History of Ballybeg House

 

A sense of tranquility and relaxation descends once you drive up the long driveway through rolling parkland. Some of Ireland's oldest oak and beech trees offer shelter to horses, cows and sheep grazing in the fields. It has sweeping views over Croghan Valley, partly obscured by oak, cedar and Spanish chestnut trees planted over 350 years ago.

 

The history of Ballybeg House dates back to the early 1700s when Rev. Michael Symes, the first in a long line of Trinity College educated Clergymen, leased from the Earl of Marlton, the lands at Ballybeg and surrounding countryside.

During the 1798 Rebellion the original house was burned to the ground by the local insurgents. The occupancy of Ballybeg remained in the Symes Family until 1873 when on the death of Arthur Rowley Symes, a Major George Newton became the new tenant of Ballybeg House under Lord Fitzwilliam of Coollattin Estate.

Major Newton became a well-known local magistrate and very active in the Anti Home Rule movement and had many a lively verbal exchange with the pro Parnellites of the day. He died on the 19th June 1910 and was succeeded in Ballybeg by his eldest son James Hibbert Newton. James Hibbert Newton lived a quiet and unassuming lifestyle at Ballybeg until poor circumstances forced him to sell Ballybeg House and farm to a well-known circus family called Fossetts. The Fossett Family used the extensive farm buildings as their winter training quarters and being suspicious that the main residence was haunted, levelled it to the ground in 1948 and built in its place the colonial style residence that remains today.

Shortly after the completion of this residence Ballybeg was purchased by the present owner's mother, Mollie (Ayers), who with her husband Pat O'Toole carefully and lovingly maintained and enhanced the surrounding gardens and arboretum. So today guests to Ballybeg will experience the unique atmosphere and charm of the delicately restored residence and the surrounding gardens and extensive parklands rising high above the 'Wicklow Way' to the Mottee Stone. Here on top of Ballybeg Mountain majestic views of the surrounding countryside can be savoured and enjoyed.