Burtown House
- Clasificación
- Casona
- País
- Irlanda
- Región
- County Kildare
- Dirección
- Athy
- Época / estilo
- Georgian villa with Regency extensions
Ballytore in County Kildare was a stronghold of the Irish Quakers and centre of a sizeable Quaker community. Robert Power, one of their members, built Burtown House as the hub of a two thousand acre farming enterprise in the 1720s. His Georgian villa, shown on early maps as "Power's Grove," was originally only one room deep with wings added later in the century. These wings were subsequently removed, though their faint outlines remain visible. Burtown was further extended in the early nineteenth century when a full height bow was added on the garden front. The new extension provided a bow ended room on the garden front, a large bedroom above and a grand staircase, lit by a tall round-headed window. Plasterwork in the manner of James Wyatt was introduced, most notably in an arched alcove in the bow-ended room, likely the original dining room. The alcove features a shallow fan and cursive vine leaf sprays, flanked by classical vases on foliage pilasters with naive Corinthian capitals. Burtown has never been sold in three hundred years. The house passed from the Power family to the Houghtons and then to the Wakefields, who gave it a new roof with widely projecting eaves in the early nineteenth century. They lengthened the sash windows, installed a new front door with fanlight in a deep recess, and carried out other alterations. When Mr. Wakefield was killed playing cricket, Burtown passed to his sister, who had married William Fennell, a fellow Quaker from County Tipperary. Their son William James was a keen horseman but "was asked to leave the Quaker congregation because of his fondness for driving a carriage with two uniformed flunkeys on the back." Today Burtown sits amid two hundred acres of parkland, including ten acres of flower, vegetable and woodland gardens with fine walks. The house has been home to five generations of the Fennell family and to acclaimed botanical artist and illustrator Wendy Walsh. The leading Irish botanical artist of the early twentieth century, Lydia Shackleton, also came from the same small Quaker community. Offers holiday cottages and a museum, with garden visits for groups and individuals, and is available as a film location.
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