Stewick House, a former Famine workhouse on a hillock near Askeaton

Stewick House stands in crumbling isolation on a hillock in Ballyengland, seast of Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Stewick House is an interesting site on the main road into Askeaton, Co Limerick, standing in crumbling isolation on a hillock in Ballyengland, south of the N69 road from Limerick and east of Askeaton.

It has a strong impact on the landscape and was originally built as country house ca 1790 for a branch of the Hewson family of nearby Castle Hewson. But Stewick House is still remembered in the area as Famine-era ‘workhouse’ in the mid-19th century.

After visiting Castle Hewson last week, two of us visited the crumbling Stewick House, or Stewick Fort. It stands on land owned by the O’Shaughnessy family, and local lore also says hidden treasure was once hidden on the site.

Although the house is now crumbling and in a state of disrepair, it remains an imposing, landmark building, and it retains much of its original imposing form, including the courtyard that adds context and heightens the impact of the building.

Architectural features in the buildings include cut limestone sills, surrounds and voussoirs, which indicate a high level of craft and skill in the original building of the house and its former importance in this area.

Stewick House was built in the 1790s for a branch of the Hewson family of nearby Castle Hewson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

This is a detached, L-plan, six-bay, two-storey country house, built ca 1790. It has a split-level main block with a multiple-bay two-storey block to east.

There is a square-profile single-storey porch at the north side of the extension. The hipped slate roof has terracotta ridge tiles, and there are rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods.

Th multiple-bay block has a pitched slate roof and red brick chimneystacks. There are roughcast rendered walls, and rubble stone can be seen in places.

There are square-headed window openings throughout, with cut limestone sills and red brick voussoirs, some with one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, and some with timber framed windows.

There are segmental-arched window openings on the north side of the rear block and the east side of the main block, with red-brick voussoirs.

The square-headed window openings on the east side of the main block have cut limestone surrounds and voussoirs, some with timber battened doors.

The square-headed opening on the west side of the porch has a timber battened door.

Outbuildings surround the courtyard at the rear.

The boundary wall has a segmental-arched opening at the north of courtyard with a cut limestone surround, voussoirs and a keystone.

The Poor Law Commissioners leased Stewick House afrom George and Laura Hewson in 1848 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Stewick House was built for a branch of the Hewson family of nearby Castle Hewson. William Hewson was living at Castle Hewson in the 1840s, while Stewick House was the home of his brother, George Hewson, a barrister, and his wife Laura (née Brown), daughter of John Southwell Brown of Shannonview, near Ballysteen.

At the height of the Great Famine of 1845-1849, the Poor Law Commissioners leased Stewick House and 10 acres, including the out-offices, from George and Laura Hewson in 1848 at annual rent of £75.

In the previous year, when the Rathkeale Board of Guardians met in the boardroom of Rathkeale workhouse in October 1847, 3,000 ‘peasants’ from Glin, Shanagolden, Pallaskenry and Askeaton surround the institution and demand assistance from the master. The crowd tried to demolish the poorhouse and, according to the Limerick Chronicle, ‘rioted on the military.’

The members of the Rathkeale Board of Guardians resigned later that month to protest against the policy of making the most vulnerable categories of paupers leave the shelter of the workhouses.

Stewick House was planned as a model agricultural school for boys (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

However, Stewick was not one of the customary workhouses as we think of them. There was a workhouse in Askeaton at Brewery Lane, and Stewick House became a model agricultural school for boys under the age of 15.

William Bourke, former master of the workhouse in Rathkeale, was appointed the master of the agricultural school at Stewick in March 1849, with an annual salary of £20. At the same time, his wife Martha was the matron of the auxiliary workhouse in Askeaton, with an annual salary of £15. Dr Robert de Zouche was appointed physician to both workhouses with an annual salary of £40.

There was at least one outbreak of cholera in the Ballyengland workhouse, and Askeaton was hit by an outbreak of cholera in the Spring of 1849. Dr White contracted cholera during these outbreaks, but survived and later died in Limerick in 1856.

The agricultural school continued until 1854 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

William Bourke was replaced in 1850, and the workhouse in Ballyengland became a model farm that was to ‘instruct the boys in the most improved and useful principles and practice of agriculture.’

The model farm and school were supported by the Commissioners of National Education, who provided gratuities to the teachers and donated books. The ten acre farm produced turnips, carrots, parsnips, flax, barley, onions, leeks and cabbages.

