Category Archives: Country House

All’s Wells



Buried inside the present 19th century Wells House in County Wexford is a much older building, thought to date from the second half of the 17th century. This was constructed by John Warren, a soldier in the Commonwealth army, who as payment for his service was granted more than 6,000 acres here. A ‘plain square building’ the original Wells and surrounding estate were sold in 1704 to Robert Doyne, whose descendants would continue to own the property until 1966. The Doynes claimed descent from the medieval Gaelic sept of Ó Duinn (O’Dunne), lords of Uí Riagáin (Hy‐Regain) in that part of Ireland that is today known as County Laois. Around the time that Warren had been granted the land at Wells, Robert Doyne’s father had been deprived by the Commonwealth government of his own property. However, the family successfully regained what had been lost: it helped that Robert Doyne had conformed to the Established Church, become a wealthy barrister and married a widow who brought money and property with her. Hence he could afford to buy the Wells estate, along with other lands so that by the time of his death he had built up a holding of some 9,800 acres. 





As mentioned, the present Wells House dates from the late 1830s when designed by Daniel Robertson for another Robert Doyne who, like his forebear, had married a wealthy widow, Annette-Constantia Uniacke, a niece of the first Marquess of Waterford. It is easy to understand why the Doynes should decide that work needed to be undertaken on what was their principal residence. Samuel Lewis, writing in 1837, noted that the earlier house on the site ‘was, for nearly three years after the disturbances of 1798, occupied as a barrack by the king’s troops ; it is now about to be rebuilt in the Elizabethan style by the proprietor, as a residence, and will in future be called Wells Abbey.’ While the change of name does not appear to have taken place, by 1844, James Fraser could write that the house ‘has been recently repaired, and altered from a plain square building to the early style of Tudor architecture; and the grounds around the mansion, and the approaches to it, are in process of formation in a style conformable thereto.’ Doyne had evidently been thinking of giving the family home a new appearance for some time, having commissioned designs from Thomas Cobden in 1819 (a classical design) and then for additions and alterations from Sir Richard Morrison in 1836. But ultimately he opted for Robertson’s scheme, which like so much of the latter’s work, evoked 16th century manor houses, with an asymmetrical facade incorporating an abundance of gables and clusters of chimneys. The result, unusually faced mellow red brick is, as Frederick O’Dyer has noted, more English in style than the majority of Robertson’s houses, which tended to be faced in either granite or limestone. 





The seven-bay Wells House is of two-storeys over basement with a dormer attic, a breakfront gabled centre bay incorporating a large Tudoresque doorcase. Both end bays also break forward and are gabled, a gentle asymmetry introduced by that to the north having a canted bay window on the first floor (this lights the main staircase). The garden front presents a more balanced appearance. As might be expected from its exterior, the main reception rooms of Wells House, County Wexford are very much in the Tudorbethan mode, with the use of oak panelling in a variety of styles, as well as Gothic-style timber panelled doors and shutters, and groin vaulted ceilings. The double-height staircase hall is particularly fine, with cast-iron balusters supporting carved a timber banister terminating in Gothic-style octagonal newels and a timber surround to the canted bay window found on the half-landing.
An unexpected change of decorative styles can be found in the drawing room, which is panelled in white and gilt rococo boiseries. Whether original Louis XV or a later imitation of that period’s style it is hard to tell, and no information appears to exist about their origins, although surviving plans indicate they were installed when the house was given its present form by Robertson. Might the boiseries have been acquired by Robert Doyne when, as a young man, he had embarked on a Grand Tour of mainland Europe, in the company of no less than Beau Brummell? The quality of workmanship is high, many of the panels filled with a multitude of small fleurs-de-lis, while close to the top of the walls at either end of the room are two elaborately carved panels, one featuring musical instruments and sheets of music, the other a quiver of arrows and the head of Diana. And it all fits the room perfectly, so was either created for this space or else, if from somewhere else, adapted accordingly. In any case, the Doynes continued to occupy the property until the mid-1960s, after which Wells House passed through a couple of other hands before being bought by the present owner in 2022: today it is open to the public, with self-catering cottages in the yard, and a variety of tours and events held in the main building. 



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Playing with the Architectural Lexicon



‘Crossing the left bank of the Boyne at Bellinter bridge we enter the noble demesne of Ardsallagh, now belonging to the Duke of Bedford, who has recently erected here a handsome Elizabethan mansion, in which report whispers he will annually spend some time. In no part of its course does the river present the same extreme calmness and repose as here. Widening into deep, still pools, shaded by aged timber, and fringed with wild plants of gigantic growth, huge colts-foot; with the modest blue forget-me-not and the little yellow potentilla peeping through their dark umbrageous foliage; long, topling bulrushes, fragrant meadow-sweet, and broad waterlilies, stretch in wild luxuriance along the placid banks. Long avenues of lime trees, and groves of tall grey- stemmed beeches with arcades of aged yew, give an air of antiquity as well as grandeur to this handsome park. One almost always expects to meet some remnant of ecclesiastical buildings where aged yew trees abound, and accordingly we read that St. Finian founded the monastery of Escair-branain near this, but at present even the site of that ancient edifice is unknown.’ (from The Beauties of the Boyne and its Tributary the Blackwater by William R. Wilde, 1849). 






Located above the banks of the river Boyne as it flows south from the town of Navan, County Meath, Ardsallagh was, as Wilde mentioned, believed to be the site of a religious house established here in the sixth century by Saint Finian of Clonard. In the late 12th century, the land here was granted by the Norman knight Hugh de Lacy to one of his supporters, Jocelyn de Angulo, whose descendants, their name anglicised to Nangle, became known as Barons of Navan. The Nangles erected a castle at Ardsallagh and would remain there until the 1650s when, like so many other families who had supported the Catholic Confederate cause, they were deprived of their property, 8,000 acres of which were later purchased by the Dublin alderman John Preston: in the following century, his great-granddaughter Mary Preston inherited the Ardsallagh estate. Her husband, Peter Ludlow served as an MP for Meath, while the couple’s son, also called Peter, would have a highly successful political career, eventually becoming Comptroller of the Household in the 1780s. Before then, he had been elevated to the peerage, created Baron Ludlow of Ardsallagh while aged just 25, and eventually becoming first Earl Ludlow. In due course he was succeeded by his two sons, the younger of whom, the third and last earl, had a highly successful military career, rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, as well as acting as Equerry to the Prince of Wales from 1784-95. On his death without direct heirs in 1842, Ardsallagh was bequeathed to Francis Russell, seventh Duke of Bedford who, Wilde noted, commissioned a new residence on the site. This property subsequently passed to the duke’s brother, Lord John Russell, British Prime Minister 1846-52, and later first Earl Russell. However, he and his descendants do not appear to have spent much, if any, time in residence at Ardsallagh. In January 1890, The Times carried the following advertisement: ‘To be let or sold for a term of years, the house and demesne lands of Ardsallagh, the Irish residence of Lord Russell, situated on his property in the County of Meath, in the best hunting district in Ireland.  The house is a large gentleman’s residence, with good stables and out offices, and the demesne contains 333 acres 1 rood 43 perches statute measurement.’ Certainly, in the closing decades of the 19th century, the estate was let to the French family, and eventually in the 1930s it was bought by a local builder, Cormac Murphy and his wife Catherine: earlier this year, their grandchildren placed the house and surrounding 199 acres on the market. 






As alredy mentioned, the original building at Ardsallagh was a castle erected by the Nangles, but no trace of this survives today: a census from 1821 merely notes ‘the remains house of Ardsala’ while The Parliamentary Gazetteer 0f Ireland, 1844-1845 observed that the demesne here ‘seems to be as ill kept as it is delightfully situated.’ The two later Earls Ludlow had enjoyed careers based in England and therefore one assumes neglected their Irish estate. However, the place had once been very fine: passing through the area in August 1732, Mrs Delany declared ‘The house seems a very antique edifice, it has fine gardens, but the trees and meadows that lie by the river are extremely beautiful.’ Similarly, writing c.1740, Isaac Butler called Ardsallagh, ‘the beautifull Seat of Mr Ludlow the House is lofty & well designed with a fine Firr Grove which almost encompass the House here are delightfull Gardens, & curious subterraneous Grottos.’ By the following century, it appears all this had fallen into ruin, which explains why, after inheriting the place, the Duke of Bedford should have opted to start afresh with the construction of a new residence. As seen today, Ardsallagh is in the Tudor Revival style, its limestone exterior replete with pointed gables and towering diagonal chimneys, oriels and mullioned windows. Designed by an unknown architect, but described by Casey and Rowan as being ‘in the manner of Edward Blore’, the house cost £40,000 to build and fit out. The building, which suffered a fire in 1903, subsequently received attention from Sir Thomas Drew, which makes it difficult to know how much of the present interior is original and how much early 20th century refurbishment. The most striking feature is the double-height staircase hall which, unlike the exterior, evokes the Baroque period, with the first-floor gallery supported by a series fluted columns below an elaborate entablature. The main rooms, their plasterwork ceilings simultaneously incorporating elements of the Jacobean and English Perpendicular periods, further add to the delightfully eclectic blend of styles found within the house. Although, as is evident in these pictures, the place now needs some attention, Ardsallagh is a wonderful survivor from a time when bold borrowing from the architectural lexicon was still widespread. At the time of writing, the property is listed as Sale Agreed: one must hope that whoever takes it on appreciates Ardsallagh’s special qualities and ensures they are preserved into the future. 



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

An Unfortunate Accident

In January 1835, The Gentleman’s Magazine reported that Major Henry Langley of Brittas Castle, County Tipperary, ‘late Captain in the 2nd Life Guards’ had died the previous year on October 12th at the age of 48. The cause of death was not given, although, as will be explained, this was somewhat unusual. Major Langley was the descendant of Lieutenant Henry Langley, a Lancashire-born soldier who came to Ireland with the English Commonwealth army in 1649, and became a member of Colonel Hierom Sankey’s regiment of horse. According to the County Tipperary historian James White, writing at the start of the last century, while participating in the Siege of Clonmel in April 1650, ‘Captain Langley, who was one of the first to volunteer for service with the storming party, had his left hand cut off by a blow of a scythe as he was attempting to mount the breach.’ Nothing daunted, the injured man had his severed stump fitted with an iron hook and was thereafter known as ‘Langley of the Iron Hand.’ Five years later, he was rewarded for his services with grants of land in Counties Waterford and Tipperary, and these would remain in his family for several generations, with additions made through advantageous marriages. One of these was the union in 1754 of a later Henry Langley and Margaret Grace, heiress to the Brittas Castle estate, which had passed from the Butlers to her forebears in the  1660s. This was the property which Major Langley had inherited after his uncle Henry Grace Langley had died in 1821 without any surviving children of his own. 






An undated engraving, produced during the lifetime of Henry Grace Langley, shows the original Brittas Castle to have incorporated two squat square battlemented towers and one round tower connected by two-storey buildings, the whole fronted by a gable-ended, five-bay, three-storey house. Seemingly, this was badly damaged by a fire in 1820, after which the whole site was cleared and, following Major Langley inheriting the estate, ambitious plans drawn up for an entirely new castle to be built on the site. The architect chosen for this job was William Vitruvius Morrison and, according to his brother John, writing six years after William Vitruvius’s death in 1838, ‘The design of this edifice was by the desire of the proprietor, both in form and proportions, that of the ancient English baronial castle of the earlier period.’  The Norman Warwick Castle is often cited as a formative influence on the proposed building, where work initially progressed well but then came to a halt in October 1834 when Major Langley, who was inspecting progress, was struck by falling masonry and killed. After this disaster, the family appears to have gone into rapid decline because by October 1851 Brittas was in the hands of the Court of Chancery and two years later it was offered for sale in the Encumbered Estates Court. The purchaser, who paid £13,000 for the entire estate in December 1853, was Colonel William Knox, member of a Mayo family. His descendants lived there until the second half of the last century, after which it passed into the care of the present owner’s family. 





Material assembled in the 1830s for the never-completed Ordnance Survey Name Books observed that Brittas Castle was ‘a modern unfurnished building on a most magnificent scale but in all probability it will never be finished.’ Such indeed proved to be the case, with a long, single-storey dwelling instead being constructed to the rear of what had been done on the site. What stands – which was only intended to be the gatehouse to the main castle behind – is unlike anything else seen in this country, a towering structure comprising two octagonal battlemented towers some 60 feet high which flank an entrance which, if finished, would have been reached across a drawbridge, since a substantial moat was dug around the whole plot. As has been noted in the Irish Architectural Archive’s compendium of the Morrisons’ oeuvre (published 1989), no other castle by this architect ‘is, even in part, so austerely antiquarian.’ Although incomplete, what can be seen today displays extremely high standards of workmanship and finish. Behind the gateway are the remains of what would have been an enclosed courtyard, in turn leading to the main building, its walls left as a series of giant steps. The two towers at the front, with walls eight feet thick, climb three storeys, on each of which narrow passageways, lit by arrow slit openings, give way to a series of lofty, stone vaulted chambers. One can only speculate what the rest of the building would have looked like, had Major Langley not been struck by that piece of falling masonry. That unfortunate accident left his ambitious plans unrealised, but at least what survives is being well managed and allows us to imagine what, under other circumstances, might have stood here, a castle like no other in Ireland. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Beautifully Situated on a Fine Declivity


Mount Juliet, County Kilkenny dates from the 1760s when commissioned by Somerset Butler, 8th Viscount Ikerrin and 1st Earl of Carrick from an unknown architect. Located on an estate he had bought towards the end of the previous decade. The house sits on high ground above the river Nore and across from Ballylinch, a property which had anciently belonged to the monks of Jerpoint Abbey and which had passed through a number of hands before being inherited by Eleanor Redman, who married James Butler, third viscount Ikerrin: they were the paternal grandparents of Somerset Butler. The original name of the land on which Mount Juliet stands was Oldtown but this was changed to Waton’s Grove, after the Waton family who lived there until they forfeited their property in the aftermath of the Cromwellian settlement. It then passed through a succession of owners, including James II, until finally being purchased by Somerset Butler, probably in the late 1750s: a bridge over the river in front of the house carries the inscription, ‘This bridge was built at the private expense of Somerset Hamilton Earl of Carrick in the year 1762.’ Having acquired the place, he chose to call it Mount Juliet, after his wife, Lady Juliana Boyle, a daughter of the first Earl of Shannon. 





