Newbridge Estate, Georgian estate in Donabate, County Dublin, Ireland
Newbridge House is a Georgian mansion built between 1747 and 1752 for Archbishop Charles Cobbe to designs by James Gibbs, set in 400 acres of partly wooded parkland in Donabate, north County Dublin. It retains most of its original furniture, the Red Drawing Room, ornate plasterwork and a Museum of Curiosities. A square cobbled courtyard designed by Robert Mack was added about 1790.
Charles Cobbe, then Bishop of Kildare, bought the Donabate and Newbridge townlands in 1736 and had James Gibbs design the house, built between 1747 and 1752. His son Thomas and wife Lady Elizabeth Beresford added the Red Drawing Room. The Cobbes held the estate until 1985, when Dublin County Council acquired it while the family kept rights to the house.
The Red Drawing Room, added by Thomas Cobbe and his wife Lady Elizabeth Beresford after their 1751 marriage, was where the couple entertained and hung pictures bought for them by Rev. Matthew Pilkington, author of the first English Dictionary of Painters. The house keeps most of its original furniture, and the Museum of Curiosities holds collected objects.
Newbridge Demesne opened as a County Dublin Regional Park in 1986, and the house and farm are shown on paid guided tours, with public events held through the year. The grounds lie in Donabate, north County Dublin, near the Broad Meadow estuary. Lanestown Castle, a late medieval tower house, stands on the demesne grounds.
The Cabinet of Curiosities on the grounds was assembled in the 1760s and is one of the few surviving collections of its kind. This collection shows how wealthy people of that time preserved their interests and discoveries in objects.
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