The board of guardians leased a further 15 acres from the widowed Laura Hewson in 1852, bringing the total acreage of the farm to 25 acres. There were three paid staff members: the master or schoolmaster, an assistant schoolmaster and a steward. Along with about 70 ‘pauper boys’ on the farm, there were 23 adult ‘inmates’ in the workhouse. The workhouse residents in Ballyengland were known were referred to as ‘inmates’ rather than patients or residents.

The agricultural school continued until 1854, when the residents and the boys were moved back to main workhouse in Rathkeale, which was built near Holycross, north of Rathkeale, in 1841.

There was at least one outbreak of cholera in the Ballyengland workhouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The story of Ballyengland Auxiliary Workhouse is told by Morty Wallace in the 2019 edition of ABC News, the annual magazine of the Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Munitir na Tíre (pp 89-91).

The farm produced turnips, carrots, parsnips, flax, barley, onions, leeks and cabbage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Castle Hewson in Askeaton was home to generations of the Hewson family

Castle Hewson in Ballyengland, Askeaton … home to generations of the Hewson family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Castle Hewson, east of Askeaton, Co Limerick, stands in the townland of Ballyengland. The 18th century house is on a low crag is undergoing restoration, and I visited the house earlier this week for the first time since moving to Askeaton four years ago.

Castle Hewson stands beside an earlier tower house or castle that gives the house its name. It was also known as Ballyengland House, and the England family were originally tenants of the Earls of Desmond. After the Desmond rebellion at the end of the 16th century, Thomas England was pardoned in 1581 and 1590, when his son attainted and hanged.

George Isham received a grant of Englandstown or Ballyengland in 1597, but Thomas and Oliver England were living at Ballyengland in 1601.

The Hewson family was living at Castle Hewson from the end of the 17th century. They continued to live there into the late 20th century, with other branches of the family living at Enniscouch and Hollywood.

By the mid-19th century, the main part of the Hewson family estate was in the parish of Askeaton, but the family also owned other houses and lands in the area: in the 1870s, John Brownrigg Hewson owned Castle Hewson and 1,435 acres; George James Hewson of Hollywood owned 666 acres; and Robert Hewson of Ennishcoush owned 398 acres near Rathkeale, Co Limerick. Other family members owned lands at Castleisland, and Ennismore, near Listowel, Co Kerry.

The East Window in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, was donated by the Hewson family of Castle Hewson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Castle Hewson is an imposing, detached, five-bay, two-storey country house, built ca 1760, with a central, two-storey canted projecting bay at the front or east elevation, extensions at the rear or west elevation, and an adjoining six-bay, two-storey block at the rear. The three-stage tower house adjoins the house at the north side.

Castle Hewson retains much of its original form and fabric, including a variety of tripartite and timber sliding sash windows. A number of decorative features – including the red brick voussoirs, cast-iron ridge crestings, and limestone finials – add an interesting contrast to the rubble stone and rendered walls. The adjoining tower house adds archaeological significance to the site and is preserved in a relatively good condition. The outbuildings and walled garden behind the house add context to the site.

The architectural features of the main house include a hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge crestings and ridge tiles, rendered chimneystacks, a cut limestone eaves course, a limestone finial on the south gable, square-headed window openings with cut limestone sills, red brick voussoirs, and six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows.

The first-floor windows have double-leaf timber louvered shutters. The square-headed opening at the front of the house has a carved limestone doorcase with a limestone pediment supported by pilasters, and a flanking double-leaf timber panelled door. It is approached by cut limestone steps.

The walled garden behind the house has a square-profile, three-stage tower at the north-east corner. There is an eight-bay, two-storey outbuilding beside the north elevation of the tower house, and a four-bay, split-level outbuilding at the north side of this outbuilding. There is also a three-bay, double-height outbuilding to the east of house.

The definitive history of the Hewson family is Memoirs of the House of Hewetson or Hewson in Ireland by John Hewetson (London: Mitchell & Hughes, 1901). He traces the family back to John Hewson or Hewetson (1498-1567), a glover, who was born in Settrington, Yorkshire, and became a Freeman of York and a member of the Merchant Adventurers’ Company.