When Arthur Young visited Mount Juliet  in 1776, he described it as ‘beautifully situated on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on the other side the river: a knole of lawn rises among them, with artificial ruins upon it…’ Another visitor in 1818 describes walking around ‘the flower gardens and to the green house which is on an uncommon plan and then round the back lawn, which is very pretty, well wooded with pretty oak between the boles of which is a beautiful view of distant woods and hills and here and there a reach of the river.’ However, the writer thought the house ‘very large, old fashioned and not pretty,’ although he did allow that it seemed ‘comfortable and convenient.’ 





Designed by an unknown architect, Mount Juliet is of three storeys over-basement. The house originally faced north-east looking down towards the river with a seven bay facade between two shallow curved bows with arched windows on two storeys. The central breakfront has Venetian windows on the two upper storeys above a tripartite pedimented and fan-lit doorway (since enclosed within a porch). There is a perron and double steps in front of the door, with iron railings  At the start of the last century, the entrance was moved to the other side of the building, with a single-bay three-storey projecting entrance bay added. Much of the interior decoration was commissioned by the second earl, Henry Thomas Butler, who inherited the estate in 1774, also the year in which he was married. The main reception rooms have splendid plasterwork, again by unknown hands, although in the style of Michael Stapleton,not least the dining room, the walls of which are lined with medallions enclosing classical figures in relief and surrounded by delicate garlands of grape leaves. But each room has its own distinctive character, as well as a variety of fine marble chimneypieces, many of which were installed when the house underwent alterations in first decades of the last century. The second earl was also responsible for the entrance hall dominated by an Imperial staircase supported by a screen of fluted Ionic columns. When the house’s orientation was altered at the start of the last century, a room was added immediately beyond the stairs’ return. 





While the first two Earls of Carrick appear to have lived within their means, the same cannot be said of the third. Soon after he died in 1838, leaving two infant sons, an auction was held at Mount Juliet where lots on offer included ‘the entire household furniture, plate, and plated ware, valuable paintings, books, piano forte, china, glass, &c.; as well as horses, carriages, farming implements and all livestock. Then in 1852, a large part of the family’s land, ‘‘upwards of 7,000 acres statute measure’ was sold by the court for the Sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, the auction realising a total of £40,200. By this date, all that remained was the townland of Mount Juliet and its house, which had been inherited by the fifth earl, Somerset Arthur Butler, who entered the Grenadier Guards as an ensign in 1856 and took part in the Crimean War, retiring from service as a captain in 1862. Unmarried, seemingly in later years he became a recluse and following his death in 1901 is said to have left much of his personal fortune to the Plymouth Brethren of which he was a member. Title and what remained of the estate then passed to a cousin, Major Charles Henry Butler, who never lived in the property but passed it on to his eldest son, the future seventh earl who in turn leased Mount Juliet to the wealthy General Sir Hugh McCalmont. 





Just before the outbreak of the First World War, General Sir Hugh McCalmont bought Mount Juliet from the seventh Earl of Carrick. The McCalmonts were responsible for carrying out a number of alterations to the house, not least changing its orientation and creating a ballroom in one of the wings. The family remained at Mount Juliet until 1988 when they in turn sold the property. Since then it has operated as a luxury hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant. Over the past year, the hotel’s new owners have undertaken an extensive restoration and redecoration of the house.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?


Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;




Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;




But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
Photographs of the walled garden at Glenarm Castle, County Antrim

The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Turneresque



Today a country house hotel, Marlfield, County Wexford dates from the mid-19th century when constructed as an agent’s residence for the estate of the Stopfords, Earls of Courtown who lived close by in Courtown House (since demolished). The family retained ownership of the property until 1977 when it was sold to Ray an Mary Bowe who subsequently opened it as an hotel. Of rubble stone with brick facings, the original three-storey building has a four-bay, east-facing entrance front, with central two-bay breakfront. Requiring more space for guests, in 1983 the Bowes commissioned work from architects Cochrane, Flynn-Rogers and Williams whose most notable addition is an elegant curvilinear conservatory on what had previously been the main entrance: this has now been moved to the north side. In the style of those designed by Richard Turner around the time Marlfield was first erected, the conservatory now serves as a dining room. 



