Fota House

Rectangular-plan walled gardens, built c. 1820, subdivided into two leisure gardens within enclosure to south, vegetable garden to east and orchard to north. Random rubble limestone walls with red brick lining to south wall of orchard. Entrances to south wall of leisure garden, that to west comprising carved rusticated limestone entrance piers set in walls and having carved surmounted by urns with acorn heads and ball finials and cast-iron double-leaf gates, and that to east comprising pointed arched opening set in wall with timber battened door. Elliptical-arched openings to interior walls having tooled cut limestone surrounds and some double-leaf cast-iron gates. Freestanding circular-plan porticoed pavilion to north of leisure garden having copper domed roof and Doric columns and pilasters. Dressed limestone shrunken Italian garden with carved limestone centrepiece.

Opulent walled garden for leisure and utilitarian purposes retaining well-executed limestone entrance piers, walls, arched openings and elaborate garden monuments. Fota House and its associated demesne structures were completed in the 1820s to the designs of Sir Richard Morrison and his son William Vitruvius Morrison, some of the most influential architects in Ireland during the nineteenth century. The Fota House demesne once comprised the whole island, the survival of its utilitarian and distinguished demesne structures adds significantly to Ireland's national heritage.