Milltown Park House

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Milltown, Shinrone, Tipperary, Ireland

Detached T-plan five-bay three-storey over basement country house, built c.1740, with central pedimented breakfront and extensions to rear. Set within its own grounds. Pitched slate roof with ashlar limestone chimneystacks and some cast-iron rainwater goods. Ashlar limestone front elevation with limestone cornice, plinth course and quoins. Roughcast rendered to side and rear elevations with limestone quoins. Venetian window to pedimented breakfront with continuous limestone sill and oculus to pediment. Square-headed window openings with tooled limestone sills and timber sash windows. Round-headed door opening to front elevation with tooled limestone Gibbsian surround with cornice, flanked by sidelights. Timber and glazed double doors and decorative fanlight. Door accessed up four limestone steps flanked by a plinth wall. Entrance to south of house with wrought-iron double gates flanked by limestone pier. Principal entrance to east of house with wrought-iron double gates supported by rendered piers and flanked by quadrant walls incorporating a cast-iron post box. Ruined gate lodge opposite entrance.

An important example of a mid eighteenth-century country house, Milltown Park House makes a valuable contribution to the architectural heritage of County Offaly. The house displays a high degree of architectural detailing typical of the Irish Palladian style, most notably the Gibbsian door surround, Venetian window arrangement, oculus and pedimented breakfront. Although the house is embellished with these fashionable eighteenth-century architectural features, the form of the house with the oversized chimneystacks located over the end gable walls appear outdated. Though no longer used, the principal gate with gate lodge was once an elegant entrance to Milltown Park House.^[1]

1720 - Frances Spunner was born in this house. Milltown Park House was built by the Spunner family in about 1720, near the site of an earlier house built in the 1500s, This house was the home of the father of Frances, Charles Spunner who was most likely born at this location. ^[2] He died in 1758.

1758 - Will Spunner Charles of Miltown, Kings County, Gentleman. Dated 25 Oct 1758; probated 23 March 1759. Sons: Joseph and Thomas, son-in-law Mr. Charles White of Aghadae, Queens County, Kinsman Henry Palmer of Bally Egan, Kings County (Could this be Ballymacegan ). Daughters: Frances Short and Catherine Palmer, daughter Elizabeth White, daughter Dorothy wife of John Spunner. Son Charles.^[3]

1851- Dublin Evening Post, 25 Oct, 1851 Excerpt from letter "I have in the last four years, given very extensive employment in draining and found work for as many of the division as I could. The farmers on the contrary, have generally employed strangers, many of whom are now chargeable upon them. They can of course blame no one but themselves for the heavy rate they will now have to pay. If they could have listened to the repeated warnings of myself, their rate would probably be not one half of what it is. In addition to this the ratepayers of Milltown and Straduff have been continually bring strangers and lodgers for many of whom the Garryhill Division is now paying.

1867 - Thomas White Spunner of Miltown House, Shinrone, owned 1,207 acres in King's County.

2015 - The home was for sale. ^{[4] [5]}

2017 -The house was no longer in the Spunner family.

Sources

1. ↑ National Inventory of Architectural Heritage database, http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=OF&regno=14942007
2. ↑ Family search, Pedigree Index, Film 100153, 576, p 115
3. ↑ Province of Armagh. Prerogative Court, Series 1, Vol. 63: p. 83-84, Charles Spunner; FHL microfilm 595,945, item 217. Betham's abstracts of Irish Wills
4. ↑ SherryFitz Group Real Estate Agents, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ3-2YUGEyo
5. ↑ Milltown Park House advertising, http://www.windsorclive.co.uk/equestrian-property/co-offaly/milltown-park