Duckett's Grove Estate

The mock gothic skeleton of Duckett’s Grove.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

A country house, oozing with charm and character, in a peaceful rural setting at Palatine. A few miles from Carlow, off the Hacketstown and Baltinglass Road is the great mock-gothic skeleton of Duckett’s Grove, the ruined home of the once important Ducketts.

The Duckett Family

The family claimed descent from William the Conqueror and the house of De La Poer. There were relationships with both the Earls of Ormonde ( Kilkenny ) and Kildare ( Maynooth ). The first Duckett to arrive in Ireland in the Cromwellian Period ( mid 17th Century ) was Sir George Duckett.

Main tower at Duckett’s Grove.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

Early in the 19th century the architect Thomas A Cobden gothicised the house. The resulting fairytale castle was fantastic. Soaring Towers, Turrets, arches, niches, crenulations, loops, high-stacked chimneys and oriel windows and a portcullis buried the original Georgian Structure. To complete the fairytale numerous statutory and urns were dotted around the grounds. These were carved from stone or yellow pine or were cast in plaster, bronze and copper. Subjects ranged from the royal lion and unicorn to griffons, centurions, classical figures and Germanic-type females. Grotesque heads decorated the towers and the window heads, while an ox-head was put over the farmyard entrance.

Some of the grotesque heads that adorne Duckett’s Grove.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

Some of the grotesque heads that adorne Duckett’s Grove.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

Unlike so many large estates throughout the country, the Duckett’s never walled their estate. William Duckett’s decision to build the western gate lodge in 1870 gave Ireland one of the finest and most elaborate buildings of its kind designed as an elaborate castellated gateway. It features numerous battlemented towers, two great archways opened onto two different drives. The arms of the Duckett family were also featured at the entrance, set over the central archway, where two iron gates were replaced by a doorway when the building was converted into a public house in the 1960s.

The impressive gateway which leads to Duckett’s Grove.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

Eleven men were in full time employment maintaining the lawns, gardens and driveways linking the mansion and its three-gate lodges- the Iron House, the Western Gate Lodge ( the Towers ), and the Castledermot Road lodge. Visitors were welcome and enjoyed the pleasure of the eight-acre grounds until 1902.

The Coat of Arms of the Duckett Family which is set directly over the main arch of the gateway.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

Huge festivities were held at Duckett’s Grove when on the 19th of November 1895 William Duckett aged 73, married his second wife Maria Georgina Thompson. Mrs Thompson had one daughter Olive from her first marriage. That evening there were fireworks, to which the people came on foot and in donkey carts. A great tar barrel, blazed as the sun went down and rockets soared over County Carlow.

View of the house from the walled garden.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

In 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Duckett’s Grove enjoyed what was to have been its last, though one of its greatest hours. The Union Jack flew from the turret, the gardens were gay with bunting white cloths on trestle tables, the scrubbed white frocks of the tenantry and the ribbons of the presiding gentry. There was nourishing al fresco dinner for the estate employees and their families, 150 in all, many of them in the Duckett service all their lives, and all of them given a holiday that day with full wages. Plaques were distributed among the young people, engraved with portraits of Queen Victoria. There were games all afternoon on the lawns.

The Duckett’s had their own private burial ground ( known locally as the frolic ) at Knocknacree, and their first recorded burial there was in 1839, when John Dawson Duckett’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, died aged 18 years. In all, eight burials were recorded; the last was that of William Duckett who died on June 22nd, 1908. The walled-in quarter acre burial site and its headstones are still largely intact. Other memorials to members of the Duckett family were erected inside Rutland Church to which the Duckett’s were generous benefactors. In 1855 William Duckett and Joseph F. Duckett each donated £5, and John Duckett gave £3 towards the cost of a new school in Rutland. An organ, which is still in use in the church, was donated to the parish by William Duckett in 1878.

