Interiors

Main Drawing Room, Woodstock House

Photograph of the Main Drawing Room, Woodstock House, Inistioge, County Kilkenny

Main Drawing Room, Woodstock House

Main Drawing Room, Woodstock House

Photograph of the Main Drawing Room, Woodstock House, Inistioge, County Kilkenny

Enlarge image

Woodstock House, drawing room

Photograph of the main drawing room in Woodstock House

Woodstock House, drawing room

Woodstock House, drawing room

Photograph of the main drawing room in Woodstock House

Enlarge image

The internal walls of the main house were composed entirely of brick rather than stone walls faced with brick, and these have survived rather well. The upper interior walls have collapsed due to the fire of 1922 and the subsequent effects of weather.

Internally the house had a spine plan, with the main chimney walls running parallel to the front and rear facades. There was a light well in the very middle of the house - an unusual feature in a house of this period. This well measure 19'8'' square, and was offset with a series of Diocletian windows, which provided light to the staircases and corridors, which once flanked it to the North, East, and West sides.

The ground floor consisted of the main entrance hall, with two rooms on either side: the boudoir in the north-east corner of the house, and the Library in the north-west corner. Both of these rooms were wood panelled, and marble chimneypieces stood in the centre of the outer walls of the two rooms. No known photographs are thought to have survived of either of these rooms. It is known that the library had a fine collection of which apparently was still in the house prior to the 1922 fire.

Situated to the south and south-east of the house were small and large drawing rooms. The most remarkable feature of the small drawing room and the main drawing room were the double folding doors that linked the two rooms. These were popular in large Dublin houses during the Victorian era, as they allowed separate rooms to be united for parties. Plans for these doors are among the Tighe papers: they show that the doors separated into two units and were decorated with acanthus leaves. Both of the drawing rooms contained marble fireplaces, situated in the east wall of the main drawing room and the north wall of the small drawing room. The south-west corner of the house contained the study, and a closet.