Welcome to Blessington.
Blessington, a pleasant tree-lined estate town, complete with square and built by its landlords, the Boyles and the Hills. Blessington’s founder was Michael Boyle, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who in 1667 acquired an estate of 17,000 acres and was given a charter to establish the town. The estate was inherited in 1778 by Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, later the first Marquis of Downshire. The new town centre is situated in Boyle’s original demesne and is the first major change to the layout of Blessington in 200 years.
Blessington, situated on the northern end of Poulaphouca reservoir, is the gateway to the mountains and valleys of west Wicklow and the upper reaches of the Liffey, Kings and Slaney rivers. The reservoir, also known as Blessington Lake, was created at the end of the 1930’s as a water supply for Dublin and to generate electricity. It greatly enhances the natural beauty and leisure amenities of the area. Two other natural resources associated with the area, granite quarrying and sand deposits, have long provided material for the construction industry.
This Virtual Geocache will bring you on tour through the heritage of the Blessington and we hope you will learn something new today.
The task:
You need to walk and visit the Blessington Heritage locations and upload the photos with your thumb up at the given locations, photos doesnt need to be exact the same as in the examples but they need to cover the whole part of the item described.
All credits for below information goes to Blessington Heritage Trial.
So lets begin:
1. At the cache location you will find Downshire Monument
The Downshire Monument commemorates the coming of age in 1865 of Arthur Hill the Downshire heir at the time. On the death of his father in 1868, Arthur inherited the family estates and became the fifth Marquis of Downshire. He died six years later aged 29.
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2. At the back of the Downshire monument there is located Credit Union House
The building was originally built as a Market House around the 1820’s. It retained its use as a Market House from the mid 1800’s to the mid 1900’s. It was used by local farmers to sell their grain, pigs, hens, turkeys, etc. The area outside the building was known as Market Square. The farming community would assemble with their animals on Fair Day to sell and buy stock.
The Courthouse was built at the request of the Third Marquis of Downshire at a cost of 800 pounds around the late 1820’s. It is believed that stones from the “Big House” (Downshire Demesne) which was burned down in 1798 were used in the foundations of this building.
The architect of the Courthouse is not known but is believed to be Thomas Duff of Newry. Thomas Duff designed Edenderry Courthouse and the Cathedral in Newry. Other references suggest that, as well as having a formidable reputation as an ecclesiastical architect, he was the designer of several public buildings including the old Museum Building in Belfast, Hilltown Market House, Newry Courthouse, Market Hill Courthouse and others.
The building is constructed of ashen (white) granite. The quarry markings on some of the granite blocks would indicate that granite came from Ballyknockan Quarries. There is a benchmark (height 691 feet above sea level at Dublin Bay) on the left hand side of the building.
The previous owner was Brian Hussey who ran a private forestation business from the building in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Local Architect Manus O’Donnell worked with the Credit Union to restore and adapt the building to a Credit Union office and James Breen Limited carried out the renovations. It was officially opened by the ILCU President in March 1988.
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3. Near to The Downshire Monumnet you can see Four Stone Tree
This is the last of the original trees planted from when Blessington was first built. It is a Lime tree and is surrounded by four granite boulders. These stones were originally at the entrance to St.Marys church.
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4. Across the road you can see St Mary’s Church of Ireland
St. Mary’s Church was founded and funded by Archbishop Michael Boyle (c1615-17020) who was also Archbishop of Dublin, 1663 and Primate Archbishop of Armagh in 1678. He held also the important secular position of Lord Chancellor of Ireland between 1665 and1686. He provided land also for the purpose of a cemetery.
St. Mary’s Church was consecrated by the Bishop of Kildare on 24th of August 1683 with ‘a multitude of gentry and common people’ attending for the service of convocation and has been in regular use since then.
The 17th century church tower contains the original bells, which bear Archbishop Boyle’s coat of arms and the date 1682. The tower contains also what is believed to be the oldest working turret clock in Ireland. Over the centuries the church has been enlarged; 1856 – North transept built 1889- Organ transept built
The original organ, donated by Lord Milltown, was sold to Baltinglass Church. The current organ, dating from 1890, was donated by the 6th Earl of Milltown, Edward Nugent Leeson, of Russborough House, to commemorate his brother Joseph Henry, the 5th Earl. The stain glass window was a gift from an unknown donor in 1876.
Within the church there are a number of Memorial Plaques dedicated to the memory of protestant people who have made important contributions to the community in Blessington. One such memorial plaque, located in the chancel, and dedicated to Archbishop Boyle was erected by his son Morough, Viscount Blessington.
Archbishop Boyle was the owner of an estate of 17,000 acres in West Wicklow. He built Blessington Manor, which was a substantial mansion located in his estate directly opposite the church and was described as ‘very great and beautiful….. in short much beyond any seat in all respects that I have seen in this kingdom’. The house was burned down during the 1798 Rebellion ‘most likely by the Wicklow O’ Byrne and O’Toole clans.’ He is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.
