Powerscourt House and Gardens

We headed off to Powerscourt House and Gardens. It is beside Enniskerry on the N11 just as your are leaving the south Dublin suburbs.

So some quick facts first.

• driving – N11 south out of Dublin, turn off for Enniskerry
• bus – 44 from Eden Quay to Enniskerry and then about 20 min walk
• €8 entrance fee to Gardens – bit steep but still worth the money
• allow at least 1 hour to walk the Gardens – at minimum
• Dublin bus coastal tours stop here
• they sell food, (Avoca), have some shops, and have clean toilets

Powerscourt House and Gardens occupys 47 acres. The house, originally a 13th century castle, was extensively altered during the 18th century by German architect Richard Cassels, starting in 1731 and finishing in 1741. A fire in 1974 left the house lying as a shell until it was renovated in 1996. The estate today is a popular tourist attraction, and includes a golf course, an Handweavers restaurant, and a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The History of Powerscourt

The original owner of the 13th century castle was a man by the name of la Poer, which was eventually anglicised to Power. The castle’s position was of strategic military importance, in that the castle’s owner could control access to the nearby Dargle, Glencree and Glencullen rivers.

The three-story house had at least 68 rooms. The entrance hall was 60 feet (18 metres) long and 40 feet (12 metres) wide where family heirlooms were displayed. The main reception rooms were on the first floor rather than more typically on the ground floor. A mile-long avenue of beech trees leads to the house.

King George IV was the guest of Richard Wingfield, fifth Viscount Powerscourt in August 1821. Mervyn Wingfield, seventh Viscount Powerscourt inherited the title and the Powerscourt estate, which comprised 49,000 acres (200 km²) of land in Ireland, at the age of 8 in 1844. When he reached the age of 21 he embarked on an extensive renovation of the house and created new gardens.

Inspiration for the garden design followed visits by Powerscourt to ornamental gardens at the Palace of Versailles, Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna, and Schwetzingen Castle near Heidelberg. The garden development took 20 years to complete in 1880.

Main attractions on the grounds include the Tower Valley (with stone tower), Japanese gardens, winged horse statues, Triton Lake, pets cemetery, Dolphin Pond, walled gardens, Bamberg Gate and the Italian Garden. The Pepperpot Tower is said to be designed after a favored 3″ pepperpot of Lady Wingfield. Of particular note is the pets cemetery, whose tombstones have been described as “astonishingly personal”.

On a commanding hilltop position Richard Cassels deviated slightly from his usual sombre style, to give the house something of what John Vanbrugh would have called the ‘castle air’, a severe palladian facade bookended by two circular domed towers.

In the 1830s, the house was the venue for a number of conferences on unfulfilled Bible prophecies, which were attended by men such as John Nelson Darby and Edward Irving. These conferences were held under the auspices of Theodosia Wingfield Powerscourt, then the dowager Lady Powerscourt. Her letters and papers have recently been republished together with the summaries of the Powerscourt prophetic conferences.[2]

The house was destroyed by fire on 4 November 1974 while it was owned by the Slazenger family, and was subsequently renovated in 1996. Only two rooms are open to the public as they once appeared while Powerscourt had residents, while the rest of the renovated house has been converted into shops.

The house was used as a filming location in the 2002 film, The Count of Monte Cristo, and, more famously, in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, which was filmed there before the 1974 fire. David Copperfield was filmed there in 2000 and Where’s Jack in 1969.

Powerscourt House is the ancestral home of the fictional Francis Lord Powerscourt in David Dickinson’s series of novels about the Victorian detective (Goodnight Sweet Prince, Death And The Jubilee, Death Called To The Bar).

Powerscourt Waterfall

Powerscourt Waterfall and its surrounding valley are also owned by the Powerscourt estate, although the two pieces of land are no longer directly connected. At 121 metres, it is the highest waterfall in Ireland. In 1858, the seventh Viscount Powerscourt established a deer park around the waterfall, resulting in the successful introduction of the Japanese Sikka to Ireland.

Regular bus service from Powerscourt to the waterfall was discontinued in 2005, though during the high summer season, intermittent bus services are still available. The waterfall is seven kilometres from Enniskerry, and walkable. While the distance is not prohibitive, walking can be dangerous, as the road is narrow, and lacks a shoulder for long stretches.

The entry fee ranges from €3 to €5

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