Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Jigginstown House is a unique construction in the history of Irish Architecture
in terms of its scale and building material. The building is almost 400 feet long
with the terrace range 315 feet in length. The main building consists of a two
storey brick building supported on a stone plinth, which contains the base-
ment level. On each end of the main building, there is a large pavilion posi-
tioned to the front of the central block connected by a single doorway. The
brick vaulted basement level is not continuous and consists of three separate
compartments with individual entrances. The style of the building cannot be
linked to any particular architect, but, like many English nobles at that time,
Strafford had travelled abroad and had a keen interest in Renaissance archi-
tecture and, indeed, he may have supervised the building programme and the
artisan's work himself.
Figure 46
Plan of Jigginstown
House, Naas,
Co. Kildare, Ireland,
c
.1635-37, drawn
by Kevin O'Brien.
(Courtesy of Ana
Dolan)
North
First floor plan
Plan of Cellar
0
50 m
The layout of the interior and the elevations of the building are irregular
and lack the restrained symmetry and simplicity of the buildings designed by
Inigo Jones (Fig. 46). In terms of the plan and scale, the closest comparison
that can be made is with the terrace range at Bolsover Castle, completed in
the 1630s for William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, by John Smythson. At
Jigginstown, the central rectangular block is divided longitudinally by spine
wall running east-west. The larger rooms face the north or entrance side of
the building with the smaller rooms facing onto the garden on the south side.
There are no corridors in the internal layout with doors arranged
en filade
with
