The Lost Castles of Monaghan
Dartrey and Rossmore Castle
The Entrance Front of Dartrey
( Picture from the collection of David Hicks)
Oscar Wilde once said ‘to lose one parent may be regarded
as a misfortune, but to lose both looks like carelessness’. The same could be
said of County Monaghan and its castles, for my first book I was developing two
chapters about two wondrous architectural creations in Monaghan. However imagine
my surprise to discover that absolutely nothing of these great buildings remain
but a few steps, outbuildings and gate lodges. The first of these is Dartrey
which was completed in the midst of the Great Irish Famine in 1847. It was
originally designed to extend and incorporate a house from the 1770’s known as
Dawson’s Grove, with the old and the new house being divided by a substantial
wall. The house cost its owner, Richard Dawson, who later became the first Earl
of Dartrey, £30,000. It was a vast Elizabethan Revival mansion and the
architect chosen for these improvements was William Burn. The house had a very long facade with legions of mullioned windows,
oriel windows, Tudor chimneys and curvilinear gables.
The garden front sat atop a
two level terrace facing onto Lough Dromore.
( Picture from the collection of the National Library of Ireland )
In March 1856,
a fire is believed to have destroyed the original part of the house which would
have been the Dawson’s Grove section. The fire broke out in the roof as a
result of a defective chimney and completely destroyed the north-eastern wing.
Furniture, pictures and statues were saved as numerous people fought to bring
the fire under control. Rooms lost in this fire included the drawing room and
her ladyship’s boudoir. The house was insured and the damaged section was replaced,
as a result the house that now existed was a totally ‘new’ house that contained
nothing of the original Dawson’s Grove.
The out buildings were constructed about one mile from the house, they were built of red brick with cut stone details and laid out in a semi-circle around a cobbled yard.
(Picture by Ellie Ross)
A major change took place in the finances of this
house and family in less than 100 years after its completion. The last owner of
the house was Lady Edith Windham who was the daughter of the second Earl of
Dartrey, Vesey Dawson. Vesey Dawson, the second Earl of Dartrey died in June 1920 after a long
illness at Dartrey. He was born on the 22nd April 1842 and succeeded
to the Earldom upon the death of his father in 1897. He married Julia daughter
of Sir George Orby Wombwell in 1882 and had two daughters. During the First
World War, he and Lady Dartey produced large amounts of vegetables in the
gardens and terraces that surrounded the castle. He was succeeded to the title
by his brother Hon Edward Stanley Dawson born in 1843. Lady Edith Windham, the grand daughter of the first Earl disposed of
the house contents in 1937 with a four day sale which included a number of
paintings by El Greco, Zoffany, Reubens and Coates. A broadcasting or speaker system was used so bidding could be heard in
the different rooms of the house. Also included in the
auction were 5,000 books from the library, it is un-imaginable that one house
could contain so many books but these were all contained in one room. There
auction created a bit of a stir in the antiques world as buyers travelled from
Dublin, Northern Ireland and Great Britain with special buses put in place to
ferry expectant bidders to and from the castle. Lady Edith had previously moved
in to the Stewards Cottage and a number of years after the auction she then made
arrangements to have the house demolished. Therefore the man that originally built the house was only separated
from the lady who demolished the house, by only one generation. In March 1946, the demolition sale of the castle was advertised and
consisted of 500 lots which included beams, flooring, rafters, moldings, skirting’s,
the solid oak staircase, oak doors, window casings, brick, 5,000 slates,
mantelpieces in white and cream marble. The sale handled by Samuel Brown, an
auctioneer from Monaghan. Lady Edith claimed she had no option as the rates were too
high and a buyer was not forth coming. A company from Dublin called Hammond
Lane Foundry were engaged to carry out the destruction of this architectural
masterpiece; however one imagines they were more interested in the lead in the
roof than architectural salvage. The process of demolishing the family seat
supposedly made Lady Edith a profit of £3,000 but one wonders if this figure
could be considered a profit, when it cost her descendant ten times that amount
to build the house in the first place.
One of the few elements that survive
today and give some impression of the architectural splendour of the original
house is the Dawson Mausoleum which recently underwent a spectacular
restoration. The Mausoleum was built to commemorate Lady Anne Dawson
who died in 1769 and contains a life sized marble sculpture of the deceased,
her husband and son gathered around an urn that contained her ashes. The domed building
that contained this sculpture was designed by the architect James Wyatt and was
situated in the demesne that once surrounded Dartrey. Over the years the
building became derelict and the sculpture was vandalised, with pieces of the
statue being broken off and stolen. Now that the Mausoleum is restored a recent
appeal has located the head of one of the statues in Dublin. However the hands,
feet and angels wings still remain at large.
