1695 – Stillorgan Park House, Co. Dublin

Built c.1695 as a two-storey block with wings for Colonel John Allen (later 1st Viscount Allen) in place of an original fortified manor house. The house was brick built and extensive, exclusive of outbuildings it covered 6,500 square feet. Later the architect Sir Edward Lovett Pearce designed a vast replacement of the house in Palladian style for the 2nd Viscount Allen, which was never built, although some of Pearce’s designs for the gardens were executed.

In 1795 it was announced that it had been sold to Dr Troy to be used as the new University but this deal fell through and Dr Troy purchased a site at Maynooth. George Papworth designed a conservatory addition in 1811. The house was pulled down in 1887.

It was surrounded by extensive gardens covering 13 acres which were laid out in the ‘Dutch style’ with straight avenues, clipped yew trees and box topiary. The grounds included three rectangular fish ponds, fed by a stream which flowed to the south of the Lower Kilmacud Road until culverted underground in the 20th century.