The White Lady, also known as The Lady of the Stairs, haunts Dublin’s Ardgillan Castle. Every Halloween at midnight, it is said that anybody who dares to cross the Lady’s Stairsla bridge would meet their death at the hands of a female ghost. An Ardgillan Castle’s boundaries are marked by this bridge.
Ardgillan Castle, a magnificently renovated 18th-century country home in County Dublin, with panoramic views of the sea and mountains in addition to being surrounded by lovely gardens. The tales invariably feature a ghost, as is the case with the majority of Irish castles and opulent old homes.
The White Lady, also known as The Lady of the Stairs, haunts Dublin’s Ardgillan Castle. Her sad tale is said to be that of Louise August Connolly, Baroness of Langford. This woman’s husband loved to swim, and one day he went for his routine swim but never came back. On the steps of the railway bridge, looking out to sea, his heartbroken wife waited for him day after day and week after week in vain.
Ghosts of Ardgillan Castle
Every Halloween at midnight, it is said that anybody who dares to cross the Lady’s Stairsla bridge would meet their death at the hands of a female ghost. This bridge is located near an Ardgillan Castle’s entrance.
Also, the castle itself is thought to be haunted. Even after passing away, the Reverend’s ghost is still seen wandering around the castle’s corridors. Others claim that his ghost, also known as “Uncle Ned,” visits the castle and roams the halls hunting for his missing sacred book. On other instances, his figure has also been seen in the yard strolling amid the yew trees. Moreover, Louisa Augusta Connolly’s ghost is rumored to wail within and outside the castle after she drowned at the castle’s own beach…
History of Ardgillan Castle
Thomas Taylor traveled to Ireland in 1653 to assist the Irish Commission with a survey and appraisal of the land that had been seized as a result of Cromwell’s campaign there. His father John Taylor passed away in 1658, the year the Down Survey contract came to a conclusion. Thomas married Anne Axtell, a descendant of William Axtell of Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, in the same year he acquired the family’s Sussex estate.
While Thomas had not been a “Adventurer” and was not eligible to receive any land grants from the Commonwealth Government, he took advantage of the chance to buy substantial quantities of property in Ireland as many Adventurers and former soldiers sold their newly acquired estates. He sold his Sussex property in 1660 and spent the money on over 21,000 acres of land in Ireland. These encompassed the townlands of Armagh, Bregagh, Brownstown, Kenlis, and 7,443 acres in County Meath, close to the town of Kells.
Thomas Taylor had made a name for himself in Ireland as a significant landowner by the time Charles II came to power during the Restoration in 1660, and he went on to hold a string of Crown-appointed official positions. The sole surviving son of Thomas Taylor, also named Thomas, received the estate. He increased the family’s riches and stature in Irish society by serving as the Member of Parliament for Kells from 1692 to 1736, a tenure that lasted 15 years.
He was made a Baronet of Ireland in 1704, and in 1726 he was chosen to serve as a member of the Privy Council. Six boys and five daughters were born to this second Thomas Taylor and Anne Cotton of Combermere, Cheshire, who were married in 1682. Prospect House, which subsequently became known as Ardgillan Castle, was erected by their second son Robert.
On May 22, 1689, Robert Taylor was born in Chester. In Trinity College in Dublin, he pursued his studies for holy orders. In 1714, he was named Archdeacon of Kilmacduagh in the Province of Tuam. It’s conceivable that his appointment was connected to his brother-in-role law’s as Bishop of Clonfert at the time, Dr. William Fitzgerald. Robert was chosen to be the Clonfert Precentor (Director of Music) in 1722. Four years later, in 1726, he was promoted to the post of Clonfert Dean, but he resigned from the prebendary of this position the same year.
Between Balbriggan and Skerries in North County Dublin, there were two townlands called Ballymad and Leytown that Robert Taylor had purchased in 1721. Robert purchased the townlands of Ardgillan and Baltry, which were close to the lands he had purchased in 1721, in North County Dublin in 1737. According to the Down Survey, 1658, the townland of Ardgillan existed in 1641. Now that Robert had a sizable amount of property, he was prepared to start building his home. On Mount Prospect, a forested hill overlooking the seashore between Balbriggan and Skerries, in the townland of Ardgillan, Prospect House was constructed. In fact, the name Ardgillan, which is taken from the Irish “Ard Choill,” which means High Wood, derives from this feature.
At the time, the Ardgillan Castle was heavily forested, so clearing it was necessary before construction could begin. Out-of-service soldiers and itinerant workers from Bangor, County Down, who were paid a penny per day and given lodging, one meal per day, and a tot of rough whiskey bought from Bushmills for two shillings and tuppence per gallon, performed the labor.
Prospect House was a straightforward, basic country house with two stories constructed above a basement, unlike the more classical and Palladian homes of the 18th century, whose magnificent exteriors were complemented by equally elegant interiors. Prospect House’s design did differ from the fortified structures that characterized architecture prior to this time since the Anglo-Irish had had a period of security following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691. Prospect House was one building that gave physical expression to the ascendancy’s confidence and success. m Prospect House could have been constructed without the help of an architect; considering the turmoil of the decades before, it is not unexpected that Ireland has a dearth of qualified architects.
Interior of Ardgillan Castle
This 1795 inventory listed the rooms of Ardgillan Castle, including the main hall, the drawing room, the dining room, six bedrooms, two of which had dressing rooms, and a study with an adjacent powder room. There were two kitchens, a scullery, a dairy, and a wine cellar, as well as a sizable nursery, a servants’ barracks, and separate quarters for the steward, housekeeper, chef, maid, and manservant. The inside of the Ardgillan Castle was tastefully decorated.