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Farewell to a Polymath


Last November, the Financial Times published an extensive feature on Alec Cobbe, chronicling some, although by no means all, of his many achievements. Alec, who after a few months ill health died last week, could rightly be described as a polymath, the FT summarising his various skills as an art restorer, historian, author, re-hanger, interior designer and painter who also happened to be a fine pianist. But this is to understate his profusion of talents. To take the last on that list, Alec not only played the piano, he also collected historic keyboard instruments, more than 50 of them which are on display at Hatchlands Park, a National Trust property in Surrey leased by Alec and his wife Isabel since 1984. On display there are two grand pianos which had once belonged to Chopin, as well as Haydn’s grand piano, Liszt’s Italian upright piano, Bizet’s composing table-piano, Mahler’s Viennese piano, Johann Christian Bach’s piano, on which Mozart may also have played, and instruments which formerly belonged to George IV and Marie Antoinette: anyone who visited the recently-ended exhibition devoted to the French queen at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum would have seen her piano there. But as mentioned above, this was just one of Alec’s many skills, of which he had an abundance. He was a highly talented painter (particularly of country house interiors), and separately an illustrator whose work was much in demand for the design of invitations to all sorts of smart events. In addition, he was a restorer who over the course of his life identified more than one lost old master picture, and an interior designer much in demand for his ability to hang picture collections, most recently those at Castle Howard; other houses in which he worked included Harewood, Hatfield, Hillsborough Castle, Knole and Petworth. Extraordinarily well-read and well-informed, he brought a keen and critical eye to every enterprise. But although a well-known and widely admired figure in Britain, Alec’s achievements were perhaps less appreciated in his native Ireland. 





Alec Cobbe was born in Dublin in 1945 and spent much of his childhood at Newbridge, the house some short distance north of the city where his widowed mother lived with her bachelor brother-in-law. Newbridge had been commissioned by the family’s forebear, Charles Cobbe, Archbishop of Dublin, in the late 1740s and designed by James Gibbs, seemingly the architect’s only work in Ireland (for more on Newbridge, see The Glory of the House « The Irish Aesthete). Without question, Alec’s eye received its earliest training at Newbridge, a house to which he remained thereafter devoted despite being based on the other side of the Irish Sea for the greater part of his professional life. After school, initially he studied medicine at Oxford (and won a prize for anatomical drawing) but then moved into the field of art restoration, training at the Tate Gallery before he established a conservation studio at Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, and then worked at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. Eventually he opened his own studio in 1981. As he explained in the FT article, the move into interior decoration and specifically picture hanging was a natural evolution: having taken care of a painting’s restoration, he would often see it hung unsympathetically. As he explained, ‘I’d think, “Why the hell did I spend all that time on the picture for it to be killed by the hanging of the thing”?’ Alec was always a man of strong opinions and with few qualms about expressing them. When the members of the public visit Newbridge today, they are seeing a house that represents his vision of its history and evolution. Yet this almost didn’t happen. When Alec’s uncle Thomas died in 1985, the house and estate were acquired by the local authority and it looked as though the family’s link with the property would be irreparably broken. Instead, just as the building’s contents were about to be removed, an agreement was made whereby they would remain on the premises and, in return, the Cobbes would be able to live in Newbridge from time to time. Although such arrangements are common in England, this is highly unusual in Ireland but proved to be an enormous blessing not least because Alec, passionate about the place, did much to improve it by driving various restoration projects and adding to the existing furnishings and works of art. He also loved to entertain in the house, and those of us fortunate to have been invited will have fond memories of convivial meals, either eaten in the main dining room or upstairs in the family flat, followed by a sound night’s sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. 





The pictures shown here reflect two rooms in Newbridge that particularly engaged Alec’s attention. The first is a cabinet of curiosities. Incorporating items collected by Archbishop Cobbe, this was essentially the creation of his son Thomas and daughter-in-law Lady Betty Cobbe who lived there from the time of their marriage in 1755 to their respective deaths in the early 19th century. Originally referred to as ‘ye Ark’, the cabinet takes up an entire room in the house, its walls lined with hand-painted sheets depicting oriental scenes and held in place by faux bamboo découpage trellising. A suite of specially made cases and display cabinets were filled with a typically diverse range of items, shells, exotica, curios, much of it from other countries. In 1758, for example, the Cobbes bought some coral, as well as a nest of vipers and a ‘Solar Microscope.’  Eventually, the collection came to include a stuffed crocodile, an ostrich egg mounted in a bog oak stand, a set of ivory chess pieces from China and a depiction of the coronation of George III (1761) carved in bone and placed inside a glass bottle. Over time, the room in Newbridge began to suffer neglect: even by 1858 it was being described as ‘the poor old museum.’ In the 1960s the paper on the walls was taken down and sold, the cases and cabinets moved first to the basement and then an attic lumber room, and the space converted into a sitting room. While many of the surviving contents are now in Hatchlands Park, the Newbridge cabinet of curiosities was recreated, a replica of the wallpaper produced from memory by Alec, the cases brought down from the attic, and a replica sample of the collection once more on display. Meanwhile, at the far end of the house stands the red drawing room, another addition made by Thomas and Lady Betty Cobbe, working with local architect George Semple. Some 45 feet long, the room has a ceiling featuring ‘a sea of scrolling leaves and floral garlands encircled by dragons and birds fighting over baskets of fruit,’ believed to have been undertaken by stuccodore Richard Williams, a pupil of Robert West. Two hundred years ago, payments for furniture were made to Woods & Son, and to Mack, Williams & Gibton of Dublin, who were also paid for curtains in 1828. The carpet, by Beck & Co. of Bath was supplied in March 1823 for £64 and 18 shillings, while the crimson flock wallpaper and matching border came from the Dublin firm of Patrick Boylan. The present arrangement of paintings, the greater part of them collected during the previous century by Archbishop Cobbe and his son and daughter-in-law, dates from the same period. Some of the collection had been sold in Dublin in 1812, and in 1839 two key paintings – by Hobbema and Dughet – were sold to pay to fund the construction of some 80 estate workers’ cottages. In November of that year, then owner Charles Cobbe wrote in his diary, ‘I have filled up the vacancies on my walls occasioned by the loss of the two pictures which have been sold, and I felt some satisfaction in thinking that my room (by the new arrangement) looks even more furnished than before.’ Such is still the case today, thanks to Alec. Over many years, he undertook successive projects to preserve and conserve the drawing room, so that today it is a rare example of late Irish Georgian taste. There were several other projects in this country with which Alec was closely associated, not least the redecoration of the drawing room at Russborough, County Wicklow (see A Room Reborn « The Irish Aesthete). Having served alongside him as trustee of a charitable foundation, the Irish Aesthete can testify to his indefatigable enthusiasm and diverse range of interests. Sadly, he has not lived to see the publication of his latest book, Inside the Country Houses of Britain & Ireland, due to be published by Rizzoli in September. Let it serve as a lasting memorial to the polymath that was Alec Cobbe. 


