Survey Data

Reg No

15401129


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic, Historical


Previous Name

Clonhugh originally Clanhugh Lodge


Original Use

Country house


In Use As

Country house


Date

1860 - 1870


Coordinates

239438, 260761


Date Recorded

27/03/2006


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Detached five-bay two-storey Italianate country house, built in 1867, with projecting single-bay pedimented breakfront and projecting Ionic entrance porch to centre. Various two-storey extensions to the northwest. Now in use as a private dwelling. Hipped natural slate roof with overhanging bracketed eaves and two cut stone chimneystacks to the centre, aligned behind ridge. Constructed of coursed limestone with cut limestone trim. Square-headed window openings with one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and cut stone sills to ground floor and outer bays to first floor, three round-headed sash windows to projecting bay (centre) on first floor (above porch). Square-headed doorcase to centre with glazed timber double-doors and plain overlight above. Main doorcase flanked by narrow sidelights to either side. Cast-iron and timber conservatory to south side and extensive collection of single and two-storey outbuildings to the north, arranged around a central courtyard. Gate lodge (15401124) serves original main entrance to the northeast. Located in extensive mature grounds.

Appraisal

An appealing late nineteenth-century country house, which retains its early form, character and fabric. The symmetrical front façade is enlivened by the projecting Ionic porch, and by the triple round-headed windows and shallow pediment over to the centre. This house was (re)built in an Italianate design by William Caldbeck (1824-1872), a noted architect of his day, for a Colonel F.S. Greville, later Lord Greville. Lord Greville's main seat was at Clonyn Castle (15308017), Delvin. The builder of this impressive structure was a Francis Nulty of Kells. The extensive collection of outbuildings to the northwest adds considerably to this fine composition, which is located in a very attractive location, in extensive mature grounds on the shores of Lough Owel. Some of these outbuildings appear to predate the house and may have been built to serve the earlier Clonhugh House (Ordnance Survey Map 1838), which was demolished to make way for the present structure. This earlier house is recorded by Lewis (1837) as being in the ownership of Lord Forbes. The entrance gates and gate lodge to the northeast (15401124) provide a suitably elegant approach to this grand house. An ice house survives to the south of the main house on the shores of Lough Owel. William's Trevor's 'Fools of Fortune' (1990) was filmed here.