Category Archives: Architectural History

Kindly Regarded Here


Writing about follies more than 70 years ago, illustrator and author Barbara Jones described these structures as ‘built for pleasure, and pleasure is personal, difficult to define. Follies are fashionable or frantic, built to keep up with the neighbours, or built from obsession. They are at once cheerful and morbid, both an ornament for a gentleman’s grounds and a mirror for his mind.’ When Jones’s Follies and Grottoes first appeared in 1953, little had been written about the subject but by the time a revised and enlarged edition was published in 1974, follies were much studied and appreciated. That updated work also contained a gazetteer of follies, including those in Ireland, with Jones commenting that Irish examples were ‘better preserved than they would be in England, for follies are kindly regarded here, and few heave a brick at them.’ Jones’s list was quite patchy, but since then, architect James Howley has published his invaluable The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland (1993), so now there is an abundance of information about where to find most, if not quite all, of them in this country. Herewith today, three examples of the genre. 





Coming into the coastal town of Ardglass, County Down from the south, the visitor’s eye is caught by a small gothic structure high on a hill. Now in the middle of a housing estate, this is Isabella’s Tower, a two storey construction, measuring 27 feet high and 18 feet wide. The first level is octagonal with one door and one window. A staircase, now gone, led to an upper floor which is circular with four windows. It was built in 1851 by Aubrey William Beauclerk (1801-1854) for his daughter, Isabella, who was suffering from tuberculosis, so that she could enjoy the bracing air coming from the Irish Sea. Evidently, this did the job as Isabella survived, marrying a sergeant-major from Corfu in 1867. The tower later served as a coastguard station, before the surrounding land was gradually sold off and it now stands neglected, a prey to vandalism.





The main house at Monksgrange, County Wexford was originally built in 1769 (see Monksgrange « The Irish Aesthete) but with only the north quadrant and wind completed. Towards the end of the 18th century, work began on construction of a southern wind but then the 1798 Rebellion erupted and the Richards family, who owned the property, fled to England, only returning some 20 years later. Subsequently plans for the southern wing were abandoned but the stones on the site reused to construct a folly in the gardens behind the house. Dating from 1822, this takes the form of a miniature castle, of two storeys with arched gothic doorcase and windows below a battlemented roofline.





Barbara Jones proposed that in country house gardens there is difference between temples and follies, the former being generally classical in style, the latter gothic. But she also insisted that ‘there is a difference of mood; a temple is an ornament, a folly is glass, and bones and a hank of weeds.’ Her argument fails to withstand scrutiny, since the essence of a folly lies in its name, because whatever the style of architecture employed, its purpose is essentially decorative rather than functional. This is certainly the case with one of the country’s more recent follies: the temple at Altamont, County Carlow (see Developments Awaited « The Irish Aesthete). The building was erected by Corona North in 1998, shortly before she died and constructed of local granite with six Doric columns supporting a domed roof. The temple is beautifully situated at the topmost point of a field to the rear of the house offering eastward views towards the distant Wicklow Mountains. 


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Something of a Rarity



Originally from Yorkshire, in 1657 Montifort Westropp settled in Limerick city and three years later was comptroller of the port there. Subsequently he purchased various parcels of land in Co. Clare where he held the office of High Sheriff in 1674 and 1690, as well as being appointed a Commissioner for the county by an Act of Irish Parliament in 1697. Following his death the following year, several of his sons continued to prosper: one son, also called Montifort – a forebear of the antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp – purchased the Attyflin estate near Patrickswell, County Limerick from the Chichester House Commissioners in 1703, and the same year, another son, Thomas Westropp bought an estate in the same county at Ballysteen. Some kind of castle or tower house evidently stood here, but it was replaced by the present building in the last quarter of the 18th century, perhaps by the original Thomas’s grandson (also called Thomas) who died in 1789.





Following Thomas Westropp’s death in 1789, the Ballysteen estate was inherited by his only surviving son, General John Westropp. However, when he died in 1825 without issue, Ballysteen reverted to one of the children of his sister Sara who in 1775 had married Colonel Thomas Odell of Ballingarry, County Limerick. The couple’s third son, Edmond, duly inherited his uncle’s estate and changed his name to Westropp. His grandson Edward also had no son but two daughters, one of whom, Elizabeth, in 1942 married Maurice Talbot, son of the Dean of Cashel and himself, from 1954, Dean of Limerick. Ballysteen was in due course inherited by the present generation of the family who have, for the first time in its history, offered the property for sale. 





