Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Mary Pendarves's letters to Ann Granville about her visit to Killala, 1732 (Author: Mary Pendarves)

Entry 7

August the 24th, 1732
Left Dublin

22 Dined at Lismullen;23 Mr. Dillon's house made mighty neat; a vast deal of wood and wild gardens about it. Walked to see the ruins of the old Abby near them — a vast building enclosed with large trees, great subterraneous buildings, with arches of cut stone, which make no other appearance above the earth than as little green hillocks, like mole-hills. The arches seem to have been openings to little cells, rather than continued passages to any place; they are very low — whether it be that

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they are sunk into the ground, or always were so, I can't judge, but they are formed of very fine cut stone. The Abbey is in the prettiest spot about the house; 'tis surrounded with tall trees, and a little clear rivulet winds about it. The road from Lismullen to Naver very pleasant; passed by Arsalah, which lies upon the Boyn. The house seems a very antique edifice, it has fine gardens, but the trees and meadows that lie by the river are extremely beautiful; their domains reach all along the river, and half the way to Naver. Naver stands just where the Boyn and Blackwater meet, high over the river. I walked over the bridge by moonlight, along a walk of tall elms which leads to a ruined house they call the Black Castle, from a vulgar tradition of its being haunted; it lies over the Blackwater, has a vast number of trees about it, and seems to have been pretty. The ‘spirit’ it was visited by was extravagance; it belonged two young men, who in a few years ruined themselves, and let the seat go to destruction, and ever since they give out it is haunted, it is now another person's property, and going to be repaired.

The 25th, left Naver, and travelled through bad roads and a dull uninhabited country, till we came to Cabaragh, Mr. Prat's house, an old castle modernized, and made very pretty: the master of it is a virtuoso, and discovers whim in all his improvements. The house stands on the side of a high hill; has some tall old trees about it; the gardens are small but neat; there are two little terrace walks, and down in a hollow is a little commodious lodge where Mr. Prat lived whilst his house was repairing. But the thing that most pleased me, was a rivulet that tumbles down from rocks in

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a little glen, full of shrub-wood and trees; here a fine spring joins the river, of the sweetest water in the world.

The 26th, left Mr. Prat's, and travelled over the most mountainous country I ever was in; still as we had passed over one hill, another showed itself, Alps peeped over Alps, and ‘hills on hills’ arose: the face of the country not pleasant till I came to Shercock, which is a handsome house, and stands over a fine lake, that has several woods and meadows on the sides of it. A vast deal of heath and ploughed land from that till I came within three miles of Coote Hill, then the scene changed most surprisingly, and the contrast is so strong, that one imagines they are leaving a desert and coming into Paradise. The town of Coote Hill is like a pretty English village, well situated, and all the land about it cultivated and enclosed with cut hedges and tall trees in rows. From the town one drives nearly a mile on a fine gravelled road, a cut hedge on each side, and rows of old oak and ash trees, to Mr. Coote's house. Within two hundred yards of the house is a handsome gate-way, which is built in great taste, with a fine arch to drive through. This house lies on the top of a carpet hill, with large lakes on each side which extend four miles, and are surrounded by fine groves of well-grown forest trees. Below the house and between the lakes is a little copsewood which is cut into vistas and serpentine walks that have the softest sods imaginable, and here and there overgrown forest trees, in the midst of them there is jessamine, woodbine, and sweetbrier, that climb up the trees; and all sorts of flowers sprinkled in the woods; all these have end in the view of a lake of four or five miles long. From the copsewood you go into a spacious moss-walk,

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by the lake side: on the other side towards a spacious kitchen-garden, there is a wood of scrub and timber trees mixed, of twelve hundred acres, with avenues cut for a coach to drive through, and up and down little openings into fine lawns, and views of the lake and town of Coote Hill. From this wood I rode, and saw the demesnes in Mr. Coote's hands, which are about thirty fields, finely enclosed with full hedge-rows, corn-meadows, pastures, and a deer-park, enclosed with a high stone wall well stocked with deer it is a very convenient ground.24