A Garden of Earthly Delights

Jun13

In the mid-1830s George Harpur, a merchant based in Drogheda, County Louth who had made his money in the salt trade, bought an estate called Killineer a few miles north of the town. A century earlier the land here had been granted by the local corporation on a 999-year lease to Sir Thomas Taylor, whose family lived at Headfort, County Meath. It then passed to the Pentlands whose main residence was to the immediate east at Blackhall. At some date in the 18th century a house was built on the property: it appears on early maps but little now remains other than one room which still retains sections of plaster panelling. Located to the rear of the walled garden, this space now serves as a toolshed.

Following his purchase, George Harpur embarked on the construction of a new house, on a site a little below the earlier one. Unfortunately we do not know who was the architect responsible for designing this building, which is not dissimilar from the Pentlands’ nearby Blackhall. Of two storeys over basement, it has a six-bay rendered façade centred on a Tuscan portico. Deep windows admit abundant light into the four ground-floor reception rooms which have elaborate plasterwork cornice friezes. But the most striking features of the house are its octagonal entrance hall with arched niches on four sides, and the splendid imperial staircase leading to that long-standing feature of the Irish country house: the first floor top-lit gallery from which bedrooms are accessed. One of the reasons we know so little about the house’s early years is that when George Harpur died in 1888 he left no heir and Killineer accordingly changed hands, passing into the ownership of another local family, the Montgomerys of Beaulieu. When it was next offered for sale in 1918, the auction notice advised prospective purchasers ‘Everything that taste or comfort could suggest for the embellishment of the house and demesne was done by the late owner regardless of expense.’

In addition to building himself a new house, George Harpur also laid out gardens at Killineer, beginning with a series of formal Italianate terraces that descend from the front of the main building. Eventually these reach a long serpentine stretch of water, created from what was shown on earlier maps as a relatively small pond. A series of islands on this lake help to break up the vista so that the prospect constantly alters as one wanders along paths meandering on either side. To the immediate east is a woodland garden, rich in ferns, mosses and other moisture-loving plants, while to the north west is a great laurel ‘lawn’, a piece of 19th century garden design once common but now more rare: that at Killineer is today the largest in the country. On this side also is a lakeside summer pavilion, its façade a miniature version of the house. Behind the stables and yards is the old walled garden which runs to an acre and a half and is still used for growing fruit, vegetables and flowers: it is here the remnant of the original Killineer can be found. Dotted around the grounds are garden ornaments originally made for other properties, some of which have since been lost, including St Anne’s in Clontarf, Dundalk House further north in County Louth, and Stackallen, County Meath. As today’s photographs testify, Killineer’s present owners keep the place in marvellous repair and make it a garden of earthly delights.

Hanging On

Jun6

In mid-December 1761 outside Lifford Gaol, County Donegal John MacNaghten was hanged not once but twice. A month earlier he had killed a young woman to whom he claimed to be married. More than twenty years earlier MacNaghten had inherited an estate at Benvarden, County Antrim with an annual income of some £600, but his addiction to gambling meant he was obliged to sell or mortgage the greater part of the property. Circumstances improved following marriage to Sophie Daniel, daughter of the Dean of Down who brought with her an impressive dowry. Unfortunately MacNaghten soon resumed his old ways and by 1756 had accumulated such significant debts that a warrant was issued for his arrest. Around this time his wife died in childbirth, leaving him penniless once more. In a further attempt to improve his fortune he managed to be appointed to the lucrative post of tax collector for Coleraine but then gambled away £800 of the state’s money: his estate was now sequestered and by 1760 he was without recourse to funds. An old family friend, Andrew Knox who lived at Prehen, County Derry took pity of MacNaghten and offered him support. Knox had a fifteen-year old daughter Mary Anne who was already in line to inherit £6,000 and possibly much more should her elder brother not have any children. MacNaghten and Mary Anne Knox developed some kind of romantic relationship and even seem to have gone through a form of marriage ceremony before her father discovered what was taking place and forbade further contact between the two. He was in the process of travelling with his daughter to Dublin in November 1761 when their carriage was intercepted by MacNaghten, intent on carrying off the young girl. In an exchange of gunfire, Mary Anne was accidentally and fatally wounded. It did not take long before MacNaghten was arrested, tried at Lifford Courthouse and sentenced to death for her murder. When the day came for him to be hanged, the rope broke and so he had to be strung up a second time. Forever after he has been remembered as Half-Hanged MacNaghten.

