Ducketts Grove, Gothic Revival ruins in Killerrig, Ireland

Ducketts Grove is a ruined Gothic Revival great house with a central crenellated tower, a long wing with empty window openings, and a large arched entrance with a dark wooden door and barred gate. The pale grey stone structure incorporates round, square and octagonal towers, including a tall granite octagonal viewing tower. Two interconnecting walled gardens, the Upper and Lower, lie on the grounds.

Duckett's Grove was built around 1745 as a two-storey over-basement Georgian country house on a County Carlow estate. From the mid 1820s the English architect Thomas Cobden redesigned it in castellated Gothic Revival style for John Dawson Duckett, a remodelling funded by earlier marriages into wealthy merchant families. It added round, square and octagonal towers, including a tall solid granite viewing tower, and hid some original Georgian features. A fire overnight on 20 April 1933 destroyed the interior.

The Duckett family's strategic marriages into wealthy merchant families paid for the Gothic remodelling, and eleven gardeners once kept the grounds. After William Duckett died in 1908 the male line ended; his widow Maria Georgina lived on until about 1916 and later left her estranged daughter Olive only one shilling from an estate valued at £97,735.

The ruins can be explored on foot, with paths through the gardens being straightforward and giving visitors a clear view of the entire site. Sturdy footwear is recommended since the ground is uneven in places and partly overgrown.

A devastating fire in 1933 destroyed the interior of the building, leaving only the outer walls and towers standing. This destruction means visitors today see only the outer shell of what was once a fully furnished house.