As seen today, Ballysteen is a two-storey, five-bay house, with east-facing rendered facade and a west-facing, four-bay garden front, as well as lower two-storey wings on either side of the main block. Internally, the house appears to have been last undergone alterations around 1820, or perhaps soon after 1825 when it was inherited by Edmond Odell Westropp. To the front, much of the space is taken up by a substantial, three-bay entrance hall, with the staircase in an adjacent area to the immediate north. Behind the entrance are the two principal reception rooms, drawing and dining, and all three have white marble chimneypieces typical of the late-18th/early 19th century. They also retain some mahogany furniture from the same period: the dining room, for example, has a pair of arched niches each of which holds an identical buffet with slender spiral twist legs, while the entrance hall has a pair of bookcases with similar decorative detail, suggesting they all came from the same workshop at the same time. A sitting room/library is accommodated in the south wing while the kitchen, pantry, scullery and so forth, together with the service staircase, can be found in its northern equivalent. Upstairs are six bedrooms, some with dressing rooms. Thanks to being left unaltered for so long, Ballysteen retains the appearance and character of an Irish country house once widespread but today something of a rarity. One must hope that whoever is fortunate to acquire the property, while updating some of the facilities, retains that wonderful character. It is too precious to lose.



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The Heavy Hand is Uppermost




After last Friday’s text about the Massy mausoleum in the graveyard of Ardagh, County Limerick (Blessed are the Dead « The Irish Aesthete), here is another such monument in the same site. In this instance, it commemorates William Smith O’Brien, one of the key figures in the Young Ireland movement who, following a failed armed uprising in 1848, was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), although pardoned and permitted to return to his native country in 1856. Erected the year after O’Brien’s death in 1864, the mausoleum was designed by Limerick-born architect William Fogerty in the Hiberno-Romanesque style. It contains the remains not just of O’Brien but also his wife Lucy Caroline Gabbett, who predeceased him, and the couple’s eldest son Edward William O’Brien, described on an inscription  as “A Just Man, Lover of His People.” Above the cast-iron panelled door can be seen the O’Brien coat of arms carved in sandstone. The chevron pattern mouldings above the door are supported by Connemara marble columns, and note how the outermost limestone arch concludes in balls of shamrocks. Inside the tympanum is O’Brien’s motto,  ‘Is laidir an lamh in uachtair’ (The heavy hand is uppermost) Sandstone and limestone are also employed in alternate bands around the rest of the building, with a series of blind arches on three sides.




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Sweet Innisfallen


‘Innisfallen, it is paying no great compliment to say it is the most beautiful in the king’s dominions, and perhaps in Europe. It contains twenty acres of land, and has every variety that the range of beauty, unmixed with the sublime, can give. The general feature is that of wood; the surface undulates into swelling hills, and sinks into little vales; the slopes are in every direction, the declivities die gently away, forming those slight inequalities which are the greatest beauty of dressed grounds. The little valleys let in views of the surrounding lake between the hills, while the swells break the regular outline of the water, and give to the whole an agreeable confusion. The wood has all the variety into which nature has thrown the surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall timber, under which cattle feed. Here they open, as if to offer to the spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to forbid a more prying examination. Trees of large size and commanding figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side the lake glitters among the trees, and on the other a thick gloom dwells in the recesses of the wood. The figure of the island renders one part a beautiful object to another; for the coast being broken and indented, forms bays surrounded either with rock or wood: slight promontories shoot into the lake, whose rocky edges are crowned with wood. These are the great features of Innisfallen; the slighter touches are full of beauties easily imagined by the reader. Every circumstance of the wood, the water, the rocks, and lawn, are characteristic, and have a beauty in the assemblage from mere disposition. I must, however, observe that this delicious retreat is not kept as one could wish…as to what might be made of the island, if its noble proprietor (Lord Kenmare) had an inclination, it admits of being converted into a terrestrial paradise; lawning with the intermixture of other shrubs and wood, and a little dress, would make it an example of what ornamented grounds might be, but which not one in a thousand is. Take the island, however, as it is, with its few imperfections, and where are we to find such another? What a delicious retreat! an emperor could not bestow such a one as Innisfallen; with a cottage, a few cows, and a swarm of poultry, is it possible that happiness should refuse to be a guest here?
From A Tour in Ireland, with general observations on the present state of that kingdom in 1776–78, by Arthur Young (London, 1780) 