Originally from Scotland, the Knox family settled in Ireland during the 17th century, the first of them to come here being an Anglican clergyman Andrew Knox who in 1610 was appointed Bishop of Raphoe, County Donegal. In 1738 his great-grandson, the aforementioned Andrew Knox, father of the unfortunate Mary Anne and long-time MP for Donegal in the Irish Parliament, married Honoria Tomkins, heiress to the Prehen estate. The following decade the couple built themselves a new residence here overlooking the river Foyle and some two miles upstream from the city of Derry. The house’s design is attributed to Michael Priestley, about whom relatively little is known except that he was responsible for a number of buildings in north-west Ulster. Incidentally, among his other commissions was Lifford Courthouse and Gaol, outside which John MacNaghten was twice-hanged: a curious architectural link with Prehen, although probably of little interest to the condemned man. Built of rubble with ashlar dressings, the house has two storeys over basement and is of four bays, the centre two being slightly advanced and featuring a handsome sandstone Gibbsian doorcase and at the top a pediment with the Knox coat of arms. The interior is equally fine for the period, beginning with a substantial flagged entrance hall off which open a series of reception rooms to left and right while symmetrical doors to the rear give access to a main and service stairs respectively. A similar arrangement pertains on the first floor where the central space to the front of the building is taken up by a substantial gallery with coved ceiling.

The Knoxes remained at Prehen until the outbreak of the First World War when, for reasons that need to be explained, the estate was seized by the British government. Back in the mid-19th century Colonel George Knox married a Swiss girl, Rose Virgine Grimm and in turn one of their daughters Virginia was married to the German scholar and former student of Nietzsche Dr Ludwig von Scheffler of Weimar. Their son, Georg Carl Otto Ludwig von Scheffler became Adjutant to the Commander of the Cadet Corps Governor of the Royal Pages in the Prussian Army and was raised to the rank of baron by the Kaiser. On the death of his maternal grandfather George Knox in 1910, he inherited Prehen and assumed the additional surname of Knox. The Baron stayed at Prehen until August 1914 when war was declared between Britain and Germany. Initially placed under house arrest, he escaped and returned to Germany. In his absence, however, Prehen and its lands were confiscated by the government as enemy property. Following the conclusion of hostilities, the estate was liquidated at public auction under the terms of the 1916 Trading with the Enemy Amendment Act: Baron von Scheffler Knox only returned to see Prehen in the 1950s accompanied by his son, Johann Von Scheffler Prehen Knox who only died five years ago.

By the early 1970s Prehen was in poor condition. Requisitioned during the Second World War for troop accommodation, the house had been internally subdivided, a secondary door inserted into one of the main entrance’s sidelights, and there were large holes in the roof. On the verge of complete dereliction the property was then bought by Julian Peck and his American-born wife Carola: the couple had previously restored Rathbeale, County Dublin. Julian Peck had a family link with the place, his mother being author Winifred Peck (née Knox), one of a remarkable band of siblings whose other members included Monsignor Ronald Knox, Roman Catholic priest and detective story writer, Alfred ‘Dilly’ Knox, who worked as a code breaker during both the First and Second World Wars (he was employed at Bletchley Park until his death in 1943), the Church of England clergyman Wilfred Knox, and the poet and editor of Punch Edmund Knox (whose daughter was the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald). The Pecks rescued Prehen, bringing the house back to life and filling it with animation. Several of the rooms have had their walls painted, those in the entrance hall being covered with frescoes by Alec Cobbe. Meanwhile the dining room was decorated by Carola Peck in a style that blends Pompeii with Puvis de Chavannes. Julian Peck lived in the house until his death in 2001, followed by his wife in 2014. Their surviving son Colin sadly died last August, thereby ending a long connection between the Knoxes and Prehen. However the house survives as a testament to this remarkable family, and to the curious history of Half-Hanged MacNaghten.

Putting on a Good Front

Jun1

The low, three-bay façade of Tullaheady, County Tipperary suggests a modest Regency villa. However, three is actually a substantial basement (just about visible below the left-hand window) and behind this part of the house stretches a longer and older dwelling house. Here, as so often occurs in Ireland, a new front has been added to the building, providing a pair of larger reception rooms than had hitherto been the case.

