Manderley Castle
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Manderley Castle (Irish: Caisleán Mhanderley)(formerly Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle) is a large castellated Irish Mansion house built in the Victorian style, situated in Dublin, Ireland.
From the roof of its crenellated turret, it looks over the Irish coastline as far as Wales. Victoria Castle was built in 1840 by Robert Warren [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] to commemorate Queen Victoria's accession to the throne and is surrounded by three-and-a-half acres of manicured gardens, threaded with sylvan walks. A secret tunnel at the bottom of the garden originally gave access to Killiney beach, but is now sealed off.[6]
The interior was gutted by fire in 1928 and was magnificently restored by Sir Thomas Power of the celebrated whiskey family. He renamed it Ayesha Castle after the goddess who rose from the flames in Rider Haggard's novel She.
In 1995 the Aylmer family decided to turn Ayesha Castle a place of tourist interest and they made alterations, "conversion of existing stables to a ground floor apartment and a first floor craft room"[7] The Stable Gallery established there and many artists exposed their pictures [8]
Irish musician Enya bought the castle in 1997 for €3.8 million, reportedly outbidding Michael Flatley, who also viewed the house. Because of her love for Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, Rebecca, she renamed it Manderley, which is the name of a fictional house that plays a central role in the book. Because of some serious threats from stalkers, Enya has already made substantial reinforcements to the security of Manderley Castle. She installed new solid timber entrance gates, raised the surrounding 45 yards of stone wall to more than 9ft and added 4ft railings on top of some sections.[9] Despite this, around mid- August 2005, there were two separate security breaches at the castle, and Enya was present on both occasions (her security system includes a panic room).
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.igs.ie/cgi-bin/theses/catalogue.cgi?detail=1171
- ^ http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/newspaper/np_abst44.htm
- ^ http://cmcrp.net/Dublin/Landowner15.html
- ^ http://www.ucd.ie/economics/research/papers/2002/WP02.15.pdf
- ^ http://www.dublin1850.com/dublin1850/xdubdir88.html#warren
- ^ Life piles of the rich and famous: why a celeb's home is their castle
- ^ http://planning.dlrcoco.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=D95a/0199
- ^ http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=stable+gallery+killiney
- ^ Living: Quiet life next door to Enya
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