‘Innisfallen Island, about half-way between the east and the west shores of the lake [Lough Leane], is interesting on account of the historical associations connected with it, the charm thrown around it by the poetry of Moore, and more especially for its own exceeding beauty. Of all islands it is perhaps the most delightful.
The island appears from the lake or the adjoining shore to be densely covered with magnificent timber and gigantic evergreens, but upon landing, the interior of the island will be found to afford a variety of scenery well worthy of a visit — beautiful glades and lawns, embellished by thickets of flowering shrubs and evergreens, amongst which the arbutus and hollies are conspicuous for their size and beauty. Many of the timber trees are oaks, out the greater number are magnificent old ash trees of remarkable magnitude and luxuriance of growth.
The Abbey, whose ruins are near the landing-place, is believed to have been founded about 650 by St. Finian, to whom the cathedral of Aghadoe was dedicated. In the east end are two lancet windows, which, with this gable, have been recently re- stored. A little away to the right is the small “Romanesque” church standing by itself. The round-headed West doorway, with remains of well-carved mouldings, is, architecturally, the best thing on the island, and may date back as far as the 11th century. ”Quiet, innocent, and tender is that lovely spot,” wrote the delighted Thackeray after his visit in 1842.’
From Black’s Guide to Killarney and the South of Ireland by Adam and James Black (Edinburgh, 1876)





‘Moore has sung the praises of this island in the following lines :
“Sweet Innisfallen, fare thee well,
May calm and sunshine long be thine!
How fair thou art let others tell
To feel how fair shall long be mine.
Sweet Innisfallen, long shall dwell
In memory’s dream that sunny smile,
Which o’er thee on that evening fell,
When first I saw thy fairy isle.”
Innisfallen Abbey is supposed to have been founded by St. Finan about the year 600. The ruins lie scattered about the island. The celebrated ” Annals of Innisfallen ” were composed here by two monks. This work, which is among the earliest records of Irish history, was written on parchment. The original manuscript, containing fifty-seven quarto leaves, is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; but it was preserved for several centuries in the Abbey of Innisfallen. It contains a History of the World down to the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland in the year 432, and from that period it is a History of Ireland down to 1320. There are several copies of the work in existence, one of which is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. From many passages in these Annals we learn that the monks did not seem to have enjoyed their little isle altogether unmolested in the so-called “good old times.” In one place we read thus: — “Anno 11 80. This Abbey of Innisfallen being ever esteemed a paradise and a secure sanctuary, the treasure and the most valuable effects of the whole county were deposited in the hands of the clergy ; notwithstanding which, we find the abbey was plundered in this year by Mildwin, son of Daniel O’Donoghue. Many of the clergy were slain, and even in their cemetery by the McCarthys. But God soon punished this act of impiety and sacrilege, by bringing many of its authors to an untimely end”.’ From Souvenir of the lakes of Killarney and Glengariff published by T Nelson & Sons (London, 1892)


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Blessed are the Dead



Following last Monday’s entry about Glenville, County Limerick, here in a nearby graveyard is the Massy Mausoleum, dating from 1864 although Eyre Massy, whose remains it holds, only died five years later. The limestone mausoleum also contains the remains of Charles Massy, who had emigrated to Australia (where his descendants still live). On the south side, below the Massy coat of arms, is a sarcophagus in raised relief on which is inscribed a quotation from the Book of Revelation, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in Christ/from henceforth yea saith the Spirit/That they may rest from their labours/and their works do follow them.’


