1862 – Clontra, Shankill, Co. Dublin

A small country house erected for James Anthony Lawson QC (1817-87), with the interior completed after the death of Benjamin Woodward in 1861. The exterior is of heavy, cut granite crowned with a steep, hipped, slate roof with miniature gablets. The grey stone is relieved by protruding bays and balconies, and with trefoil-topped window openings, embellished with redbrick arches and carved sandstone details.

Inside, there is a majestic granite staircase rising to the upper floor – the Piano Nobile – where the principal reception rooms are laid out around a central hall. All the window architraves, doors and doorframes are of dark-stained pitch pine, as are the exposed beams in the vaulted, lofty ceilings. The glory of the interior is the work of the Pre-Raphaelite muralist, John Hungerford Pollen (1820-1902), a close friend of Woodward, carried out in 1862-63. The gable walls of the drawing room depict The Seven Ages of Woman while the dining room is painted with frescoes of Spring Morning and Autumn Evening. Both rooms have wonderfully ornate marble mantels and soaring ceilings scattered with painted swallows and flamboyant floral motifs.

There is also a fine iron framed glasshouse, erected to a design by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane in 1862-63, attached to the house.