Richard Alexander Charles Cobbe, January 9th 1945 – March 31st 2026

The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

The Country for Ruins

Lackeen Castle, County Tipperary

A request to speak at a forthcoming academic event exploring various perceptions of ruins has led the Irish Aesthete to consider, not for the first time, what might be the particular appeal of historic buildings that have fallen into decay, and why there are so many of them in this country. ‘To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime,’ Henry James confessed in Italian Hours (1873) ‘and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.’ Tumbling roofs and crumbling walls have long exerted a particular appeal, as was noted by Rose Macaulay in her wonderful 1953 book Pleasure of Ruins when she rhetorically enquired ‘what part is played by morbid pleasure in decay, by righteous pleasure in retribution…’ The morbidity of ruins without doubt helps to explain their attraction: in a state of decay, they allow us to engage in romantic speculation which may or may not be accurate. There are certainly many opportunities to engage in such hypothesising in Ireland. In some instances, they can be wonderfully picturesque, a fact highlighted by the clergyman and author William Gilpin who in 1782 published his highly influential book, Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770. Among the points he made was that in landscape painting the presence of a ruined castle or abbey would add to the work what he called ‘consequence.’ The truth of this observation had already been made apparent in the previous century by a number of French artists – Poussin, Claude Lorain, Dughet – based in Italy where they produced paintings in which ruins were often a notable feature.

Clonfert Palace, County Galway

Rappa Castle, County Mayo

Dromore Castle, County Limerick

Graffan House, County Offaly

Works such as those painted by the likes of Poussin et al are known to have had a critical influence on the design of both British and Irish country house landscapes in the 18th century, when the pictures were bought by Grand Tourists and brought back home where parklands and demesnes were laid out to look like them. Sometimes, to enhance the view, they even incorporated artificial ruins as was the case in a number of properties around the country. At Belvedere, County Westmeath, for example, the ‘Jealous Wall’ was constructed. Some 180 feet long, this theatrical sham ruin dates from c.1760 when commissioned by Robert Rochfort, first Earl of Belvedere. Seemingly, it was built in order to block the view south towards Tudenham Park, a house further along Lough Ennell which had been erected some years before by the earl’s younger brother, George Rochfort, with whom he had quarreled. The earl might simply have asked for a high wall, but instead opted for one that romantically looks like the remains of an ancient castle. At Heywood, County Laois – where the grounds were laid out by owner Frederick Trench installed a number of fake ruins in the 1770s, including what appear to be the remains of a ruined medieval church, incorporating a traceried window thought  to be 15th century and to have been brought from the former Dominican friary at Aghaboe, some twelve miles away. Towards the end of the 18th century, the demesne at Lawrencetown, County Galway was similarly enhanced by the addition of a number of follies, including a Gothick eyecatcher, intended to suggest the remains of an otherwise lost building. Back in County Westmeath, at Killua Sir Benjamin Chapman acquired some of the stonework from a medieval Franciscan friary at Multyfarnham and around 1800 used this material to create a charming ‘ruin’ visible from the garden front of the house. 

