Tour, Mount Merrion House
As you go up
the E Avenue
(up the hill, heading W, heading inland),
you have:
On the LHS (i.e. on the S side) -
The stables
(survive)
On the far LHS (that is, SW of the stables) -
The gardens (gone)
Jonathan Barker's map of 1762 [NAI]
shows clearly
that the gardens were behind the stables
(rather than near the house).
"Across the gravel sweep before the hall door, which faces the south,
stand the great stables forming three sides of a square,
and behind them lie the gardens entered through gates which recall
the father of the present owner, the lamented
Lord Herbert of Lea,
whose monogram they bear."
- [Ball, vol.2, 1903]
This area behind the stables is still a grassy area today.
The main block of the stables from the back.
Photo 1999.
Part of the old garden wall survives,
now built into the walls of the suburban housing estate.
Photo 1999.
In the middle at the top of the avenue - A gap
This gap has since been filled by the massive new Catholic church (built 1956),
set a little further back up the hill.
The middle of the avenue is now devoted to its car park.
On the RHS (to the N) -
"The Lodge"
(survives)
On the far RHS (to the N) -
The main block
(gone)
The N Avenue
"A second double avenue of great elms still marks the road
which leads to Merrion Castle by way of Foster avenue,
a relic of the days when my Lord Viscount Fitzwilliam rode up from
his stronghold, down by the sands of Dublin Bay,
to hunt the stag in the hills."
- [Wilkinson, 1925].
This is presumably now North Avenue.
Further up the hill (further W) -
The Deer Park
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