Gardaí have started an investigation after one of the country’s oldest private houses, Stylebawn in Delgany, Co Wicklow, was destroyed by fire at the weekend.
Stylebawn dated from at least 1773, but some parts may have been even older.
At about 5pm last Saturday, flames were noticed coming from the roof of the T-shaped property which stands on 3½-acre site in the centre of the village.
The house was unoccupied since it was bought by a company associated with property developer Johnny Ronan about 12 years ago. Nobody was injured in the fire which caused extensive damage to the house.
Open to public
Under a previous owner, John Gaisford St Lawrence, whose family own Howth Castle, the gardens were regularly opened to the public, particularly during the Wicklow Gardens Festival.
The property was originally two thatched houses before they were joined by an extension, including a hall door above which a plaque bore the date 1773. In an interview in the 1980s the late Mr Gaisford St Lawrence said he believed parts of it dated from the early 16th century.
According to the Delgany heritage group group, Stylebawn was the original coaching inn in Delgany and was once known as the Delgany Inn, a name latterly associated with a building across the road from it.
The website delganyheritagevillage.com claims Sir Walter Raleigh once stayed in the house. The website describes it as as north-facing with “all principal rooms to the rear enjoying south- and east-facing views over sloping gardens”. It also notes speculation the property had not one, but two, ghosts – a lady in black lace and a gentleman in grey.
In 2004 Mr Ronan applied through his company, Lanaree, for planning permission for 11 dwellings and a new access road on the property but this was refused by Wicklow County Council in October 2005.
Demolish
In 2009 Mr Ronan applied again, this time for permission to demolish Stylebawn and replace it with a new, seven-bedroom house of up to three storeys in height. The application to demolish was withdrawn.
During the drafting of the Greystones Delgany local area plan councillors briefly considered rezoning the land, but ultimately left its residential zoning of one house to the acre unchanged.
For the last year the county council had engaged with a new company, RGRE J & R Stylebawn Ltd, on a number of conservation measures the council required to be carried out. A report on the works undertaken was received from this company by the council on Thursday last.
RGRE J & R Stylebawn Ltd is a private company in which Johnny Roan and two of his children – James and Jodie – act as directors. It is owned by another private Ronan vehicle, RGRE J & R Ltd, which is owned in turn by Arkquade, on which Jodie and her other brother, John, sit as directors with their father.
Arkquade is owned mostly by Johnny Ronan, with other family members holding a small number of shares, according to documents filed at the Companies Office.
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage lists Stylebawn as “a detached multiple-bay 1½-storey house, built in 1773, but much extended in the mid 19th-century.” It said it was an “unusual T-plan house” which had “an intangible arts and crafts feel, an impression enhanced by its well-wooded undulating grounds”.