The Jealous Wall, Belvedere, County Westmeath

Heywood, County Laois

Lawrencetown, County Galway

Killua Castle, County Westmeath

Even without the addition of fake examples, Ireland has never been short of ruins. The observations of  German writer and geographer Johann Georg Kohl who visited Ireland in 1841 have been cited before. ‘Of all the countries in the world’, he wrote, ‘Ireland is the country for ruins. Here you have ruins of every period of history, from the time of the Phoenicians down to the present day…down to our own times each century has marked its progress by the ruins it has left. Nay, every decade, one might almost say, has set its sign upon Ireland, for in all directions you see a number of dilapidated buildings, ruins of yesterday’s erection.’ What this suggests is that the Irish have a particular affinity for decay and dilapidation, given that the stock of ruined buildings seen by Kohl has only further increased since his time, although too often these additions could not be described as picturesque or romantic. Last week, the Irish Times reported on two substantial 19th century houses in Phibsborough, Dublin which in 2009 were added to the city council’s list of derelict sites. A decade later, after the buildings had fallen into still worse condition, they were compulsorily purchased by the authority which then announced plans to restore them for use as social housing. Now, after a further seven years of decline, the council has announced that the cost of undertaking such a restoration would be excessive and that there were currently ‘no plans’ for the properties. Of all the countries in the world, Ireland retains its title as the country for ruins.

Ightermurragh Castle, County Cork

The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

The Irish Sale of the Century



From the mid-1970s through to the early 1980s a series of country house contents auctions took place in Ireland, beginning with that held at Malahide Castle in May 1976. One of the last during that particular spate took place at Luttrellstown, County Dublin in September 1983. Luttrellstown has featured here before (see Luttrellstown Castle « The Irish Aesthete). The estate here dates back to c.1210 when it had been granted by King John to Sir Geoffrey de Luterel. Two centuries later the original castle was constructed and remained in the hands of the Luttrells until 1800 when sold to Luke White, who had made his fortune operating a lottery. White and his descendants were responsible for giving the house much of its external appearance as a frothy Gothick fancy, and they continued to occupy it until the early 1920s when it was once more put on the market. In November 1927 Aileen Guinness married the Hon Brinsley Plunket and as a wedding present her father Ernest Guinness presented the bride with  Luttrellstown Castle.





During the 14 years of their marriage, the Plunkets entertained extensively at Luttrellstown. However, following their divorce in 1940, the property’s chatelaine moved to the United States, only returning to this side of the Atlantic after the conclusion of the Second World War. Then, following her father’s death in March 1949, she embarked on a thorough restoration and transformation of the castle. In this enterprise, she was assisted by English architect and interior designer Felix Harbord, who also worked with Aileen Plunket’s sister, Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, at Clandeboye, County Down. At Luttrellstown, Harbord appears to have perfectly understood his client’s fondness for the dramatic and for unexpected juxtapositions. Hence the interiors were filled with treasures that had come from a diverse range of sources. The white marble chimneypiece in the ballroom, likely the work of Sir Henry Cheere, came from England, as did the painted ceiling by Thornhill installed in the staircase hall. The dining room was given Adamesque plasterwork and a ceiling by 18th century artist Jacob de Wit, and the Grisaille Room created to hold a series of nine panels by the Flemish painter Peter de Gree, originally made in 1788 for the Oriel Temple, County Louth. In this setting, Luttrellstown’s owner entertained frequently and lavishly. As late as 1966, when many other Irish houses had been forced to cut back on hospitality, Mark Bence-Jones could report, ‘Mrs Plunket entertains in the grand manner, giving large dinner parties, dances and balls; she invites people from all walks of life in Ireland together with many friends from abroad.’ He also noted that ‘what seems like an army of footmen, something very rare in Ireland, adds to the splendour.’





In 1983, Aileen Plunket, by then aged 79, decided to sell both Luttrellstown Castle and its contents: the latter were dispersed in a three-day auction held that September by Christie’s. Described by the late Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin as the Irish Sale of the Century, the event attracted considerable publicity, and many overseas buyers,  eager to see what bargains might be found. In the event, there were no bargains as many lots went for much higher sums than their estimates. On the first day, for example, a pair of George II white painted side tables, expected to fetch £25-38,000, eventually went for £110,000. A pair of Italian gilt-bronze and crystal candelabra made £65,000, more than six times their estimate, while a mid-18th century giltwood stool fetched £28,000, more than nine times the estimate. A rare Russian tapestry carpet made for Tsar Nicholas I in 1835 went for £75,000 which was double its estimate: seemingly the underbidder on this lot was David Rockefeller. On the other hand, a suite of painted Louis XV furniture which may – or may not – have been made for the Château de Maintenon, failed to make the expected £170,000, selling for £134,000. On the second day of the auction, the focus was on paintings such as a set of four hunting scenes by Jacob van Strij (£69,120), The Mystic Marriage by Jan Brueghel II (£30,240)  and a portrait of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth by Henri Gascars which fetched £27,000: Aileen Plunket had bought the picture eight years earlier at the Malahide Castle sale for £9,500. On the third day, books, porcelain, glass and so forth. With approximately one third of the buyers being Irish and the rest of the bidders coming from overseas, in total, the auction made a sum just shy of £3 million. Soon afterwards it was announced that the castle and 570 acre demesne had been sold for just over £3 million. Aileen Plunket then moved to England where she lived until her death in 1999. As for Luttrellstown Castle, it has since become a wedding and events venue (a certain well-known English former footballer and his wife were married there in 1999). 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

