House - 17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

On the fairly flat floor of the Nore river valley, on a slight terrace c. 1m above the flood plain. Within a large bawn (KK009-002003-) c. 40m W of the River Nore. According to O’Kelly (1969, 12) this property was owned by the Grace family. Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 326) describes it as, ‘an ancient keep with a very large Elizabethan house attached. Not a stone of it now remains over another, even its foundations having been all uprooted in 1849 or 1850’. However, it may have been levelled by 1839 as it is not depicted on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map nor is it mentioned in the accompanying OS Letters. An antiquarian sketch, viewed from the SE, shows it as a substantial E-facing three-storey house within a large bawn (Lightbrown 1985, 168). The house has seven bays, each surmounted by a gable to the front and rear. In the E face each bay has a two-light mullion and transom window except the central bay which has a doorway at ground-floor doorway. The S gable has three-bays, with full height canted bay to centre. The side bays have three-light mullion and transom windows at each level with hood-moulding over each, while the central bay has a two-light mullion and transom window to each face. An earlier castle (KK009-002001-) is depicted adjoining the N end of the house. The house is not visible at ground level.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 20 June 2016

References

Lightbrown, R. W. 1985 Some eighteenth and early nineteenth century visitors to Killkenny. (Part two). Old Kilkenny Review 3 (2), 161-73.

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.

O'Kelly, O. 1969 (Reissue 1985) The place-names of County Kilkenny. Kilkenny.