Ireland - Muckross House

These pics loaded from the bottom to the top, but oh well. They're all here, so I'll just narrate as we go. Muckross ("muckris") House was built for the Henry Herbert family, beginning in 1839 and completed in 1843. At the time, the building is reported to have cost thirty thousand pounds, or so. The cost of a baseline starter car, these days. It was entirely remodeled and upgraded in 1850 for the visit of Queen Victoria and her family & entourage. This remodel apparently stretched the family budget and they were not able to keep the house. How much is it worth to you to make a good impression? Seems like a waste to go bankrupt over impressing a guest, however important, and winding up with nothing to show for it. They sold it for thirty thousand pounds, so actual building cost is unknown, but it was worth at least that. Sold to someone in the Guinness family in 1899, then to the Bowers Bourn family of California in 1910, who gave it to their daughter Maud as a wedding present. She was a "dollar princess" which is interesting to look up...

Essentially, all the wealth was in America at that time, and the only thing Americans lack was titles. When you have all the money in the world, the only "one up" you can get is a title. The only thing Europeans has was titles - they were broke, in a changing world, with massive Victorian mansions with expensive upkeep they could not afford. So the American rich married their daughters to the "high and mighty" titles - and sent their money with them back to Europe to pour into the infrastructure there. Winston Churchill is the son of a Dollar Princess.

Muckross House is a type of "calendar house". It is a Tudor style and typified the elegant lifestyle of the land owning class in the 19th century. The house has 365 windows, 12 chimneys etc...this was apparently a thing back then. A true calendar house would have 52 rooms, but this one has 63. It is over 16,000sq ft.

Weavers still make their own things there.

Laundry room

Laundry room

Laundry room

A very modernized home for it's time

They had china dishware, but thought it more "high brow" to eat off pewter (lead) plates. And they wondered why they died young 😞

A cooler. Made to keep things hot, primarily though. They liked hot meat.

A big hunting spot, they processed a lot of meat here, and needed to process their spices in large batches as a result. A mortar and pestle for strong arms

They had ice cream!

A warming tray to keep food hot

A warming table station. It would have had pipes going up to those holes in the windows to control the heat and steam. They had to cook all day, and serve hot food, upstairs in the dining room and serving hot food was of utmost importance.

The main kitchen oven

A whole room for storing and processing vegetables.

Smaller kitchen. Only used for "teas and pastries"

Double oven for pies and such

The smaller stove in the "tea kitchen"

A cobblers room

Wine cellar

"Cinderella!"

An old fire extinguisher

Another prep kitchen room

Maybe a bit of a lounge area for the servants.

Sand buckets, in case of fire.

I assume these would all get swapped in all the rooms daily, so they'd need quite a stash.

Riske, madame, riske!

These are the "bells" in the rooms that ring down to the bells in the servants/kitchen area. There were 33 bells & door bells for the 63 rooms

The house was built with plumbing. So modern

a heated towel rack

pretty!

A painting in the home of Muckross Abbey which is a few km away on the property.

The beds were shorter back then, not because people were shorter, but because they still tended to sleep sitting up/propped up. 

Portajohn in case the bathroom was busy, haha

They place holly on the furniture to keep the tourists from sitting on anything

All the wall paper in the house is handpainted chinese silk

This billards table was huge! 3 tons of slate and walnut!

A drawing room off the dining area. Called this, because it was where the (typically) ladies would withdraw to, after dinner, when the men started talking business. 

I only got a few videos, because as we were inside, I found out you weren't allowed to video, only take pics. Oops. So I just have a few small clips

There used to be massive Irish Deer that supposedly went extinct in the ice age. So who knows when they went away, but they're gone. When building, they would find racks when they disturbed the ground and mount them. One was discovered on this property and mounted on the wall which they said was 1000pounds, but that did seem hard to believe, although it was HUGE. Somehow I missed a pic of it specifically.