Summerhill House
Summerhill House ( Irish Teach Chnoc an Línsigh ) was a mansion south of the village of Summerhill in County Meath, Ireland . The house had 100 rooms and was the ancestral seat of the Viscounts Langford and Barons Langford . It was built in 1731 and demonstrated the power and wealth of the Langford-Rowley family at the time . They owned extensive estates in counties of Meath, Westmeath , Cork , Londonderry , Antrim and Dublin , as well as in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall .
Summerhill House dominated the area and was particularly impressive as it was on the top of a hill. The main driveway was from Summerhill village . Another access was from the road to Dublin via a 1 mile (1.6 km) long avenue. Like all these properties, Summerhill House had avenues that led in all four directions.
The Summerhill mansion was designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and finished by Richard Cassels in the Palladian style , although Sir John Vanbrugh (who was related to Pearce) had a great influence on the house, as evidenced by the magnificent arched chimney heads which Pearce had learned to construct in the Vanbrugh office. Robert Adam also redecorated a small number of rooms later in the house's history.
There were royal visitors at Summerhill House; it was an exceptionally blessed house, and at the time of its construction it was ranked among the finest and grandest country houses in Europe.
The Rowley Langford family
John Rowley came to Ireland during the reign of King James I as the sole agent of the London Society for the construction of the cities of Londonderry and Coleraine . When the city of Londonderry was founded in 1613, he was chartered to be the first mayor of the new city. One of his daughters, Anne , married Tristram Beresford , an ancestor of the County Tyrone family . Another daughter, Mary , married James Clotworthy, and the couple had a daughter who married the honorable Robert FitzGerald and was the grandmother of Lieutenant General James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster .
After the Stuart Restoration , John Rowley was knighted. He left only one son, Hercules , whose only son and heir, also Hercules Langford Rowley , married Elizabeth Ormsby (later 1st Viscountess Langford) in 1732 . Around this time he had a grand Georgian mansion built in Summerhill.
Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary
Empress Sissi visited Summerhill House in February 1879. The preparations for this were kept well secret; first of all, their whereabouts had to be determined. County Meath had the best hunting dogs, and Summerhill is in the middle of that county, so Summerhill House was chosen. When the company was on a hunt in Dunshaughlin and came to Maynooth , they met two men who were repairing a wall of the Catholic seminary. When the deer they were hunting jumped onto the college's land, the Empress followed him, without knowing where she was going, and almost jumped on the college's president, Professor William Walsh , who later became Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland became.
On November 13, 2010, a famous riding whip appeared at an Adams country house auction in Slane Castle . The whip had belonged to the Empress, and she gave it to Robert Fowler , the Meath Hound Master at the time of her stay at Summerhill House. The whip had been lost and was only found shortly before the auction at Rahinston House . The whip was found in a presentation case made of mahogany wood with a silver helmet plate with the imperial coat of arms of Habsburg . The whip was valued at € 3,000-5,000, but the hammer price was € 37,000.
description
Summerhill mansion was beautifully situated on top of a hill. It consisted of a central block and two wings; it was a massive limestone building of great length. Four half-columns with Corinthian capitals adorned the front; the half-columns were drawn up over the entire height of the house, as was customary in Renaissance palaces in Rome . There was a porch in front of two sunken gardens and a raised grassy platform for the sundial , as well as a large rose garden and another very large garden. When the Longford mansion was built, the path goes up the hill and around the porch.
A wide flight of stairs led to the entrance of the manor house. There was a large and very high hall similar to that of Leinster House in Dublin . Panels and portraits in oil were hung in the hall. The library was to the right of the entrance. The parlor faced south and contained various portraits of the Rowley family . The parade dining room was attached to the main block and had beautifully designed ceilings. The main staircase led to the bedrooms. A beautiful fireplace screen in one of the bedrooms used to be in a country house in Dublin.
Decline
Summerhill House was repeatedly damaged by fire and suffered problems when in 1919 farmworks struck and damaged land tillage facilities. The Republican workers and farmhands were evicted from their homes and, after months of agrarian uprising, the IRA finally invaded the property on February 4, 1921 , and evenly divided the land and farms around the mansion among the workers and their families. Then they set fire to the mansion themselves and it was completely destroyed.
The 4th Baron Langford (1848–1919) inherited the house and property in 1854. He was followed by his son, the young 5th Baron (1894–1922), who died prematurely. He in turn was inherited by his older cousin, Colonel Chambre Rowley , who became 6th Baron Langford.
In 1922 this 6th Baron Langford (1849-1931), who had inherited the baronate only the previous year, demanded compensation from the Conservative government of the Irish Free State . After three years of negotiation with the Damages Committee, Colonel Lord Langford received £ 43,500, almost a third of the value of the manor and contents that were destroyed in the fire. The elderly Lord Langford invested the money in gold-backed government bonds and moved to Middlesex , England.
Summerhill House remained in ruins until it was finally demolished in 1970. It was listed in the Forgotten Houses of Ireland as the most beautiful mansion in Ireland.
Individual evidence
- ^ The History and Folklore of Coole and Summerhill Parish . Cool and Summerhill ICA, 1999.
- ^ Maurice Craig: The quest for Edward Lovett Pearce in Irish Arts Review Yearbook . Volume 12 (1996). Pp. 27-34.
- ↑ Tarquin Blake: Abandoned Ireland . Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- ^ Robert FitzGerald, 19th Earl of Kildare . In: The Peerage . Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- ↑ Meath . In: The Irish Aesthete . Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- ^ Summerhill . In: The Irish Aesthete . Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- ↑ Terence Ryle: A muted roar of Celtic Tiger at the castle - Empress's whip makes a cracking £ 34,000 . In: Auction Reports . November 10, 2010. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
- ^ The Irish Architectural Archives, Merrion Square . Irish Georgian Society.
- ^ TU Sadlier: Richard Castle in The journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland .
Coordinates: 53 ° 28 '25.7 " N , 6 ° 43' 39.6" W.