Take a Bow

May28

While much excitement – and publicity – was generated by a house contents sale conducted by Mealy’s Auctioneers at Lotabeg, Cork for some of us the building proved as interesting as what it held. Dating from c.1800 Lotabeg is a relatively late work by Abraham Hargrave, an English-born architect who appears to have come to Ireland in 1791 to supervise the construction of St Patrick’s Bridge over the river Lee in Cork. He then stayed on and was responsible for work on a number of other country houses in the vicinity, including Fota and Castle Hyde, in both cases making alterations/additions to the original structure. Lotabeg on the other hand is entirely by Hargrave, its most notable feature being the large bow on the north-facing seven-bay entrance front. Behind this lies the house’s finest internal space: an immense circular domed entrance hall, around the walls of which snakes a cantilevered timber staircase up to the first floor gallery with access to a series of bedrooms.

Levels of History

May21

The staircase in Ashbrook, County Derry, one of the oldest continuously occupied houses in this part of the country. The land on which it sits was granted to General Thomas Ash by Elizabeth I in the 1590s as a reward for his aid in quashing the O’Neill Rebellion during the Nine Years War and the family (later Beresford-Ash) has remained there ever since. The rear section of Ashbrook is a 17th century house but in the 1760s a new section was added to the front providing ground floor rooms with higher ceilings than had hitherto been the case. As a result, upper floor levels had to be altered resulting in the present arrangement, seen below, whereby a single flight of stairs leads from a top-lit gallery to bedrooms at the front of the house.

The Rockford Files

May18

The handsome coachhouse entrance in the stableblock at Rockford, County Tipperary. This is part of a late 18th century complex originally built by the Kingsley family which subsequently passed by marriage to a branch of the Wolfes of County Kildare. In the second half of the 19th century, the latter built a new residence for themselves nearby and perhaps at that time these buildings were given their present appearance, including a series of pointed niches with brick surrounds that flank all the doors.

In Limbo

May9

Tyrrell is a common Irish surname but as with so many others, its origin is Anglo-Norman. At a date around the 1170s Hugh Tyrel (or Tirrell) came to this country and acquired the Barony of Fertullagh, County Westmeath running to some 39,000 acres, as well as land in Castleknock closer to Dublin. The Tyrrells thereafter flourished, in part because like so many others of their ilk they gradually became integrated with the indigenous population. The best-remembered member of the family is Captain Richard Tyrrell who in July 1597 defeated a superior force of English soldiers at a place in Westmeath thereafter known as Tyrrellspass. The Berminghams likewise were a Norman family, the first of whom Richard de Bermingham came to Ireland in the 1170s. Initially they settled in County Galway but also became established further east. Thomas Bermingham, the last Baron of Athenry and Earl of Louth died without a male heir in 1799 and with his death the main branch came to an end. More than half a century earlier, the Tyrrells and the Berminghams had coincided when in 1735 Walter Bermingham sold Grange Castle, County Kildare to Thomas Tyrrell.

Today set in the midst of a series of stone enclosures Grange Castle is most likely a 15th century tower house, one of a number of defensive properties built by the Berminghams in this part of the country, not least nearby Carrick Castle, which is earlier in date but now in poorer condition. Grange has survived better no doubt because it remained in use as a domestic residence. In addition, at some date in the late 16th/early 17th century it was modernised, as can be seen by the larger window openings, the tall chimney stacks (indicating an increased number of hearths) and the ornamental crenellations around the roofline. Further improvements appear to have occurred not long after the castle was acquired by the Tyrrells when a single storey house was added to the immediate west. Linked to the castle at the rear, this evidently contained the main reception rooms, with the older section presumably being utilised as sleeping quarters. The main point of access was through the house, via a fine carved limestone doorcase, its pediment containing the Tyrrell coat of arms and their motto Veritas Via Vitae (a variant of Christ’s words in St John’s Gospel, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’).