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Once Sumptuous


Buttevant: ‘It is called in the Ecclesiastical books Bothon; by the Irish and Spencer, Kilnemullagh; and was formerly an antient corporation, being once governed by a mayor and aldermen; but by the wars it has gone to decay; ‘tis said to have suffered greatly by the last plague in Ireland. There are still to be seen the remains of a wall that surrounded the town; in this place are the remains of the once sumptuous abbey of Buttevant, founded by David de Barry (who lies buried therein) in the reign of Edw. 1st. He was lord justice of Ireland, and his tomb remains in the choir, opposite the great altar. The walls of the choir, with the nave of the church and several other buildings remain entire; also the steeple, which is a high square erected on a large gothic arch. To the S. is St Mary’s Chapel, in which are several tombs of antient Irish families; on the N.W. side of the abbey stands a ruined tower, said to have been erected by an earl of Desmond, who retired here; ‘tis called Cullin. On each side of the W. entrance of the abbey, are large piles of skulls, which some say were brought thither after the Battle of Knocknanoise, which was fought but five miles from hence.’
From Topographia Hibernica: or the Topography of Ireland, Antient and Modern, by Wm. Wenman Seward (Dublin, 1795)





‘To the south is St Mary’s Chapel, in which are several tombs of ancient Irish families, viz the Barrys, Magners, Fitz-Geralds, Prendergasts, O’Callaghans, Donegans, Meads, Dowlings, and Healys. In this chapel are the remains of an altar, and two others in the nave of the church, on each side of the choir, in which are other tombs of the Barrys, Nagles, Lombards and Supples; also, one of a later date, of Mr. Richard Morgan, who died October 15, 1748, in the 107th year of his age. This man lived above 70 years at Castle-Pooky, near Doneraile; he had been clerk of the crown and peace for this county, in king James’s time, never eat salt with his meat, and died with no other complaint than the mere effect of old age. Beside the above-mentioned tombs, there are others of the Coghlans, Mac Auliffs and O’Kiefs. About 12 years ago, as they were making a grave, the body of a woman was discovered, who had been buried here 20 years before quite whole and entire; she died of the small-pox. The skin appeared hard, dry and very stiff, of a dark brown colour; she was interred in a dry vault between two lime walls, through which the wind and air had a free passage; which probably contributed to parch up the body, and keep it so long from corruption.’
From The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork by Charles Smith (Cork, 1815)





‘The ruins of the abbey are finely situated on the steep bank of the river Awbeg, and consist chiefly of the walls of the nave, chancel and some portions of the domestic buildings; the upper part of the central tower, supported on arches of light and graceful elevation, fell down in 1814; the tomb of the founder, David de Barry, is supposed to be in the centre of the chancel, but is marked only by some broken stones which appear to have formed an enclosure. On the south side of the nave are the remains of a finely proportioned chapel in which, and also in the nave and chancel, are numerous tombs and inscriptions to the memory of the Barrys, Fitzgeralds, Lombards and others.’
From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Samuel Lewis (London, 1837) 


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Left of Centre



After last week’s coverage of Loughton, County Offaly, here is the site where various members of the families who once owned the property are interred. Dating from 1830, the mausoleum stands in the graveyard of nearby Borrisnafarney church, erected the previous year with funds provided by the late Thomas Ryder Pepper who, it will be remembered, had died in 1828 following a hunting accident. Of dressed limestone with a pitched slab stone roof, the Gothic Revival building has buttresses at each corner and at the centre of the side elevations, at the top of which run lines of arcades. One curious detail: note how the pointed arch doorcase is not quite in the middle of the building (instead being slightly to the left of centre). Having fallen into some disrepair, the mausoleum underwent restoration in 2022.



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A Picturesque Eye Catcher




After Monday’s post about Loughton, County Offaly, here is an earlier dwelling found within the demesne. Standing on raised ground to the immediate south of the main house and evidently retained as a romantic eye-catcher, this is a four storey tower house likely dating from the early 17th century when constructed for the then-dominant O’Carroll family. Circular bartizans remain at the top of the building on the south-west and north-east corners, with an internal staircase beginning on the east wall before turning 90 degrees and ascending up the north. A large fireplace opening also remains on the east side of the now-roofless castle.