Eight stuffed armchairs and two filled couches with red and brown cotton coverings could be found in the drawing room. The room had two mahogany bookshelves with drawers, an inlaid piano, numerous bamboo seats, two armchairs, a mahogany side table, and a mahogany sugar box. The room’s floor was covered in a huge carpet and a mat, and a metal fender encircled the fireplace.
There were two huge mahogany tables, eighteen mahogany chairs, and a number of smaller tables in the green-carpeted dining room, including two marble-topped tables and a round oak table. The enormous sideboard, two dumb waiters, multiple buckets for plates and bottles, and several trays for holding glasses, knives, and bottles were all fashioned of mahogany. Like in many of the other rooms, the fender in this one was fashioned of brass. According to the listing, at least three of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, and based on their size, they appear to be the main bedrooms. They had a variety of furniture made of bamboo, mahogany, and oak.
Several of the rooms’ color schemes included variations of green, white, and red, as well as pink and there was just one mention of blue. Cottons with stripes, checks, or floral patterns were the materials chosen. The featherbeds were decorated with white Manchester’ quilts, bolsters, England and Irish blankets, and white fustian pillows. Every bedroom featured a fireplace, and the floors were carpeted or covered with bed mats. With the presence of a mahogany shaving table and looking glass in the adjacent dressing room, the spacious bedchamber on the ground floor was unmistakably a man’s space.
Pink cushions on the bamboo sofa and pink window treatments adorned the closet or dressing room next to another of the ground level bedrooms. The mahogany and bamboo furnishings in the carpeted study comprised two closets, a desk and writing table with six drawers, a ladder, a big bookshelf made of deal, and three enormous framed maps.
Eight rush-seated bamboo chairs, two sets of fire-irons, and three big mahogany tables were among the furnishings found in Ardgillan Castle’s main hall. This suggests that the original hall may have had two fires. Four miniature oak beds made up the nursery; two of them had floral cotton curtains, while the other two had red and white checkered curtains. A child’s bed, a gazing glass, and three or four chairs were also present.
There may have been twelve servants employed in the home, based on the description of the servants’ quarters. There were two blue-draped oak beds in the maid’s room and a red-and-white checkered bed in the manservant’s chamber. The coachman received a bed constructed of the same material as the cook’s oak press bed. Farrell, who was one of the witnesses to the official signing of the lease agreement between the brothers Thomas and Clotworthy Taylor, had a room with an oak bed, red and white curtains, and a green comforter. He may have been the butler or steward of the home.
The castle at Ardgillan had two kitchens. The ancient kitchen may have served as the eating area for the servants because it had a sizable dining table and two “forms” (benches). All of the necessary cooking equipment, including stoves, a Dutch oven, skillets, pots, and pans, boxes of flour and salt, a chopping board, a tea kettle, and pewter dishes and plates, were located in the other kitchen. A coal box, a warming pan, and pairs of candlesticks were also present.
The storeroom, kitchen, scullery, and wine cellar were all located in the basement of Ardgillan Castle. One pipe and one hogshead of port, half a hogshead of claret, forty-two bottles of Madeira, thirty-two bottles of sherry, forty-two bottles of hock, twenty-two bottles of cider, forty-two bottles of Alicanti, mead, and various sweet wines were all kept in the well-stocked wine cellar. The Ardgillan Castle had its “own dairy,” a poultry house, and a herd of 104 milk cows on the estate.
A few of the things listed in the outhouses imply that the home may have undergone alterations earlier than this time. A few ancient doors, a portion of an old chimney, and several old weather cocks were there. Twenty ancient sashes, four crates of glass squares, both new and old pieces of furniture, including a new enormous hall table, were also there.
Later use of Ardgillan Castle
Heinrich Pott, a German entrepreneur who bought Ardgillan Castle in 1962 and used it as a vacation home, kept up the Castle and grounds. After his death in 1966, Ardgillan Castle was given to his family and used as a vacation house by his sister Gertrude Dierksmeier and her family. The Dierksmeiers, however, had made the decision to depart Ardgillan by 1981, and the Demesne was once more up for sale.
Dublin County Council purchased Ardgillan Demesne for a number of reasons, but primarily to fill the demand for a Regional Park in the county’s northern region. Since his arrival at Ardgillan in 1939, Richard Taylour has kept the Castle in good condition. To secure the upkeep of Ardgillan Castle, he hired a stonemason and a handyman, while Henrich Pott also continued to maintain the structure. The structure of the Castle, however, had already begun to degrade by the early 1970s. The County Council’s acquisition of Ardgillan Demesne made sure that the Castle and Estate would eventually be preserved and restored.
Three phases may be seen in the development of the Castle as a recreational and educational institution since the purchase of Ardgillan in 1982. Then, from 1982 to 1986, the grounds were improved for public use while the Castle was secured to stop further deterioration. To the south of the Castle, a new entrance and parking lot were built at Blackhills. Also, the estate’s landscaping was improved, ancient walkways were reopened, new avenues were made, and a water main was placed. In 1986, the public was allowed access to the Ardgillan grounds.
Second, work on repairing the Castle started in 1989. The County Council worked on the restoration alongside FAS, the Irish Training and Employment Authority, and the Skerries Development and Community Association, which served as the project’s sponsor. The restorations included reconstructing the walls, stabilizing the roof, and removing hazardous ceilings.
The exquisite stencil work on the walls of the drawing room was restored as part of the interior renovation. A similar carved and paneled sideboard was made in addition to repairing the delicate carving on the dining room’s paneling. Although only a small portion of the original furnishings remain, the Castle is currently furnished thanks to kind loans of 18th and 19th century furnishings from private collections.
As President of Ireland Mary Robinson formally opened the rebuilt Castle to the public in May 1992, the third stage of the Demesne’s development got underway.
Argdillan Castle Photos
