House - fortified house

The National Monuments Service's description

On a SW-facing slope in undulating terrain, in the E corner of the garden of the house which was built in the 1970s and partially on the adjacent roadway to the NE. Knockgraffon tower house (TS075-076----) is located c. 50m to the ENE. The house was built by John Godfrey, an English officer who was granted the land in reward for services in the 1641 Rising (De Breffny and Ffolliott 1975, 55). In 1665 he was taxed for five hearths at Knockgraffon and for six hearths in 1666-7 (ibid., 1975, 55). According to De Breffny and ffolliott the house was two-storey and double-pile with high gables and chimneys and had a garderobe jutting out on corbels from one of the back corners (ibid. 1975, 55). However the photographic, illustrative and other references suggest it was in fact a single pile. This is probably the same house referred to in the Civil Survey 1654-56 (Simington 1931, vol.1, 158) as 'a slate house'. Du Noyer's sketch (1840 vol. 2, 43(i) unpublished RSAI) depicts this house with a large projecting chimney at the NE gable nearest the tower house and a chimney at the apex of the SW gable. The nearest projecting chimney is shouldered with a single-light above it. Waterman (1961, 254) also describes the house as a 'simple oblong' with 'massive external chimney-projections at the gable-ends' and gives the dimensions as 'about 60 ft. [c. 18m] x 21 ft. [6.4m]' and mentions there there was evidence within the outer door for a rising gate (ibid., 257). The house was levelled in 1973 and stone from the 17th-century house was used in the foundations of adjacent new house and also spread around the neighbouring fields.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 02 April 2014

References

Waterman, D.M. 1961 Some Irish seventeenth-century houses and their architectural ancestry. In E.M. Jope (ed.), Studies in building history, 251-74. London. Odhams.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1931 The Civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol I: county of Tipperary: eastern and southern baronies. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

de Breffny, B. and ffolliott, R. 1975 The houses of Ireland: domestic architecture from the medieval castle to the Edwardian villa. London. Thames and Hudson.