When William Duckett died on June 22nd, 1908, he left his estates to his widow and in the absence of a male heir; he left a small legacy to his nephew John Hardy Rowland Eustace, of Castlemore with a stipulation that the name Duckett be affixed to Eustace. but, as a member of the Eustace-Duckett family explained, the amount of cash they got was not significant – " We got the name but very little else. "

In 1939 High Court action involved the will of Maria Georgina Duckett. The estate at the time of her death was valued at £97,735. Her only daughter had been disinherited. The beneficiaries of this large fortune were British based Protestant Charities. After a 12 day hearing Maria’s 1929 will was agreed between the two sides. Mrs Olive O’Grady got the interest for life on £7,000 war stock, with the capital to revert back into the estate after her death. After the payment of £10,000 legal fees the remainder was given in amounts between £500 and £5000 to 18 charities.

A group of local farmers had purchased the mansion and 1,300 acres of land in 1921, with a £32,000 bank loan, but they squabbled about its division, and they failed to raise the repayments to the bank. The Land Commission eventually bailed them out and the estate was divided with 48 farmers given holdings. The bank retained the mansion and 11 acres of land, which was sold in 1931 to Theo Frederick George Thompson of Hanover Works, Carlow for £320. Some of the outbuildings were demolished and the granite was used in the building of a new Christian Brothers school in Carlow town, named Bishop Foley National School. In recent decades the remaining outbuildings were then used as stables and a riding school by Frances Brady who occupied a wing of the old mansion until the estate was purchased by Carlow County Council.

IRA training camp at Duckett’s Grove, 1920s.
[ photo: County Museum, ccm–81-274-02. ]

Fire at Duckett's Grove

The cause of the fire, which destroyed Duckett’s Grove mansion on 20th April 1933, was never determined and unfortunately reduced County Carlow’s finest mock gothic mansion to a ruin. Bishop Foley National School built with stone from Duckett’s Grove and the former doorway into Carlow Goal and Hanover Works, now Carlow Shopping Centre proudly displays the heads of animals removed form Duckett’s Grove.

[ sources: " The Carlow Gentry " and " Grange the path to the present " by Jimmy O’Toole. ]
[ sources: The Nationalist Centenary Edition. ]

The above article was submitted by Dale O’Neill as part of the basic and advanced basic computer courses undertaken by him as part of the Cultural Exchange Project which was funded by the Interreg IIIA Programme.

A Guide to Irish Country Houses

Duckett’s Grove is described by Mark Bence Jones in his book titled " A Guide to Irish Country Houses ".

" A square house of 2 and three storeys, transformed into a spectacular castellated Gothic fantasy by Thomas A. Cobden … for J. D. Duckett 1830. Numerous towers and turrets, round, square and octagonal; notably a heavily machicolated round tower with a tall octagonal turret growing out of it. The walls enlivened with oriels and many canopied niches sheltering statues; more statues and busts in niches along the battlemented wall joining the house to a massively feudal yard gateway; yet more statues manning the battlements of one of the towers, and disposed around the house on pedestals………. The house was burnt 1933 and is now a ruin. "

Conservation of Duckett's Grove

Councillor Michael Meaney and Mr. Joe Crockett, County Manager, September 5th 2005.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

The Members of Carlow County Council unanimously recommended the proposal to purchase the property which will form part of the Council's major amenity capital programme. Ducketts Grove is one of the most picturesque sites in Carlow and the opening up of the lands for public use will add a major new tourist attraction to County Carlow.

On September 5th 2005, Carlow County Council took possession of Duckett's Grove.

Restoration works, June 2006.
[ photo: County Museum. ]

" It is timely and appropriate that we are here at the wonderful gothic ruins of Duckett’s Grove to launch Heritage Week 2005 for County Carlow. It is also a historic moment for the people of the county as I am delighted to say that Carlow County Council has now officially taken possession of this historic estate house and gardens. In all we have acquired over ten acres and the development will form part of the Council's Recreation and Amenity Programme, which will include the restoration of the walled gardens and the development of a public park, forest walk and nature trail. There is no doubt that this project will be of significant benefit to the county and a major tourism attraction."

Cllr. Michael Meaney, Cathaoirleach of Carlow County Council speaking at the launch of Heritage Week 2005 at Ducketts Grove.