Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Amateur architect, said to have designed his own house, Glengarriff Castle, Co. Cork, and to have laid out the grounds. The house was enthusiastically described by Prince Pückler-Muskau in 1828 or 1829: 'It was built after the plan of the possessor; in a style not so much Gothic as antiquely picturesque, such as a delicate feeling of the suitable and harmonious conceived to be in keeping with the surrounding scenery. The execution is excellent, for the imitation of the antique is quite deceptive. The ornaments are so sparingly and so suitably interspersed, the whole so well constructed for habitation and comfort, and the part which appears the oldest has such a neglected and uninhabited air, that the impression made, on me at least, completely answered the intention of the architect; for I took it to be an old abbey, lately rendered habitable, and modernized just so far as our habits rendered necessary. At the back of the house are hot-houses and a walled garden in beautiful order, both connected with the sitting-rooms - so that you live in the midst of flowers, tropical plants and fruits, without leaving the house.'(1) Jonathan Binns, on the other hand, visiting the house a few years later, found it 'a fanciful modern cropped building, with its eaves as if shorn close, and rendered anomalous by an intermixture of castellated architecture'.(2)

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References



(1) Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, Tour in England, Ireland, and France: in the years 1828, and 1829 (1832), 312-3.
(2) Jonathan Binns, The Miseries and Beauties of Ireland (1837), II, 329-30.


1 work entries listed in chronological order for WHITE, SIMON (COL)


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Building: CO. CORK, GLENGARRIFF CASTLE
Date: ?
Nature: Said to have been designed by SW.
Refs: Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau, Tour in England, Ireland, and France: in the years 1828, and 1829 (1832), 312-3; Mark Bence-Jones, Burke’s Guide to Country Houses. Volume I, Ireland. (London, 1978), 138(illus.)