Survey Data
Reg No
15400921
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Country house
Date
1700 - 1795
Coordinates
261789, 264981
Date Recorded
27/06/2006
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached seven-bay (seven-bay deep) three-storey over basement country house, extant 1795, on a square plan originally with three-bay single-storey flat-roofed projecting porch to ground floor. Occupied, 1901; 1911. Dismantled, 1940. Now in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds.
Appraisal
The shell of a country house erected by Hans Widman Wood (1720-95) representing an important component of the eighteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Westmeath with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on panoramic vistas overlooking wooded grounds and the meandering Stonyford River; the compact square plan form centred on the ghostly outline of a pillared porch; the construction in a deep-grey limestone demonstrating good quality workmanship; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression; and the parapeted roofline. Furthermore, an adjacent quadrangle (----); a walled garden (----); and the "Triumphal Arch" reclaimed from the Glananea House estate (see 15400904), all continues to contribute positively to the group and setting values of an estate having historic connections with the Widman Wood family including Henry Widman Wood (----); and Admiral Hercules Robinson (1789-1864) and Frances Elizabeth Robinson (née Widman Wood) (----) whose son Hercules George Robert Robinson (1824-97) was elevated to the peerage as Baron Rosmead (1896); George Charles Mostyn (1804-83), sixth Baron Vaux of Harrowden, who made unspecified "improvements" to the property (Westmeath Guardian and Longford Newsletter 3rd June 1858); and Fulke Southwell Greville-Nugent (né Greville) (1821-83) of nearby Clonyn Castle (see 15308017) whose son-in-law Alexis Huchet (1839-1918), Marquis de la Bédoyère, is named as "Landholder" of the property at the turn of the twentieth century (NA 1901; NA 1911). NOTE: The proposed adaptation 'for religious use' to designs signed (1933) by Ralph Henry Byrne (1877-1946) of Suffolk Street, Dublin, appears to have been unsuccessful and the country house was subsequently dismantled (1940) with some stone work repurposed in the reconstruction (1942) of Balrath in neighbouring County Meath (see 144016--).