display quite the same exuberance as Brownlow House, the exterior faced in red sandstone shipped over from Ardrossan in North Ayrshire. The house incorporates parts of its predecessor to the west and south west but the main block is of Playfair’s design, the entrance front having angled sides to form an irregular forecourt distinguished by a multiplicity of kneelered gables above which rise chimneystacks each carved with different motifs. In the midst of these and projecting forward between canted bay windows, is a door into the building. Behind and climbing above the facade can be seen one of the house’s most unusual features: an ogee domed tower set diagonally and decorated with ornamental panels on each side. The former garden front to the east, now overlooking an expanse of tarmacadam, comprises a further series of steep gables and canted bays, in the midst of which can be seen a Tudor-arched opening with the cipher of William Brownlow and his second wife Jane McNeill, together with the date 1833. The north side has another shallow courtyard with a long, two-storey wing to the west: this originally contained the family apartments. In August 1966 Brownlow House was badly damaged in an arson attack and the former family wing remains unrestored, although plans were presented last year for its refurbishment as a wedding and conference venue. 






The interior of Brownlow House is more restrained than might be expected from its exterior. The main reception rooms are on the first floor and reached by a narrow mural staircase, at the top of which is a small anteroom. This opens into the central chamber of the building, an octagonal saloon, the panels of its walls painted to imitate marble competing with gilded overdoors in the Louis Quatorze manner and a white marble chimneypiece likewise French in style. Here, as elsewhere, the flat ceilings are covered with strapwork in a variety of patterns. None of the other reception rooms is so elaborately decorated, but at least in part this may be as a result of reconstruction in the aftermath of the 1966 fire: both the original staircase of carved oak and adjacent stained glass window were completely destroyed and have since had to be replaced, as well seemingly as a number of the house’s contents. It is difficult now to imagine the house in its heyday. In 1863, John Ynyr Burges of Parkanaur, Co. Tyrone (see Without Any Debt « The Irish Aesthete) paid a visit and noted in his diary, ‘The interior of this beautiful mansion is wonderfully arranged. The furniture and fitting-up is most costly, the dinner exquisite and the whole establishment in excellent order.’ However, the Brownlows were not to enjoy their splendid property for long. The disposal of much of the estate and heavy indebtedness meant that in 1893 they had to sell the house and surrounding land, which was then bought by the Lurgan Real Property Company Ltd, before being sold on 10 years later to Lurgan Loyal Orange District Lodge, which owns it still and opens the main reception rooms to visitors, with the former dining room now a public tea room. Meanwhile, the 18th century landscaped demesne was sold to the local district council for £2,000 and is now a public park. 

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Salvaged



Dating from c.1796-1801, St Mary’s Church in Johnstown, County Kilkenny is typical of the form such buildings took at the period, aided by support from the Board of First Fruits. Of three bays with windows on the south side but none on the north and the entrance through a tower at the west end, it conforms to type except for two features, one being the aforementioned door and the other being the window at the east end. Both of these are late-medieval and believed to have come from another church a few miles away at Fertagh. This had been the site of an Augustinian priory and, after the Reformation, served as a parish church for the Church of Ireland. When that building’s roof collapsed in 1780, it was abandoned and then the present church built in Johnstown. Below are a couple of early memorials found on the east wall, one of them to John Hely of nearby Foulkscourt, who had been responsible for developing the village in the 1770s.



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A Convenient House of Lime and Stone



Originally from Ayrshire, the first Conynghams arrived in Ireland at some date in the early 17th century and by the time of the outbreak of the Confederate Wars in 1641, the family owned property in the cities of Armagh and Derry, along with lands in both their counties and Tyrone. In 1653, Colonel William Conyngham, one of the Commonwealth commissioners in County Armagh during and after this tumultuous period, bought for £200 ‘the town, village, hamlet, place, baliboe or parcel of land called Ballydrum in the parish of Ardtra’ in County Derry, running to 350 acres. There may have been a pre-existing house of some kind already on this property, but if so it was replaced by another constructed by the colonel’s son, likewise called William and remembered as ‘Good Will’. In 1680 he had married 16 year old Anne Upton of Castle Upton, County Antrim and under the terms of the couple’s wedding settlement had agreed to provide his wife with ‘a convenient house of lime and stone, two stories high with necessary office houses.’ This became known as Springhill, its name derived from a nearby spring.






Springhill is a rare example of a 17th century Ulster Planter’s house which has survived to the present. When first constructed, presumably not long after the marriage of William and Anne Conyngham, the building was, as agreed by the terms of the settlement, of two storeys with rough-cast walls and slate roof, although the door was then off-centre and the canted bay wings did not exist. However, the two freestanding outbuildings placed at 90 degrees on either side of the main house do date from this first period. Thereby creating a forecourt, that to the left was occupied by senior staff and behind it was a yard holding turf shed, brew house, laundry and slaughter house, with enclosed gardens beyond. That to the right provided accommodation for other workers on the estate, the ground behind it sloping down to another pair of yards containing stables and, at furthest remove, a dovecote. William and Anne Conyngham had no direct heir, so when he died in 1721, the property here passed to a nephew, George Butle who duly assumed his uncle’s surname. The son of a Belfast merchant, he appears to have made no changes to the house, unlike his son William who around 1770 added wings to the house, that to the left being used as a nursery, that to the right a drawing/ballroom. As had been the case earlier in the century, he died in 1784 without a son to inherit, so Springhill passed to his younger brother David but, following his own death four years later, the estate was inherited once more by a nephew, George Lenox who chose to hyphenate his name, becoming Lenox-Conyngham. His son, William Lenox-Conynham, made further alterations to the house, adding a dining room in 1820, the year after his marriage to Charlotte Staples of Lissan, County Tyrone (see Barefoot but Battling « The Irish Aesthete). Three more generations of the family owned Springhill until, shortly before his death in 1957, Captain William Lowry Lenox-Conyngham passed responsibility for the property to the National Trust, although his mother Mina Lenox-Conyngham continued to live there until her own death four years later: she is remembered for writing An Old Ulster House, a detailed history of Springhill and its owners. 






As mentioned, Springhill is notable for being the best preserved example of a 17th century Planter house in Ulster, despite the later additions. Fortunately the Conynghams and then Lenox-Conynghams seem to have thrown nothing away, and therefore the interiors retain almost all their original appearance and contents, another rarity. It is not difficult to distinguish the period in which each room was constructed, since they then underwent little alteration. To the front, there are three main rooms, centred on the entrance hall, behind which rises a staircase with yew banisters and oak treads. To the left of the hall is a study, originally the parlour. In the 19th century, when alterations were being made to the house, this room was given oak panelling but after the National Trust assumed responsibility for the building and undertook restoration work, English hand-blocked paper was discovered still intact on the walls. Also here are a number of antique firearms, including a long gun presented to Alderman James Lenox after the Siege of Derry. To the right of the hall was the former dining room, turned into a library in the 19th century when the bookcases were installed here; as elsewhere, the contents – some 3,000 volumes collected over two and a half centuries – remained when Springhill became a National Trust property. Beyond lies the high-ceilinged drawing room of the 1770s and behind that the dining room added half a century later. Although some alterations to the property have been made (a 19th century smoking room, for example, was demolished by the NT in the aftermath of it assuming responsibility) Springhill better conveys the evolution of an historic house and its various residents than many others open to the public. As Mina Lenox-Conyngham wrote in An Old Ulster House, even the trees in the surrounding demesne ‘could tell many a tale of the nine generations of the family who have walked beneath their shade and have talked together of interests and projects, fears and misgivings for the dear old home whose spell must have twined itself around their hearts.’ 



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