Gloster House
- Clasificación
- Casona
- País
- Irlanda
- Región
- County Offaly
- Dirección
- Gloster House, Shinrone, Birr, Offaly
- Época / estilo
- Eighteenth-century Georgian
Gloster House, located east of the road between Birr and Roscrea, is County Offaly's most significant surviving eighteenth-century residence. The formal facade overlooking terraced gardens is notably long and low, spanning thirteen bays and two storeys, constructed in blue-grey limestone with contrasting sandstone architectural details. The interior features a richly decorated double-height entrance hall and a grand barrel-vaulted hall on the piano nobile. The Lloyd family ancestor arrived from Denbighshire to serve in King Charles I's army, acquiring the estate in 1639 through marriage to Margaret Medhop. The present house was completed after 1720, with architectural historian Maurice Craig attributing design features to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, though execution likely involved others. The central breakfront includes a hooded door case with pilasters, recessed wing bays with Pearcean blind niches, and vertically paired Doric and Corinthian pilasters dividing the intermediate bays. The elaborate entrance hall contains bust-filled niches and an upper hall accessed by twin staircases. Samuel Chearnley possibly designed the gardens, featuring a canal, a lime avenue, a pedimented arch flanked by obelisks in the Vanbrugh manner, and later terraces descending to a small lake. After the 1958 sale the house became a convent and nursing home with a school complex. Following the school's closure after 1990, restoration was undertaken sympathetically by subsequent owners. Notable visitors include John Wesley (1749) and Dame Nellie Melba (early 20th century). Available as a film location; open for house and garden visits, concerts, plays, recitals and private events.
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