Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow

Work on the completion of the terraced Italian Garden at Powerscourt was undertaken by the seventh Viscount as soon as he came of age in 1858. He commissioned the Scottish gardener Alexander Robertson (no relation to Daniel) to create the lower amphitheatre of grass terraces and later chose the landscape architect Edward Milner (senior) to design the sunken parterres of the middle terrace. Lord Powerscourt's major achievement, however, was to create a focus for the whole garden - a central perron built in 1875 to a design of the architect Sir Francis Penrose. This imposing platform with flanking stairways and cobble stone pavements was built in an Italianate style, incorporating features brought back by the seventh Viscount from his European travels, including a wrought-iron rail from a castle near Hesse in Germany and a pair of seventeenth-century Italian bronze figures of AEolas from the Palais Royale in Paris.

The seventh Viscount Powerscourt spent a great deal of time travelling on the continent collecting statuary and wrought ironwork for the gardens. The quality of his purchases contribute enormously to the status of Powerscourt as a great European garden. Visitors entering the Walled Garden at the start of their tour cannot fail to be struck by the magnificent gilded gates here: the famous Perspective Gates from Bamberg Cathedral in Bavaria (circa 1770), the Chorus Gates - a copy of a German original - at the opposite end of the garden, and the Venetian Gates commissioned for Powerscourt around 1900. In the main garden some of Lord Powerscourt's acquisitions include the bronze painted winged horses or pegasi ky the pool, the heraldic supporters of the Wingfield coat of arms, commissioned from Professor Hagen in Berlin in 1869, and the Triton in the centre of the lake which throws a jet over one hundred-feet high, commissioned from Lawrence Macdonald in Rome and based on Bernini's fountain in the Piazza Barberini.

The seventh Viscount was also an enthusiastic planter of trees, particularly of conifers from North West America. Between 1870 and 1880 he is reputed to have planted nearly four million trees at Powerscourt, remarking later in his diary that 'nobody can say I have not left my mark on the country'. Some of the trees he planted with his own hand, such as the famous avenue of monkey puzzles (Araucaria araucana) planted around 1870 on line with the main garden walk. Visitors admiring this avenue as they enter the gardens should also note at the near end a fine specimen of Eucalyptus globulus neighbouring a Mexican pine. Flanking the Chorus Gates at the end of the Walled Garden is an imposing coast redwood (Sequoia semper virens) planted by Princess Mary in 1911 and one of a number of very good specimens at Powerscourt - another planted in 1866 in the Dargle Valley stands 144-feet high and is probably the finest in Ireland.

Some of the best trees at Powerscourt are found in the Tower Valley, which lies on the far side of the Italian Garden and should be approached by walking along the top terrace. Among the most impressive is a big-coned pine (Pinus coulteri) which, at fifty-six feet, is the tallest in the British Isles though it may be approaching the end of its life, these Californian trees have proved to be very short-lived in cultivation. Here also is a Caucasian wing nut (Pterocarya fraxinifolia), a tall example of the so-called Japanese Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga japonica), a fast-growing Japanese fir (Abies veitchii) and a very good specimen of a Caucasian fir (Abies nordmanniana) planted in 1867, one of many at Powerscourt. A castellated folly surrounded by a sentinel of Italian cypresses, known as the Pepperpot Tower, is the focus of this valley. The tower was built by the eighth Viscount for the Prince of Wales's visit to Powerscourt in 1911 and was modelled on the family's silver pepperpot.

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From the Appletree Press title: Irish Gardens. [ Back to Top ]

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