Grange Castle remained in the ownership of the Tyrrells until 1988 when responsibility for the mediaeval structure was handed over to the state. However the later house, and surrounding outbuildings remain in the ownership of the family. In the mid-1990s a charitable trust was established to restore the property with the intention that it be opened to the public. Over the course of several years a considerable amount of work was undertaken to improve both house and grounds. However in 2003 this enterprise came to a close and it appears that ever since the place has sat empty, and a prey to vandals. The castle itself is secure, the only access being via a locked door to the rear of the house. The latter however is easily accessed and accordingly has suffered some despoliation. At the same time the damage is not so grave to render the project beyond re-activation, and perhaps this will occur. For the moment Grange Castle appears to be in limbo.

Down with Mrs Delany

May4

In June 1743 Mary Pendarves (née Granville) married as her second husband the Anglican clergyman Dr Patrick Delany who a year later was made Dean of Down. As a result, although the couple’s main residence was at Delville on the outskirts of Dublin, they often spent time in the Dean’s diocese there occupying a house not far from Downpatrick with the distinctive name of Mount Panther. Much embellished after its acquisition by the future first Earl Annesley in 1770, for two centuries Mount Panther was judged one of the finest properties in County Down with especially fine plasterwork in the ballroom and drawing rooms. It survived until the 1960s but is now a ruin. However, a few souvenirs of Mount Panther have been incorporated into a house in neighbouring County Antrim including these curved doorcases and doors which were a feature of the staircase hall. Also rescued from Mount Panther were the neo-classical plasterwork wall decorations which incorporate a variety of motifs including the head of a big cat, although it looks more like that of a lion than a panther.

An Architectural Conundrum

May2

In Three Homes, a memoir published in 1938, playwright and author Lennox Robinson, together with his siblings Tom and Nora, recalled their childhood in late 19th century County Cork. Robinson was born in Douglas, now a dormitory suburb of Cork city but then still a separate village lying a few miles to the south-east. The youngest child of a stockbroker-turned-clergyman, he was born in a since-demolished property called Westgrove but often visited his aunt Eleanor, who had married a wealthy brewer, John Frazer Crichton, in Donnybrook House which still stands. This the Robinsons in their recollections describe as being ‘lowbuilt, old and charmingly planned, rooms open one into the other on the ground floor a bedroom opened off the dining room, the drawing room on the opposite side of the hall had its back drawing room and the same plan was repeated in the bedrooms upstairs.’ More than a century later, although the condition of the building has somewhat deteriorated, the layout remains unchanged.

The origins of Donnybrook House are unclear. We know that by the mid-18th century the land on which it stands had come into the ownership of the Davies family as the Rev Boyle Davies, Dean of Cloyne died there in 1763. He was the son of another of those ambitious Anglican clerics so common to the era, in this case the Rev Rowland Davies whose father of the same name had come to Ireland from Herefordshire probably in the 1640s: Rowland Davies was born in Cork in 1649. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1665 and initially seemed destined for a career in medicine before switching to the church. After taking orders in 1671 he held several minor offices and then became Dean of Cloyne in 1679. An ardent supporter of the Anglican faith (in 1716 he published a treatise called A truly Catholick and Old Religion, shewing that the Established Church in Ireland is more truly a member of the Catholick Church than the Church of Rome), he participated in the Battle of the Boyne, and the Sieges of both Limerick and Cork before returning to his pastoral duties. In 1707 he became Precentor of Cork and three years later Dean of the same diocese. He died in 1721. Rowland Davies may have been responsible for the purchase of Donnybrook’s land. On the other hand, he is known to have been a tenant of the Blarney estate, where two of his sons were born, until it was sold in 1702 to Lord Chief Justice Sir Richard Pyne for £3,000. It is said that the winged cherub heads seen above the arched ground floor windows of Donnybrook’s wings came from Blarney. Furthermore Rowland Davies built himself a house called Dawstown on part of what had formerly been McCarthy land north of Blarney. Here he died and here one branch of his descendants continued in occupation until the early 19th century. One wonders therefore whether the Donnybrook estate might have been bought by the Dean for his son, or whether Boyle Davies himself bought it. Curiously a year after the latter’s death his widow Mary, whose maiden name was Travers, leased the place to one Boyle Travers, who was a cousin of both her and her late husband (the reason for their shared first name is that they were both descendants of Elizabeth Boyle whose father Richard Boyle had become Archbishop of Tuam in 1638).

