archaeological & built heritage assessment - The Heritage Council

King House, the original early eighteenth residence of the King family, later Earls of Kingston, is situated
within the town of Boyle itself rather than within a demesne. It is a large 'U' shaped mansion, two-storey
over basement, with a partly gabled attic, probably designed by William Halfpenny, an assistant of Sir
Edward Lovett Pearce; and built for Sir Henry King, 3 rd Bt, MP, who died in 1739 (Bence-Jones 1988). It is
possible that the house incorporated the walls of an earlier seventeenth century house that was
previously burnt. The main block is gable-ended; the wings, which are two bays wide, have hipped roofs
and project on the entrance front, on either side of a gabled centre with a plain massive doorway (ibid.).
The house was abandoned by the family at the beginning of the nineteenth century when they moved out
of the town to Rockingham, when it subsequently became a military barracks. King House has recently
been restored and is open to the public. It houses the Boyle Civic Art Collection and traces the history of
the King family together with that of Boyle and its surroundings.
Rockingham demesne is located c. 2km east of Boyle town on the south-eastern shores of Lough Key. The
house was a large Classical mansion designed by John Nash and built in 1810 for General Robert King, 1 st
Viscount Lorton, a younger son of 2 nd Earl of Kingston to whom this part of the King estates had passed.
It was originally of two storeys with a curved central bow fronted by a semicircular Ionic colannade and
surmounted by a dome; the facade projecting slightly on either side with recessed Ionic columns framing
the three ground floor windows (Bence-Jones 1988). Twelve years after the house was completed an
extra storey was added to provide more bedrooms; at the cost of sacrificing the dome. Either in 1822 or
1863, when the house was restored after a serious fire, the porch on the entrance front was replaced by
a balustraded Ionic porte-cochere, continued on either side by a short colonnade (ibid.). All the servant
quarters etc. were located underground and were accessed through a tunnel which passed under the
formal garden.
The house was set within a large demesne on a wooded peninsula and other interesting features include
estate church, the farm buildings, an ice house, a wishing chair and ‘The Temple’, a gazebo down on the
lake shore. There are two canals spanned by ornamental bridges, a bog garden and, away to the northeast,
another canal with a lock which was used to bring down turf from the neighbouring bog (Delaney
2000). Lord Lorton had converted the western promontory of the estate into pleasure grounds. One of
the ornamental canals is named the ‘Fairy Bridge’ and is constructed of strangely shaped limestone
sourced from the lake shore that has been significantly eroded by the acidic waters of the lake. The ‘turf’
canal has a well-built bridge and small lock. The castle on the island is a nineteenth century folly built from
the remains of the old castle. Damaged by fire it is now in a dangerous condition. Lorton’s nineteenth
century estate landscaping features are also evident at Cloontykilla Point where the gamekeeper’s house
was surrounded by a mock castle wall in order to provide a pleasing view from the lake. There are five
ringforts within the estate, one with a souterrain.
The 2 nd Viscount Lorton succeeded his cousin as 6 th Earl of Kingston, however Rockingham passed to his
younger brother, Hon. Laurence King-Harman, from whom it passed eventually to the Stafford-King-
Harman family (ibid.). The house was gutted by fire 1957 and was soon afterwards sold to the State who
have converted the demesne into a forest park and demolished the house.
There are several other buildings of note within the environs of Boyle and in total there are thirty
protected structures listed in the county development plan, as well as a further twenty-two which are
sited on the Rockingham estate in Lough Key Forest Park.
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