[Illustration: HOLLYBROOK HALL, COUNTY OF WICKLOW.]
Among the very many beautiful residences of our nobility and gentry,
situated within a drive of an hour or two of our metropolis, there is
probably not one better worthy of a visit than that which we have chosen
to depict as the illustration of our present number--Hollybrook Hall, the
seat of Sir George Frederick John Hodson, Bart. It is situated in the
county of Wicklow, about a mile beyond the town of Bray, and about eleven
miles from Dublin.
To direct public attention to this charming spot is no less our pleasure
than our duty, for we feel quite assured that even among the higher
classes of our fellow-citizens but a very few know more respecting it
than its name and locality, and that it will surprise the vast majority
to be told that Hollybrook Hall is no less remarkable for the beauty of
the sylvan scenery by which it is surrounded, than as affording in itself
the most perfect specimen of the Tudor style of architecture to be found
in Ireland.
That Hollybrook is thus little known to the public, is not, however,
their fault: excluded from the eye by high and unsightly stone walls
on every side by which it might otherwise be seen by the traveller,
it is passed without even a glimpse of the bower of beauty, which
would attract his attention and excite the desire to obtain a more
intimate acquaintance with objects of such interest by a request to its
accomplished owner, which we are satisfied would never be denied.
Hollybrook Hall, like Clontarf Castle, of which we have already given
some account, is a fine specimen of the many recently erected or
rebuilt residences of our nobility and gentry, which we esteem it our
duty to notice and to praise. Like that fine structure also, it is an
architectural creation of that accomplished artist to whose exquisite
taste and correct judgment we are indebted for so many of the most
beautiful buildings in the kingdom; and in many of its features and the
general arrangement of its parts, it bears a considerable resemblance to
that admirably composed edifice. In its ground plan and general outline,
however, it is essentially different; and it is, moreover, characterised
by a peculiarity which perhaps no other of Mr Morrison’s works exhibits,
namely, that it has no mixed character of style, but is in every respect
an example of English domestic architecture in the style of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, or, in other words, it uniformly preserves
through all its details the character of the Tudor style.
In the choice of this style, as well as in the general composition of the
structure, the artist was obviously guided by a judicious desire to adapt
the building to the peculiar character of the scenery by which it is
surrounded, and the historical associations connected with the locality;
and a more happy result than that which he has effected could hardly
be imagined. Seated upon a green and sunny terraced bank in the midst
of venerable yew and other evergreens, and immediately above a small
artificial lake or pond, which reflects on its surface the dark masses of
ancient and magnificent forest trees, which rise on all sides from its
banks, and which are only topped by the peaked summits of the greater
and lesser Sugar-Loaf Mountains, as seen through vistas, the building
and its immediate accompaniments seem of coequal age and designed for
each other; and all breathe of seclusion from the cares of the world
and a happy domestic repose. It would indeed be impossible to conceive
any combinations of architecture and landscape scenery more perfectly
harmonious or beautiful of their kind.
Hollybrook Hall is wholly built of mountain granite squared and
chiselled, and presents three architectural fronts. That which we have
represented in our illustration is the east front, which faces the
small lake or pond, and contains the library and drawing-room; but the
principal front is that facing the north, on which side the entrance
porch is placed. The principal apartments consist of a hall, library,
dining and drawing rooms, with the state bed-rooms above them; and of
these apartments the hall is the most grand and striking feature, though
of inferior size to that of Clontarf Castle. It is thirty-four feet long
by twenty feet wide, but has an open porch and vestibule or outer hall,
twelve feet six inches wide; and like every other part of the edifice,
its details are throughout in the purest style of Tudor architecture.
This hall is panelled with oak, and is lighted by one grand stained glass
window, eight feet six inches wide, and fourteen feet six inches high.
This window, which resembles those of the English ecclesiastical edifices
of the fifteenth century, is divided by stone mullions into four days,
or compartments, and being beautifully proportioned, affords abundant
light to the interior. But the most imposing feature of the hall is its
beautiful oak staircase, which, rising from beneath the window, conducts
to a gallery which crosses the hall, and communicates with the bed-rooms
over the principal apartments. The ceiling is of dark oak, supported
by principals which spring from golden corbels, and it is enlivened by
golden bosses, which are placed at the various crossings of the rich
woodwork, and have a most pleasing effect from the contrasting relief
which they give to its pervading dark colour. The cornice, which is
equally rich and elegantly proportioned, is surmounted by a gilded crest
ornament, which by its lightness and brilliancy attracts the eye, and
leads the mind to contemplate the fine proportions and elegance of design
which characterises the details of the ceiling in all its parts.
Of the other principal apartments it is only necessary to state that
they are equally well proportioned, and have ceilings of great richness
and beauty, executed in a bold and masterly style of relief: they are of
larger size than the similar rooms of Clontarf Castle, the library being
thirty feet by seventeen feet six inches, the dining-room thirty feet
by twenty, and the drawing-room thirty-four feet six by twenty. These
apartments are lighted by oriel windows, each of which commands a view of
some striking beauty in the surrounding scenery. An extensive range of
offices and servants’ rooms branches off the Hall on its western side,
but these are as yet only partly erected, and further additions are still
wanting to carry out the original design of the architect, and give to
the edifice as a whole the intricacy and picturesque variety of outline
which he intended.
Hollybrook was originally the seat of a highly respectable branch of
the Adair family, who, as it is said, though long located in Scotland,
are descended from Maurice Fitzgerald, fourth Earl of Kildare. By a
marriage with the only daughter of the last proprietor of this family,
Forster Adair, Esq., it passed into the possession of Sir Robert Hodson,
Bart., descended of an old English family, and father of the present
proprietor, who succeeded to the baronetcy and estates on the death of
his elder brother the late Sir Robert Adair Hodson, by whom the new
structure of Hollybrook Hall was commenced. Sir Robert was a gentleman of
refined tastes and intellectual acquirements--a landscape painter of no
small merit, and of a poetic mind. The present baronet is, we believe,
similarly gifted, and therefore worthy to be the proprietor and resident
of a spot of such interest and beauty; but he should raze those odious
unsightly walls, which exclude Hollybrook from the eye, and make it an
unvisited and almost unknown solitude.