The Gate Lodge of Dartry that still survives today
(Picture by Ellie Ross)
The second architectural jewel lost
to the county of Monaghan was Rossmore Castle whose decline was hastened when
it developed dry rot. This castle, as can be seen in the pictures, was
something akin to a Walt Disney creation with its towers and turrets.
Rossmore Castle featured on a postcard that was advertising the company
that brought electricity to the castle
(From the collection of David Hicks)
A
succession of extensions in order to claim the title of the largest drawing
room in Monaghan enlarged the floor area of the castle over the years. Rossmore
Castle was a large Tudor Revival house built in 1827 to the design of William
Viturvius Morrison for the second Lord Rossmore. In 1825, Richard Morrison was
engaged in producing plans to rebuild the house then known as Cortolvin Hills
for Lord Rossmore. In 1854, William
Deane Butler produced plans for remodelling the house but these were not
executed. The house was altered and enlarged 1858 to the design of William of
William H. Lynn. Eventually the combined changes and additions resulted in a building
with three towers and over 117 windows in 53 different shapes and sizes. One
feature of the house was its drawing room which enlarged on a number of
occasions due to Lord Rossmore competing with his neighbour Mr. Shirley of Lough
Fea to have the largest room in the county. A competition Lord Rossmore
eventually lost.
Rossmore could boast three towers and 117 windows
( Picture from the collection of The National Library of Ireland)
The early 1900’s the Rossmore’s seemed
to have a run of bad luck. It was reported in August 1906, Lord Rossmore was ill
in the castle and was confined to his room for the previous week. He had intended
to go to his large, recently built, shooting lodge on his mountain. In April
1907, Lord and Lady Rossmore’s eldest son William was injured while mounting
his pony near the castle. The pony bolted, William’s foot became entangled in
the stirrups and he was dragged for some distance. He suffered a fractured
skull and a broken leg. However a happy event was recorded in 1908 when the
Duke of Connaught paid a visit to the castle. He again returned in 1909, where he stayed overnight and then travelled to Lord Rossmore’s
mountain in Glasslough for grouse shooting.
In the early part of the twentieth century Rossmore remained unoccupied
for long periods as the fifth and sixth Barons decided to live in England which
resulted in the uncontrolled spread of dry rot.
All that remains of Rossmore today are the entrance steps that were once graced by royalty when they visited their friends in Monaghan
( Picture by Ellie Ross)
The Rossmore Family made a
valiant attempt to brave the dry rot at Rossmore but when the mushrooms
appeared on the drawing room ceiling it was hard to make any guests believe
they were there for decorative purposes. The time came for them to abandon the
castle for another family property when they had to ask their guests to wipe
their feet on a disinfected mat so not to spread the spores of the dry rot. One
wonders if it was the social embarrassment or the actual dry rot that led to
the demolition of the house. In May 1946, contents of the castle advertised by
Battersby & Co and that they had been removed to the Dower House, Camla,
Rossmore Park. The auction which was to take place included antique furniture,
Chippendale Mirrors, oil paintings statues, tapestries, china, carpet
chandeliers and of course the obligatory billiards table. The oil paintings
included works from Dutch, English, Flemish and Italian schools and comprised
of portraits, battle scenes and landscapes. Now with the castle denuded of its
contents, a demolition sale took place in September 1946 and lots included
joist, rafters, bricks, slates, fireplaces, doors, windows, shutters, water
tanks, bathroom fittings
The steps that lead down the terraces from the castle to the lake also remain
(Picture by Ellie Ross)
The house remained unoccupied, was
unroofed during the Second World War and finally demolished in 1975 and the
grounds of the castle were sold to the Irish State in the 1960’s. The family
moved to a nearby dower house called Camla Vale after the castle became
uninhabitable due to the dry rot. The dry rot spores are believed to
have traveled in the corks of the bottles from the wine cellar of the castle
and as a result their new home also became infested. Today Rossmore is a public park with only a
few elements such as the entrance steps and terraces of the castle surviving.
The Gate Lodge of Rossmore
(Picture by Ellie Ross)