The adjoining churchyard is the burial place of the nineteenth century diarist, Elizabeth Smith who lived in Baltiboys House, four kilometres from Blessington. Sir Alfred and Lady Beit of nearby Russborough, are also buried in the churchyard, it also contains the graves of the crew of an RAF Hampden bomber, whose plane crashed near Blessington in April 1941, these four airmen were given a full military funeral by the Irish Army, the crash site was Blackhill, Lacken.
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5. On the wall surounding St. Mary’s Church of Ireland there is a plague of Dame Ninette De Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois (6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Anglo-Irish dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet.
She began life in Ireland as Edris Stannus. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and still one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the “godmother” of English and Irish ballet.
Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO, a British Army officer, by his marriage to Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a distinguished glassmaker known as “Lilith Stannus”. She moved in 1905 to England to live with her grandmother in Kent.
From November 1927 to July 1933, Ninette de Valois was responsible for the setting up and the programming of the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet in Dublin, at the request of W. B. Yeats, one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre. During these years she produced a number of ballets each year, mostly to her own choreography. She also worked with music especially commissioned from Irish contemporary composers such as Harold R. White’s The Faun (April 1928), Arthur Duff’s The Drinking Horn and John F. Larchet’s Bluebeard (both in July 1933).
In April 1964 she was the subject of This Is Your Life, when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the home of the dancer Frederick Ashton in London. She continued to make public appearances until her death in London at the age of 102.
She is commemorated in her native Blessington, Ireland through a plaque
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6. Now you need to move a bit and find Horseshoe Arch
This archway is located next to the Centra shop in Blessington. The date on the archway, 1852, tells us the year it was completed. The shape on the archway, in the form of a Horseshoe, indicates clearly that it was the entrance to a forge where the farrier reshod horses and manufactured and repaired farm implements. The forge was located at the bottom of the laneway covered by the archway. The archway, made from cut granite, is a fine example of the work of local stonecutters which can be found around the town; lintels, door surrounds and window sills. The archway was a very clever and unique way of highlighting the location of the forge. The name of the farrier who operated in the forge in 1854 was Brown. Later the Shannons were the farriers. During the Blessington Fair Day, which was held on the 13th day of every month, farmers who had horses for sale gathered outside the Horseshoe Archway and it was here that the buying and selling of horses took place.
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7.Following the road down to the lake you will find St Patrick’s Well
St. Patrick’s Well was a water supply for the town in the 19th century. The surrounding area, known as Millbank, has an abandoned roadway, which originally led to a corn mill and Blessington Bridge over the Liffey, both of which were submerged when the Poulaphouca Reservoir was created.
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8. Going back to the main street you can find Tram Marker
On Wednesday, August 1, 1888, the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (the DBST) opened for business. The first train was the 8:35 a.m. mail train leaving Terenure for Blessington. The connected with the horse-drawn trams from the city. An extension of the line to Poulaphouca was opened in 1895, and the Blessington and Poulaphouca Steam Tramway was incorporated, with through-running from Terenure from 1896 until the extension was closed in 1927.
On one side of the tram marker are the letters DB [Dublin to Blessington] and on the other BP [Blessington to Poulaphouca].
The story of the Blessington Tram had begun in 1887 when an act was passed by the Westminster parliament entitled “the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway Company Act.” The effect of this legislation was to establish a company with the same title to build a tramway from a depot at Terenure on the south side of Dublin to Blessington. The directors were men with property and business interests in the area including William Owen of Blessington, Fletcher Moore of Kilbride, William Domville Hancock of Templeogue, Thomas Guinness of Rathfarnham, and John Walker of Dublin.
In 1929, the Paragon Omnibus Company began operating a through bus service between Blessington and the city centre, eliminating the requirement for passengers to transfer between the DBST and the Dublin tram at Terenure. This struck a fatal blow to the DBST. Last-ditch efforts were made in 1931 to have the DBST taken over by either the Dublin United Tramway Company, or by the Great Southern Railways. This did not come to pass, and so it was, that on 31 December 1932, a wet Saturday night, the last trains ran on the DBST lines, the 6:15 p.m. from Terenure to Blessington, and the 10:30 p.m. from Terenure to Tallaght.
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9. Following main street you will see Church of Our lady and Millennium Cross
This was a project to commemorate the millennium. It depicts the kingship of Chrsit and His Triumph,in the year of 2000, celebrating his birth. Designed and built by the late Fergus O’Farrell, it is inserted deep into a deep Wicklow granite stone. Under the stone is a time capsule including items relating to Blessington in the Year 2000.
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10. Further down the road you will see Toll House
This is a well preserved Georgian building dating back to 1810. It is located on one of the main roads from Dublin to the south-east, the present N81 was significantly improved under the third Marquis of Downshire. Toll houses were an integral part of road networks at the time.
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There is a lot of other interesting parts of Blessington Heritage, please check online for more information.
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