‘Richmond, An Gáirdín Rúndach’ is a listed, period property built circa 1830. It first appeared on the Ordnance Survey map of 1840. The house itself is an eight bay, two storey structure built in the Italianate style that was popular during this period.
The first owner of the house was a Mr. H Smyth in 1837, and it later passed into the hands of Captain George Walker in 1847. It is believed that George Walker was related to the Johnnie Walker Whiskey Family.
Indeed the pond, which is a key feature of the property, was a holding pond for a local distillery, which would seem to support this claim. Richmond Hill, which runs parallel to the property, is known locally as Walkers’ Hill.
The property was later owned by The Furlongs, a prosperous family of Millers hailing originally from Co. Wexford. The Furlongs owned a number of properties in Cork, including Ballinamona Castle and House in Shanballymore (An Sean Bhaile Mór).
Coincidentally, the family was well known for breeding horses and had a Grand National winner with ‘Reynoldstown‘ two years in a row in 1935 and 1936. It had been rumoured that the winning horse was stabled at one point in Richmond, which would have been a much bigger estate at the time, however, from the research we’ve done, we believe this is unlikely.
Between the years 1920 to 2020, Richmond served a number of functions in the hands of The Presentation Sisters — a primary school for girls, a Novitiate for novice nuns, and later the headquarters for the upper echelons of the order.
The Presentation Sisters kept the house in very decent state of repair on the whole. Extensive work had been done to the roof and a heating system had been installed. The downside to their stewardship was, practical overtook beautiful in many instances, however, given the circumstances experienced in the country in general, you can understand how this had to be the case even though it is lamentable now with hindsight.
The overarching result of some of these changes could be seen in the institutional feel to the interiors that existed prior to our acquiring the estate, as well as some ugly design decisions being made with function very much outclaiming form. Some of the rooms had been partitioned, the exterior timber doors had been replaced with PVC, and all but one of the original fireplaces were removed. That one remaining original fireplace dates back to The Furlong period of ownership and bears their coat of arms. However, almost all of the original cornicing and ceiling roses remain intact and because of their practical maintenance upkeep, most restoration requirements of the house, bar things like the electrical system and things of that nature, are predominantly cosmetic.
The Ó Cinnéide Family are the present custodians of ‘Richmond, An Gáirdín Rúndach’ and aim to restore the house and grounds to its former glory. The family took possession of the keys to ‘Richmond, An Gáirdín Rúndach’ at the end of August 2020 and have been working relentlessly on the property pretty much ever since. To start with, most of the work focused on the grounds which had become overgrown in parts and left quite raw in other parts. Amongst many of the ongoing projects is the thinning out of the woodland and the planting of a beech hedge and other trees in order to restore the more formal and framed nature of the grounds. With that said however, we have recently been working our way through renovating the main house itself section by section over time, and hope to tackle areas such as The Stables in due course. It’s a long haul project and we have a vision and are committed to it.
As the Chinese proverb goes – ‘The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago’