Victorian Conservatory and Glasshouses, Ardgillan Castle

The conservatory did not begin life at Ardgillan. It was built in 1905 at Seamount, in Malahide, home of the Jameson family of whiskey fame, by the Scottish firm McKenzie & Moncur, and is believed to reproduce a glasshouse at Balmoral in Scotland. The Treacy family, later owners of Seamount, donated it to Fingal County Council, and park staff re-erected it in Ardgillan's Rose Garden in the mid-1990s.

Its new setting has a longer past. Robert Taylor, son of Sir Thomas Taylor, 1st Baronet, was drawn to the site in the 1730s and in 1738 built a house first known as Prospect House; the name Ardgillan already appears on the Down Survey map of 1653. George Papworth carried out renovations in the 1850s. The Taylors kept the estate until 1962, when it was sold to a buyer from Westphalia, and it passed to the local authority in 1982. The 194-acre demesne opened as a public park in June 1985, and the castle was officially opened by President Mary Robinson in 1992, according to Wikipedia.

The latest chapter is the restoration of the four glasshouses, among them the large conservatory, a vinery and a propagation house kept in storage for almost thirty years, by de Blacam and Meagher Architects with Oldstone Conservation and Lambstongue Construction. They reopened to the public in May 2022, and in 2024 the project was shortlisted for the RIAI Architecture Awards.

The group stands on the northern edge of the Rose Garden, a formal garden laid out from the Ordnance Survey map of 1865, just south of the walled garden; OpenStreetMap maps the conservatory as a separate greenhouse building. The original structure, supplied in 1905 by McKenzie & Moncur, is said to copy a glasshouse at Balmoral.

The restoration covered four glazed buildings: the large conservatory, a McKenzie & Moncur vinery and a propagation house that the estate describes as very rare, kept in storage for almost thirty years before its return. Led by de Blacam and Meagher Architects with the conservators of Oldstone Conservation and the contractor Lambstongue Construction, the work returned the glasshouses to their original appearance while adding modern electrical fittings and provision for irrigation. Titled 'Restoration of Mackenzie and Moncur Vinery and Propagation House', the project was shortlisted in 2024 for the awards of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI). The sources consulted give no dimensions and no detailed account of the materials.

The sources consulted do not list the plants grown inside the glasshouses, whose restoration included provision for irrigation. Their setting, however, is one of Ardgillan's main horticultural displays. The Rose Garden, laid out again from the 1865 map, is arranged around a fountain ringed with water lilies, and plaques describe 62 beds of roses, most of them bred by Irish growers: species and old varieties around the perimeter, climbers on the pergola, Hybrid Teas and Floribundas in the formal beds.

Next door, the one-hectare walled garden, a former Victorian-style kitchen garden divided into five compartments, holds a herb garden, a vegetable potager, fan-trained fruit on the walls and some thirty old Irish apple varieties planted in 2000. Its Potentilla garden has been granted National Collection status by the NCCPG.

Ardgillan Castle and Demesne lies near Balbriggan in north County Dublin: 194 acres of public park run by Fingal County Council, with about five miles of footpaths through woodland and views over the sea and the coastline. The glasshouses are seen with the Rose Garden, which is open during park hours.

The visit continues with the walled garden, the castle (guided tours), the tea rooms, the ice house and a heritage trail that traces the history of the landscape. Summer is the season for the roses, and guided garden tours are offered through the year to follow the changing seasons.