The Davies/Travers/Boyle family synopsis above helps to explain why it is not easy to work out the origins of Donnybrook House. Douglas emerged as an urban settlement from the early 18th century onwards thanks to the development here of mills associated with the textile and weaving industries which produced linen sailcloth. Tellingly the first such to open was Donnybrook Mills in 1726 (it was also one of the very last to close in the 20th century). A large pond which stood in front of the house (it can be seen in the watercolour above which dates from the first half of the 19th century) is now dried out. However formerly it served as catchment for a millrace that twenty feet below drove the millwheel. The site on which Donnybrook House stands is therefore at the top of a slope, the ground dropping sharply to the immediate north of the building. A substantial basement beneath the main rooms could be the earliest part of the fabric, dating back to before the arrival of the Davieses; in other words, as was so often the case, a newer residence was created incorporating parts of an older one. It has been proposed that a McCarthy castle stood here, thereby establishing another link with Blarney.
As one sees it today, the central block of the house, facing east, is of five bays and features a fine carved limestone doorcase with pretty fanlight above. The building initially looks single storey but this is not the case: a mid-18th century staircase directly beyond the front door leads to a first floor, the only evidence of which on the outside of the building is a solitary dormer window likely dating from the late 19th century and lighting the upper landing. The two slightly projecting tower ‘wings’ are believed to have been added in the early 1800s. They served both to increase accommodation and to give the house a more ancient, picturesque appearance (hence the gothic arched windows). As can be seen in that early watercolour, like the rest of the exterior the towers were originally rendered but subsequently covered in weather slates. Various additions were also made to the rear of the building over the course of two centuries, including a rather fine Edwardian bathroom that opens off the staircase return.

Donnybrook House’s original setting has long since gone: the surrounding gardens no longer exist, nor do any mills that once operated in the vicinity. Likewise most of the other historic houses and villas once dotting the landscape in this part of the country are gone: today almost the entire area is given over to housing estates. As is apparent, the building at present needs some attention. The roof of the south tower (that to the left of the entrance) has collapsed, bringing down the floors inside and making this part of the building unsafe. Meanwhile the north tower is suffering from water ingress and risks becoming similarly hazardous. This damage is not visible from the exterior because blind gothic windows on the upper level were designed to conceal the pitched roofs. On the other hand, the central section of the property appears to be in relatively good condition although rather damp, and has continued to be used and occupied. Internally some of the original 18th and early 19th century wooden joinery, including wainscot panelling, has survived, as have a number of the old sash windows. The spirit of the house invoked by Lennox Robinson and his siblings can still be felt.
Here is a building waiting to be rescued from what too often has been the fate of such properties in Ireland: ruin and disappearance. Wonderfully the present owner is keen to restore Donnybrook House and bring it back to residential use. Rescue and refurbishment is still feasible and must be encouraged. Donnybrook House is an important and rare testament to Cork’s architectural and industrial history. Its preservation merits everyone’s support.

With special thanks to Ciara O’Flynn, Built Heritage Conservation Consultant/Buildings Archaeologist, for generously sharing her research into Donnybrook House.

After the Earl-Bishop

Apr27

The fondness of Frederick Augustus Hervey, Bishop of Derry and Earl of Bristol for building projects has been discussed here more than once, and attention paid to that on which he embarked around 1787/88 at Ballyscullion (see Let the Door be Instantly Open, For There is Much Wealth Within…, March 31st 2014). Within ten years of the Earl-Bishop’s death in 1803 the property here had already fallen into decay, with significant portions of its structure removed for re-use elsewhere. The estate was inherited by a kinsman, the Rev. Sir Henry Hervey Bruce and in 1840 Charles Lanyon designed a handsome new residence for his son, Admiral Sir Henry Bruce (who at the age of 13 had fought at the Battle of Trafalgar and went on to command the British fleet in the Pacific). Above and below are views of the garden front, entirely stuccoed except for the sandstone Doric columns flanking the tripartite window providing access to the drawing room: these are in the same material and style as the entrance porch on the other side of the house. Ballyscullion Park remained in the possession of the Bruce family until sold in 1938 to the Hon. Sir Harry Mulholland, first Speaker of the Northern Ireland Parliament at Stormont: it is now cared for by Sir Harry’s grandson Richard and his wife Rosalind.

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