Letters and building drawings to go under the hammer
ARCHITECTURAL drawings and royal letters are among items pertaining to Co Wexford for sale at an auction in Dublin today (Tuesday).
The auction starts at 10.15 a.m. at the Talbot Hotel on Stillorgan Road and has been facilitated by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers.
Royal Letters patent dated ‘15 April, 31st year of Charles II [1679]’, confirming to Solomon Richards various lands in Co Wexford (which are listed in detail), are selling for between €750 and €1,000.
The letters are written on vellum, in English, and are sized 58 x 70 cm, with a great seal attached.
Deemed to be in perfect condition, they are stored in a tin box, 17 cm in diameter.
Solomon Richards (1619-1691) came to Ireland as a colonel in the army of Oliver Cromwell and was one of the commissioners responsible for enforcing the Cromwellian settlement. He was granted lands in Co Wexford which were confirmed to him by Charles II under the Acts of Settlement
and Explanation. Richards was the ancestor of the Richards family of Solsborough. He wrote an account of the Barony of Forth in 1682, inscribed by James Ware.
A set of five very attractive coloured ink drawings of the ruined Cistercian Monastery of Dunbrody, signed by architect J. Kelly, are selling for between €800 and €1,200.
They were taken in 1844 and measure 52cms x 69cms each.
The drawings comprise: a general view from the north-west; a general plan; the west elevation; a window in the clerestory on the north side; and the corbels at the springing of the arches in the arcade.
These appear to be the work of John Kelly, a builder and architect of Gorey, and are said to have been compiled for George Wilkinson, who was then collecting drawings of antiquities for his book Practical Geology, and Ancient Architecture of Ireland (1845).
Also a set of over 50 Architectural
Drawings ‘plans for proposed alterations at Seafield [a dower house of the Earls of Courtown] about 1852’ are selling for between €2,000 and €3,000.
Courtown House, built in 1726, was badly damaged in the 1798 rising.
It was altered and extended in the 1860s for the 5th Earl of Courtown; the local builder/architect John Kelly appears to have carried out the initial survey, but the ultimate designs were the work of William Burn, Architect, of 6 Stratton St., London – Kelly may have been their builder or clerk of works.
The collection also includes two plans for a ‘proposed house at Saltersford [in Cheshire] for the Earl of Courtown’; plans and elevations of cottages and lodges; plans for Courtown demesne; and a cyclostyled letter of 1862 requesting the Earl’s opinion on two proposed railway lines between Woodenbridge and either Carlow or Bagenalstown.
The Stopford family played a major role in the affairs of Co Wexford for over two centuries, both as members of parliament and as landlords; they had a fine humanitarian record during the Famine, and by 1914 their estate consisted of some 23,000 acres.
Their seat, Courtown House, was sold in 1947 and demolished circa 1950. Seafield, the dower house, described as ‘a very fine, large, three-bay, two-storey residence’, was partly demolished in 1975 and levelled in 1992.
This collection therefore forms an important visual record of two vanished features of Co. Wexford’s landscape and heritage.
For bidding and queries contact 087 2751361 or 087 2027759.