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Six garden books kept by the head gardener, Michael Hogan.

Six garden books kept by the head gardener, Michael Hogan.

Envelope of leases of Clonlyon, barony of Garrycastle. [In date order.]

Family, and family history, correspondence of the Hon. Geoffrey L. Parsons, including: a letter from his father, the 4th Earl, just before the latter’s death; letters from his brother, the 5th Earl, who writes from the Front during the First World
War, and a letter reporting that the 5th Earl has been seriously wounded; letters from Anthony de Brie, a portrait-painter, about his portraits of the 4th Earl and of Parsons’s wife; letters from Dr Otto Boeddicker offering items of antique furniture for sale; and an envelope of newspaper cuttings and other material concerning the family collected by Geoffrey Parsons, c.1915-55. [For letters to Geoffrey Parsons from his uncle, Sir Charles Parsons, see Section R.]

Land Court case papers and Irish Land Commission sale papers, including lists of tenants, of court cases to be heard,
some correspondence [but see Q/388], a small quarto volume [of c.1900] recording valuations of holdings, either for land purchase purposes or in connection with appeals against judicial rents, etc, etc, all in connection with the Rosse estate in King’s County and Co. Tipperary.

Five envelopes containing miscellaneous estate accounts and financial and estate correspondence of the Birr Estate Office, much of it about arterial drainage (including printed matter back to 1869), one account of 1874 mentioning the cost of labour on the mounting for the three-foot telescope, and other long runs of accounts relating to the Dovegrove, Killeen and Newtown farms and stock, and to the manor saw mill, 1886-1912. [Not in chronological order.]

Envelope of legal papers about the estate, including non-contemporary copies of deeds back to 1909, and counsel’s opinions on cases concerning repairs to tenanted houses, rates on such houses, the claims of J. Laurie, a dismissed steward [see Q/389], etc, etc.

Envelope of papers about the bogs on the estate. [See also Q/18.]

Letters and tradesmen’s accounts to the 5th Earl relating to seeds, shrubs, trees and planting, including 3 letters from Augustine Henry [botanist renowned for his flora-collecting explorations in central and western China], 1908-10. One of
Henry’s letters, dated 26 July 1909, is about [Chinese?] plant specimens at Birr; it has been photocopied by PRONI, T/3498/4.

Box of leases of Clonoghill, barony of Ballybritt, on the outskirts of Birr, and adjoining Newbridge, to which some of the leases refer [see Q/84]. Also mentioned are the 2 substantial houses situated in the townland of Clonoghill,
Elmgrove and Syngefield. A number of papers, ending in 1946, relate to the former property. Because of Clonoghill’s proximity to Birr, an unusually high proportion of the leases also include holdings in the town. One interesting component of the box is the probate of a local land surveyor, Maurice Downer, 1786, whose estate included part of the lands of Clonoghill; this will is of interest as giving some indication of the degree of affluence enjoyed by a member of his profession. The box also includes papers relating to the sale of a fee farm grant of Elmgrove Bridge to Offaly County Council in 1989.