His eldest son, Thomas Hewson, was also a Freeman of York. He moved to Ireland in the 1570s with his family, including his younger brother, Canon Christopher Hewetson, who became Prebendary of Howth, Vicar of Swords, and Treasurer of both Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and Ardfert. Since the move to Ireland, the names Hewetson and Hewson seem to have been interchangeable. Other variants of the family name include Hughson, Huetson and Huson.

Dominick Hewetson died in 1640, but, almost two years later, his body was dug up from the nave of Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare, by rebels and placed in a ‘garden’ outside the cathedral churchyard.

His son, Captain George Hewetson or Hewson, was one of the 49 Irish officers who remained loyal to King Charles I during the Civil War in the 1640s. He was supposedly related to the regicide and hard-line radical preacher, Colonel John Hewson of London, a self-proclaimed ‘Child of Wrath’ and the Cromwellian butcher of Drogheda.

George Hewson’s grandson, George Hewson (1662-1735), acquired land near Askeaton, Co Limerick, including Castle Hewson in Ballyengland, which he held under a lease from Brooke Brydges of High Holborn, Limerick.

Members of the family included the Ven Francis Hewson, Archdeacon of Aghadoe, Rector of Listowel and Sovereign (Mayor) of Dingle; Margaret Anne Hewson, who married the Revd George Maxwell, Rector of Askeaton; Admiral George Francis Hewson, who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar; and Thomas Hewson, President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

The memorial in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, to Maurice Hewson, who died at 14 at school in Repton in 1892 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Castle Hewson passed through generations of the Hewson family down to John Brownrigg Hewson (1826-1909), who was the father of three sons: William Everard Gardiner Hewson (1874-1957), John Gilbert Brownrigg Hewson (1875-1951), and Maurice Francis Hewson (1887-1892).

The youngest son, Maurice, caught pneumonia while he was at school in Repton and died when he was only 14. He is remembered in a plaque in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton.

The eldest son, William Everard Gardiner Hewson, became a Justice of the Peace or magistrate for Co Limerick in 1909. He was a keen campanologist and rang the changes in many Irish and English cathedrals. Everard Hewson murdered a woman for no apparent reason in 1914. Elizabeth Costello (née Lynch) was a widow working as a maid in Castle Hewson.

A year later, William Everard Gardiner Hewson was found ‘Insane and Incapable of Pleading.’ He was detained at Dundrum Lunatic Asylum for the Clinically Insane, at ‘his majesty’s pleasure.’ He was released five years later, and was sent to a dower house near Rathkeale. He died in Barrington’s Hospital in 1957 and is buried in the grounds of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick.

The memorial in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, to Maurice and Pamela Hewson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Meanwhile, Castle Hewson was inherited by John Hewson’s second son, John Gilbert Brownrigg Hewson, known as Gilbert Hewson. Gilbert Hewson married his distant cousin, Kathleen Violet Hewson, daughter of George Hewson of Ennismore, Co Kerry. He was elected to Dáil Éireann as an independent TD for Limerick in June 1927, but lost his seat at the September 1927 election and was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1932 election. A barrister, he was a member of Limerick County Council for many years. When he died in hospital in 1951, he was living at Lough House, Ballyengland.

His son, Maurice Hewson (1913-1998), was educated at Repton and Trinity College Dublin, where he was an outstanding cross-country runner, tennis player and boxer. He was a district commissioner and member of the British colonial administration of the Gold Coast (Ghana).

He became one of the District Commissioners charged with planning the Gold Coast Volta River Dam project. But the project collapsed when the Gold Coast gained independence as Ghana. Maurice Hewson returned to Ireland in 1957 and moved back to Castle Hewson and Lough House. He was a leading parishioner in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton.

Maurice Hewson and his wife Pamela died in a tragic fire at Lough House on 23 February 1998. Their detached, two-storey home, fronting a lake, was destroyed in the blaze. When fire brigade units from Rathkeale, Foynes and Newcastle West arrived at Lough House, they found the doors of the house and the gate to the driveway were locked, and the fire rapidly engulfed the house.

At the time, friends described them as a ‘wonderful and endearing’ couple who were very popular. Many media outlets reported the tragedy with headlines such as ‘relative of U2’s Bono killed in house fire.’

The memorials to the Hewson family in Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, include the East Window depicting the Good Shepherd.

Castle Hewson is an imposing, detached, five-bay, two-storey country house, built ca 1760 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)