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Another Gratifying Example



Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Captain George Pepper was confirmed by the crown in ownership of Ballygarth Castle, County Meath, a property that had hitherto belonged to the Netterville family. However, by the second half of the 18th century, one branch of the Peppers had settled in County Offaly where, in 1777 they commissioned a new residence called Loughton. Facing north across sweeping parkland, as originally constructed, the house had its entrance located in a central canted bay with two bays on either side, and probably looking not unlike Newhall, County Clare (see New Blood for New Hall « The Irish Aesthete). It served as home to Thomas Ryder Pepper until killed in a hunting accident in 1828. Having no direct heir, he directed that Loughton be left to his brother-in-law, Lt-General Benjamin Bloomfield, who had been created Baron Bloomfield three years before. After a distinguished career in the army, Bloomfield had entered royal service, acting as an Aide-de-Camp, then Chief Equerry and Clerak Marshall to the Prince of Wales, before becoming Private Secretary to George IV, as well as Keeper of the Privy Purse and Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall from 1817-22. It was in his role as Keeper of the Privy Purse that he ran into trouble, since Bloomfield attempted to curb the monarch’s notorious extravagance, thereby not only incurring the latter’s wrath but also that of Lady Conyngham, George IV’s mistress and a frequent beneficiary of his largesse: once a great friend of the king, Bloomfield was ignominiously removed from his positions in 1822. 





Following the first Lord Bloomfield’s death in 1846, Loughton was inherited by his only son, John, second baron and diplomat who began his career in 1824 acting as an attaché in Lisbon. In 1851 he was appointed ambassador to Berlin and from thence to Vienna in 1860, eventually retiring 11 years later. When he died in 1879, he left no legitimate heir, although while posted to Stockholm in 1826 he had at least one child with Swedish actress Emilie Högquist, later mistress of King Oscar I. The Loughton estate then passed to Benjamin Bloomfield Trench, whose mother Georgiana had been a sister of the second Lord Bloomfield: the Trenches lived not far away at Cangort Park (see A Work in Progress « The Irish Aesthete). Benjamin Bloomfield Trench and his wife Dora had two daughters, and following their deaths, Loughton passed once again to another relation, Major Anthony Guy Atkinson, whose family for many generations had also lived in the area at Cangort House (see A Feast of Colour and Light « The Irish Aesthete). His son would sell Loughton in 2001 to Dr James Reilly, former Minister for Health who, in turn, sold the property to its present owners in 2016. 





As seen today, Loughton shows the results of a radical remodelling and enlargement of the house undertaken by architect James Pain in the mid-1830s for the first Lord Bloomfield. On the exterior, the entrance was moved from the north front’s canted bow to a new single-storey extension on the east side, leaving a rather sober rendered facade of three storeys over basement, tall, plain and relieved only by the windows’ limestone dressings. The eight-bay, south-facing garden front is altogether more immediately engaging, reversing the plan on the north side so that full-height canted bays flank a central two-bay recess, the window treatments also more dressed with details such as pediments and entablatures on console brackets. One curious feature is that the heights of the windows in the two central bays have not been raised to match those on either side, thereby disrupting the lines. The enfilade of principal reception rooms lies immediately behind this front, the drawing room leading to the library and thence the dining room. Immediately behind the library, Pain cleverly used the canted bow former entrance as a hall, its cantilevered stone staircase snaking around the walls to the main bedrooms immediately above. The most important of these formerly contained a richly carved bed made in 1821 in expectation of a visit to the house by George IV: the king never came to Loughton but the bed remained in situ until very regrettably sold at auction in 2016. Meanwhile, off the staircase hall can be found the former billiard room which acquired its present decoration of inlaid doors and window shutters, as well as a Tudor Revival chimneypiece, around 1890 seemingly thanks to Dora, wife of Benjamin Bloomfield Trench. Since acquiring the property nine years ago, when all the contents were sold, the current owners have been working both to refurbish and refurnish Loughton, an arduous task given the size of the place. Nevertheless, given how much has already been achieved here, their ambitions seem perfectly achievable. This is another gratifying example of what can be done to ensure Ireland’s historic houses have a viable future. 



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Often Overlooked



Often overlooked by visitors, this is the spectacular entrance hall of the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. Designed by T.N. and T.M. Deane in 1885-90 and taking the form of a rotunda, it consists of a ground floor around which run a series of polished Ionic columns in different coloured Irish stone. The deep entablature, pierced by a sequence of oculi, supports a balustraded gallery above which pilasters with gilded capitals framing niches and, in one section, windows. And on top of this floats the dome. Meanwhile, the floor is covered in mosaic designed and laid by the Manchester firm of Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd; the central section is taken up by the twelve signs of the Zodiac surrounding a stylised sun.



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