Muckross House, Tudor house museum in County Kerry, Ireland.
Muckross House is a Tudor-style mansion containing 65 rooms located on a peninsula between Muckross Lake and Lough Leane. The residence sits within Killarney National Park and features period furnishings, expansive grounds, and connections to surrounding gardens and woodlands.
Muckross House was built between 1839 and 1843 to designs by the Scottish architect William Burn for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife Mary Balfour Herbert, a landscape painter; it was the fourth house the Herberts raised on the estate. Costly work before Queen Victoria's stay in August 1861 led to debts, and in 1897 the property passed to the Standard Life Assurance Company. In 1911 the Californian mining magnate William Bowers Bourn II bought it as a wedding gift for his daughter Maud and her husband Arthur Rose Vincent; after Maud died in 1929, the family gave house and estate to the Irish nation in 1932, creating the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park, Ireland's first national park.
The entrance hall's three matching sideboards were carved by the Egan family of Killarney from rosewood and mahogany, and the tall stair window is old English crystal glass. The salon holds a rosewood piano by John Broadwood & Sons of London, dated 1841, and two Murano glass mirrors. Chinese-style screens shielded ladies' lead-based white makeup from the fire's heat.
The site is best explored on foot, allowing time to see both the interior and the surrounding gardens and working farm areas. Visitors should allow several hours and wear sturdy shoes, as pathways and grounds can be uneven.
The entrance hall's three matching sideboards were carved by the Egan family of Killarney, and the tall staircase window is made of old English crystal glass. The room was cleared of furniture for balls, when the dance floor took over the space where guests were first greeted.
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