A Pleasant Tudor Revival House of Medium Size


While several hundred Irish country houses were destroyed during the years of the War of Independence and Civil War, many more were subsequently lost over the following decades as owners found it impossible to maintain them in the face of rising prices and falling income. The late 1940s and 1950s were a particularly bad period for these properties. As early as 1932, the Irish Times had noted that ‘the dead hand of the state lies heavily on the great houses. Depleted incomes make their maintenance difficult enough, but high taxation and death duties render the passage of a great house from father to son almost impossible.’ In her 2019 book White Elephants: The Country House and the State in Independent Ireland, 1922-73, Emer Crooke notes that a large number of houses were just abandoned, with the removal of their roofs so that residential rates would not have to be paid. Furthermore, many such buildings that were destined for demolition suddenly became valuable, ‘not as residences, but as commodities. Houses were bought up for demolition by speculators interested in selling off valuable slates or lead from their roofs, while the Land Commission also demolished some houses on acquired lands, from which they could use the materials to build factories, roads and so on. Big Houses had become far more valuable and useful for their parts than when they were standing.’ Hence the enduring spectacle across the Irish countryside of skeletal remains, towering structures of which only the outer walls now remain. Such might have been the fate of Lisnavagh, County Carlow had its then-owners not decided on an alternative option to ensure at least part of the house continues to be a family home. 





Lisnavagh has been home to the Bunbury family since the 1660s when they moved to County Carlow as tenants of the first Duke of Ormond before purchasing the property in 1702. A plaque inside the present house shows that the original residence on the estate was built by William Bunbury in 1696. This survived for some 150 years until a new Lisnavagh was commissioned by Captain William McClintock-Bunbury who had inherited the property in 1846 following the death of his childless maternal uncle, Thomas Bunbury. Designs for a new house had been commissioned by William Bunbury from architect Oliver Grace in 1778 but following the client’s untimely death, the project was abandoned. Instead, a year after inheriting the estate, Captain McClintock-Bunbury asked Daniel Robertson to come up with a new scheme and this one went ahead. As with a number of Robertson’s other houses in this part of the country, Lisnavagh was constructed in a variant of the Tudor-Gothic style, heavily gabled and with many mullioned windows, all clad in local granite and finished for the sum of £16,000. The work took two and a half years to complete, during which time the same team of workers built new stables ,haylofts, farm buildings, a schoolhouse, several outbuildings, a walled garden, three miles of walls and a gate lodge. A contemporary report in the Farmer’s Gazette noted that ‘Every stone which was used in the various buildings — in the mansion house, the farmyards, demesne walls, and cottages — was dug out of the land, it being quite unnecessary to open a regular quarry, such was the abundance of stones in the land.’ A long, low building of two storeys, the house’s interior featured an abundance of reception and bedrooms which, by the middle of the last century were proving near-impossible to maintain. 





In September 1937 Lisnavagh was inherited by William McClintock-Bunbury, fourth Baron Rathdonnell who, ten years later and in the aftermath of the Second World War, was faced with the challenge of how to look after a very substantial house on a relatively small income. Initially he and his wife, the artist Pamela Drew, put the place up for sale: one potential purchaser was Evelyn Waugh, then travelling through Ireland in the hope of finding a home for himself and his family: he described Lisnavagh as a ‘practical Early Victorian Collegiate building.’ A buyer proving elusive, alternative solutions were sought, with Lady Rathdonnell consulting her uncle,  architect Aubyn Peart Robinson of Caroe & Partners, who suggested the house be reduced in size. Beginning in 1951, driven by the motto ‘Rejuvenate the Positive’, this is what happened. While Peart Robinson planned the operation, work was overseen by architect Alan Hope who ran a highly successful practice in Dublin. The decision was taken to keep the part of the house formerly acting as the service wing, not least because this had a basement, and to clear away the rest of the building which had hitherto held the main reception rooms. However, rather than just demolish a large chunk of Lisnavagh, the Rathdonnells had the granite stones of the western gable taken down by hand, numbered and then re-erected to create a new south-facing front. As a result of careful planning, when the project came to a conclusion in February 1954, rather than looking as though it had lost several limbs, the house gave the impression of having always had the same appearance. Outside, a porte-cochère previously only used by household staff became the main entrance, while indoors a library was created in what had been the old kitchen: in its new incarnation, this is today the finest room in the house, with carved oak shelving by Strahan & Co of Dublin, panels of Cordova leather and many family portraits. Lisnavagh might easily have joined the long sad list of lost Irish country houses but thanks to the clever initiative of its owners in the 1950s, it still stands today. Even more importantly, as Mark Bence-Jones noted in his guide to these properties (1978), ‘the surviving part of the house looks complete in itself; a pleasant Tudor Revival house of medium size rather than a rump of a larger house.’


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by