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Newtownbarry House Gardens

Garden

The restoration of the gardens at Newtownbarry House has all the excitement of memories brought back to life

Address:

Bunclody
Co Wexford

About Bunclody

Tel: +353 53 937 683

Please mention ireland-guide.com when enquiring.

Newtownbarry House Gardens

Opening Months: May, June, July, August
Opening Days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Opening Hours: Gardens: 12 - 6pm Tuesday - Friday & Sunday
Admission Charge: Gardens: 12 - 6pm €5; House & Gardens: €6; OAPs and children €4

Appointment Only
Admission Charge

Georgina Campbell

The restoration of the gardens at Newtownbarry House has all the excitement of memories brought back to life. After 50 years of neglect, sturdy saplings and rampant brambles had to be cleared to reveal the layout of the historic sunken garden.” We found the granite steps and paths were there exactly where I remembered them as a child,” says Clody Norton, whose family own the 1863 house designed by Ulsterman Charles Lanyon, with an idyllic setting beside the River Slaney at the foot of Bunclody village.

Approached via lawns shaded by venerable trees, a small walled garden and a woodland walk, this splendid garden comes as a dramatic surprise. Beyond the fruit garden and a double herbaceous border, is what appears to be a lake of shimmering lavender. Approach closer and the sunken garden appears, laid out in a design of rectangular parterres around a central fountain pool with margins bordered with a stunning combination of cardoons, hostas, iris and bronze ligularia.

The history of this part of the garden, with its curious stone arched grottoes at either end, stretches back to an earlier period, perhaps contemporary with Woodfield, the 18thC house which Newtownbarry House replaced and shown on the ordinance survey map of 1840.

The restoration of the gardens began with the reinstatement of a stream fed lake in front of the imposing house 12 years ago and continued into the walled rose garden designed by Frances and Iain MacDonald.

There are many appealling plants including unusual alliums, penstemons and euphorbias ,chosen with advice from Clody’s sculptor friend Imogen Stafford and a record size “shag bark “ Hickory tree is of special note.

Visitors can enjoy a tour of the house where paintings by contemporary artists are exhibited in an art gallery housed in a wing and residential art courses are on offer in the restored kitchen.

Opening Hours

Gardens: 12 - 6pm Tuesday - Friday & Sunday Adm €5

House & Garden Visit: Adm €6

Concessions for OAPs and children €4

Gallery: 1 - 6pm Tuesday - Friday & Sunday during exhibitions. Adm Free.

Closed Saturdays and Mondays, except Bank Holidays.

House tours are at 2pm and 4pm.

House tours for groups over ten people by prior booking only: Tel 053 9376383

Best time of year to visit: