Castlecor House is considered to be amongst the most unusual eighteenth-century buildings in Ireland.  The original eighteenth-century house, forming the rear of the present structure, consists of a two-storey block on a symmetrical octagonal-plan with short two-storey wings projecting from four of its faces forming a cruciform plan.

AERIAL VIEW OF CASTLECOR HOUSE WITH THE ORIGINAL BLOCK TO THE TOP OF THE PHOTOGRAPH

The “Great Hall” is a single room at the first floor of the central octagon.  In the centre of this room are four fireplaces clustered together as an architectural assemblage.  Each fireplace is framed by tall Corinthian columns, which support a rich entablature over.  The centre of each fireplace has a panel decorated with a mask of Apollo motif, supported on console brackets, each of which is crowned by a segmental pediment.  Each chimneypiece is surmounted by a mirror, which reflects views of the countryside from the four tall round-headed windows opposite.  Above the entablatures, the chimneypiece rises to an octagonal column with a boldly-scaled, projecting dentil cornice and a high coved ceiling.  The windows, which have fielded panel shutters, are framed by fluted Corinthian pilasters, and the doors are of a five panel design.  The Italian Baroque effect is completed with a marble floor.  Architecturally, the visual impact is extraordinary, and this room must rank as one of the most interesting eighteenth-century rooms in the country.

 
(l-r) VIEW OF THE CHIMNEYPIECE IN THE CENTRE OF THE “GREAT HALL” and DETAIL OF THE CORINTHIAN COLUMNS, SEGMENTAL PEDIMENT AND MASK OF APOLLO

 
(l-r) VIEW OF ROUND-HEADED WINDOW OPENING IN THE “GREAT HALL” and VIEW OF DOORWAY INTO THE “GREAT HALL”

Castlecor was originally constructed in the eighteenth century for the Very Reverend Cutts Harman (1706–1784), Dean of Waterford Cathedral from 1759 and a younger son of the important Harman family of nearby Newcastle House.  The exact date of construction is not known, and estimates vary from 1735 to c.1780.  The architect is not known although it is possible that Cutts Harman designed the house himself.

VIEW OF NEWCASTLE HOUSE, THE SEAT OF THE HARMAN FAMILY DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Speculation on the inspiration for the unusual design of Castlecor varies:

• Stupinigi Palace (Palazzina di Stupinigi) (begun 1729): the hunting palace of the Dukes of Savoy near Turin.
• Clemenswert Castle (Schloss Clemenswert) (1737-47), Germany.
• A miniature copy of Windsor Castle.
• Plans for windmill sails first appear in the seventh pattern book by Sebastiano Serlio (1475–c.1554), the sixteenth-century Italian architect
• William Halfpenny (d. 1755), who in 1739 had been employed to make designs for a bishop’s palace and a new cathedral at Waterford.  Halfpenny also published a number of English Palladian pattern books
• The Great Rotunda of Ranelagh House, London (demolished c.1803) had a large central octagonal support with fireplaces (neither Stupinigi nor Clemenswerth have this distinctive internal feature).

Early in the nineteenth century, a conventional two-storey front was built on to the original structure to make it more suitable for use as a permanent dwelling.  This block is built in the angle between two of the original wings.  A wider front of three bays and two storeys, with a central pedimented tripartite doorway, was added on to the front of the early nineteenth-century block, circa 1913.  One of the original projecting wings was also enlarged about the same time, which makes it very difficult to appreciate the original precision and concept of Castlecor from the exterior.

 
(l-r) VIEW FROM THE SOUTH-EAST and VIEW FROM THE REAR

The “Great Hall” is approached axially through the hall of the twentieth-century house, along a straight stair and finally through the lobby of the nineteenth-century house, which is top-lit and decorated with architectural plasterwork and laurel wreaths.

  
(l-r) VIEW OF ENTRANCE BLOCK (c.1913) and VIEW OF PEDIMENTED DOORCASE

VIEW OF FIRST FLOOR PLAN OF CASTLECOR HOUSE, DATED 1913, WITH ORIGINAL BLOCK TO THE TOP OF THE IMAGE

Castlecor has enjoyed a variety of uses during its lifetime – hunting lodge, private residence, convent, bed and breakfast and nursing home.  Its current owners are restoring it for use as a private residence once again.

Brian Ginty and Loretta Grogan, owners, August 2009

SOURCES

• Bence-Jones, Mark, A Guide to Irish Country Houses (London: Constable Press, second edition 1988)
• Casey, Christine and Rowan, Alastair, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993)
• John R. Redmill (Dip. Arch. FRIAI), Conservation Architect and Historic Buildings Consultant

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