Headfort House
Entrance gates to Headfort House
Headfort House is located in Ireland
Headfort House
General information
StatusSchool
TypeHouse
Architectural stylePalladian
Town or cityKells, County Meath
CountryIreland
Completed1765
Technical details
MaterialArdbraccan limestone
Floor count3
Design and construction
Architect(s)George Semple with interiors by Robert Adam and overseen by Thomas Cooley
DeveloperThomas Taylour, 1st Earl of Bective

Headfort House is a large country house on the southern outskirts of Kells in County Meath, Ireland.

History

The house was constructed in the 1760s[1] for The 1st Earl of Bective to a design by the Irish architect George Semple. The interiors were designed by the Scottish architect Robert Adam .

It remained wholly in the private hands of the Taylour family, Marquesses of Headfort, until 1949, when the family leased the main house to the newly formed Headfort School. They moved to the East Wing, and provided the element of the building in-between the wing and the main house as a house for the school's headmaster. The 6th Marquess of Headfort later sold the East Wing, renamed as Headfort Court, and with its own garden, along with the school premises in the 1980s (on terms allowing the school to continue) to an American, B.J. Kruger,[2] and on his death, the estate was divided. The East Wing / Headfort Court became a distinct property, as did part of the grounds,[3] and the main house and much of the grounds were purchased by a charitable trust, the Headfort Trust, to preserve the buildings and support the school.

In 2004, the house was selected by the World Monuments Fund (WMF) for inclusion in its List of 100 Most Endangered Sites[4][5]

The school closed in March 2020 but was reopened under new management in September 2020.

Robert Adam's illustrations of Headfort House interior

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.igs.ie/conservation/project/headfort Date of Construction
  2. ↑ East Wing of Headfort School on six acres of gardens
  3. ↑ East Wing of Headfort School on six acres of gardens
  4. ↑ http://www.wmf.org.uk/projects/view/headfort_house Archived 19 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine World Monuments Fund (WMF)
  5. ↑ "Headfort House Ireland". World Monuments Fund. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
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