Killruddery Gardens' Victoriana
Elizabethan-Revival Lavender-Rose Garden, Victorian Dairy, Statues
Ireland's Killruddery Gardens retain original 17th- 18th- and 19th - century garden features. Renovations, begun about 1840 and shaped by popular tastes, persist.
Overview
The Victorian Period (1830's to 1900's) were times of scientific and industrial exploration and expansion. Garden owners and their gardeners adapted the new concepts to their holdings, but looked to garden history for designs. What they found adapted well to the hilly terrain of Irish counties such as Wicklow:
- Glass Houses
- Rectangular Geometric Forms
- Strong Axial Designs
- Garden Features like Rustic Buildings and Seating
- Prominent Statuary, and
- Terraces with elaborate, but low balustrades.
Statue Gallery, aka Glass House, Orangery or Conservatory, and Terraces
The Statue Gallery (Orangery / Conservatory), designed and built in 1852 by William Burn, houses and exhibits statuary collected in Italy from the 1830s through the 1850s. This Statue Gallery, in the fashion of London's Crystal Palace, originally possessed a glass dome designed by Richard Turner , a pioneer in the structural use of wrought iron. Turner also designed the glasshouse domes for the Dublin (Ireland) National Botanic Garden and Kew (England) Palm House.
The statue gallery is vital to the garden design because it overlooks and provides an interior viewing point of the Elizabethan-Revival Lavender-Rose garden directly beneath it. Doors from the statue gallery open outward to wide grassy terraces from which visitors can view the lavender-rose garden or walk to the garden down steps cut into the terraces.
Elizabethan / Tudor Revival Gardens and Rustic Features
Parterres (gardens divided into rectangular sections) satisfied the Victorian need for traditional rectangular geometric forms and strong axial designs. Roses, lavender, and boxwood outline and fill the simple large parterres at Killruddery instead of more colorful tropical annuals used in other contemporary gardens. There is also a smaller parterre garden nestled within the shelter of an "L" created to the right of the statue gallery by its attachment to the house. The right-hand axis of the lavender-rose garden leads to an ornamental octagonal dairy that is sheltered by a small blue-mallow tree with a bench beneath it.
Daniel Robertson
Robertson (b? d.1849), according to various sources, was either an architect (A History of Gardening in Ireland, by Keith Lamb and Patrick Bowe) or a landscape gardener (Irish Gardens, by Olda FitzGerald). According to these same sources and Killruddery records, he was responsible for some garden restoration and architectural design, especially of the forecourt entrance around 1846, the time of the Irish Potato Famine. There is also a possibility that he received a commission to design stone balustrading for a terrace during the garden restoration.
Daniel Robertson is better-known for his designs in 1841 for a new formal garden, in the Italianate-style, at near-by Powerscourt Estate and Gardens. Killruddery is very modest and comfortable, almost homey , compared to the grandeur of Powerscourt. It is easy to overlook Killruddery Estate and Gardens, which are just becoming better promoted and known for their significant features. Recent money from various economic funds such as European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)has allowed the repairs and alterations necessary for garden visitors.
Additional Articles about Killruddery Gardens
The following four Suite101 articles reveal much more about the landscape history of Killruddery Gardens:
- An Overview
Ireland's Oldest Garden: Overview of National Pressures
- William the Conquerer to the Tudors
- British Rule, especially the Stuart Dynasty (1603-1714)
- The French Style and Restoration of the British Monarchy
- Detailed Description of Killruddery Gardens (17 April 1711, The Dublin Intelligencer)
Ireland's Oldest Garden: Existing 17th- and 18th-century Landscape Design Features
- Twin Canals (Miroirs d'Eaux) or The Long Pond
- The Round Pond and Fountain, Deer Park and Double Linden (Lime Avenue)
- The Angles (Patte d' Oie) or Goose Foot
- The Wilderness (Bosquet / Bosket)
- The Double Beech Hedge and Pond
- The Sylvan Theatre and Turf Benches
Killruddery Gardens: Georgian Period (Early Nineteenth Century)
- Ongoing Maintenance
- Garden Restoration
- European Statues
©Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage March 2007. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
