Survey Data

Reg No

40909841


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Historical, Social


Original Use

Walled garden


Date

1760 - 1820


Coordinates

175015, 376521


Date Recorded

22/11/2007


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Two former walled gardens on sub-rectangular plans associated with Bruckless House (see 40909802). Constructed of rubble stone with cement coping over. Integral square-headed doorways having roughly squared stone surrounds and lintels, and with replacement timber doors/gates. Square-headed window openings to the north-west boundary of walled garden to the south, probably originally associated with glass/greenhouses now demolished. Driveway runs between boundary walls of gardens. Gateway to the north-west end of walled garden to the south, probably originally associated with house/dwelling to the south-west, comprising a pair of squared rubble sandstone gate piers (on square-plan) having sprocketed pyramidal coping over, and with a pair of wrought-iron gates. Set back from road in extensive mature grounds to the west and south-west of Bruckless House, and close to the shoreline of Bruckless Harbour. Apple trees surviving to the northern walled garden.

Appraisal

These large-scale former walled gardens were originally built/laid-out to serve the estate of Bruckless House (see 40909802). The simple but well-built boundary walls survive in relatively good condition, particularly to the garden to the south, despite being out of use for a considerable period. These walled gardens probably originally date to the last decades of the eighteenth century or the first decades of the nineteenth century. The scale of these walled gardens provides an interesting historical insight into the extensive resources required to run and maintain a middle-sized country estate in Ireland during the late-eighteenth and the nineteenth-century, when they would have been used to produce a variety of foodstuffs for use in the main house and throughout the estate, and probably also to provide an income source. These former walled gardens form part of a collection of structures related to Bruckless House, and add considerably to the context and historical setting.