I am traveling in Ireland and spent an afternoon at Powerscourt Gardens in Enniskerry, County Wicklow. The beautiful Powerscourt House and Gardens made me feel like I was about to visit Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
The gardens stretch over 47 acres and offer visitors a blend of formal gardens, sweeping terraces, statues and ornamental lakes, secret hollows and rambling walks. Powerscourt Gardens were designed from 1731 onwards, with the desire to create a garden which was part of the wider surrounding landscape.
Powerscourt Gardens include the Walled Garden, the Italian Garden, the Dolphin Pond, the Japanese Garden, the family Pets Cemetery and Pepperpot Tower, among other features and attractions. The whole property which includes a hotel and golf course is over 1000 acres.
The 1st Viscount Powerscourt was keen to make his mark and assert his position as one of importance in society, so he set about transforming the medieval castle at Powerscourt into a grand mansion. In 1730 he commissioned the German-born architect Richard Castle to build Powerscourt House, a 68 room mansion which was completed in 1741. The mansion was designed around the medieval castle in the style of Palladian architecture and featured baroque dome-roofed towers on either side, giving it in the words of one architectural historian, “The massive dignity of a great Italian Renaissance villa.”
The property has extraordinary planters and sculpture throughout. Every turn you make on a path surprises you with a statue or stone bench.
The formal rose gardens include many solariums that house starts and plants in the cold winter months.
The walkway from the back of the estate down to Triton Lake are inlayed pebbles depicting intricate patterns.
The iron work on the estate is delicate looking in black with gold highlights, but massive in size.
It was overcast all day, but was a perfect day to walk the grounds of Powerscourt Gardens.
