Deer park

 

"Between the Convent of Mount Anville,                         
above Dundrum, and the broad high road which
leads to the pretty village of Stillorgan, rises
the wooded hill of Mount Merrion, the centre of
the landscape over Dublin Bay, which gradually
becomes defined as the opalescent mists of the
Irish sunrise fade away”.

It is a landscape known to every visitor to Ireland who has stood on deck as the Holyhead mail steamer passes the Kish lightship. Around the wood some three hundred acres of the richest grazing land in County Dublin slope gently to the high stone wall which surrounds the demesne. To the south and south-west the horizon is bounded by the swelling outline of the Wicklow and Dublin Hills. To the north the long low line of the Mourne Mountains, sixty miles and more away, are clearly visible when recent rains have left the washed air clear, while the islands of Lambay and Ireland's Eye give an added beauty to the sea-scape which lies beyond the wind-blown causeway which leads on and up to the rhododendron covered slopes above the ancient castle of Howth.

A double avenue of beech trees shades the roadway which runs, straight as a rule, for a full quarter of a mile to the entrance gates on the Stillorgan Road. This roadway, whose immaculate pebbled surface was raked daily, had a broad border of century old shaven turf, the pride of the Scottish gardener; so tended, brushed and rolled was it in those days that the most careless visitor would have hesitated to sully the velvety perfection of the surface with a profane foot. Yet the gardener, his voice, with its rich Highland brogue quivering with fury at the bare recollection, would tell how a distinguished citizen of Dublin, having ridden to pay his respects to his lordship, had, on departing, cantered gaily down the sacred border, divots flying from his horse's heels; so that the whole length was scarred and pitted with hoofmarks, as though the plague had passed over it, and it was only after months of patient labour that the unbroken serenity of the surface was restored."

These opening paragraphs of "Mount Merrion the Old" by Sir Neville R. Wilkinson show at once how much and how little things have changed. The present 18 hectares of Deerpark, Mount Merrion would have been the nucleus of this "three hundred acres of richest grazing land" now largely covered with buildings and roads, but vigilance is still required to limit the depradations of the modern equivalent of the horse and rider!

These lands were part of the Fitzwilliam and later Pembroke Estates. Recent historical research carried out by Denis Cogan has shown that maps such as John Roques (1760) and Barkers Estate Maps (1762) show much of what is now Deerpark as a formal walled garden and many of the prominent avenues and boundaries of the nearby Mount Merrion House lands form the basis of the present local road network.

"Perhaps the most interesting remaining part of the 18th century development is the landscape element. The present Deerpark is a public park to the west of the house and included a wooded area which corresponds exactly to the walled woodland area laid out with radial paths shown on the earliest map (1757). The position of the 'gazebo' is now a platform with an assembly of cut stone elements lying on the ground, the origin of the material is not known to me. I believe that the radial form of the landscape can still be detected and consider that this may offer scope for an exercise in landscape conservation." (Denis Cogan, 1999)

The present Deerpark was opened to the public in 1971. It was created through the assembly of a number of parcels of public open space lands and from local acquisitions. It has formal sports activities such as football pitches and tennis courts run by the very active Mount Merrion Tennis Club as well as ample space for informal leisure pursuits