Ireland · Still standing
Humewood Castle
Humewood Castle is a large 19th-century Gothic-fantasy granite mansion near Kiltegan, County Wicklow, built for the Hume family and completed in 1870. The three-storey house is dominated by a tall round turret at one end and a more angular, battlemented tower at the other, and contains formal reception rooms, service rooms and twelve bedrooms. It stands within extensive parkland and remained an intact, visitable country house as of 2024.
Its prime
1870
Today
Still standing
As it stood in 1870
What Humewood Castle looked like in its prime.
Three-storey granite Gothic-fantasy mansion with an asymmetrical silhouette dominated by a tall round turret with conical roof at one end and a more angular, crenellated tower at the other. The long main block displays rows of rectangular mullioned windows, bay windows, multiple gabled dormers, steep slate roofs and numerous tall chimneys. A large arched entrance set into the right-hand elevation opens from stone steps onto a raised terrace; the house sits within rolling parkland.
Its story
The story of Humewood Castle.
The Humes of Kiltegan and Fitzwilliam Hume, MP
The Hume family had settled at Humewood, at Kiltegan in County Wicklow, and built a castle there in the fifteenth century. The estate passed down through successive generations to Fitzwilliam Hume (1805–1892), the wealthy Member of Parliament for Wicklow from 1852 to 1880, who in 1864 assumed the surname of Dick under the terms of a legacy.
The Commission That Bankrupted William White
Fitzwilliam Hume commissioned the English architect William White to design a country retreat for the summer and the shooting season, and White in turn hired Albert Kimberley to build it. White exceeded his brief. What went up between 1867 and 1870 was a Gothic-fantasy house of 32,668 square feet in 427 acres of parkland, granite-built, its three-storey main block flanked by a tall round turreted tower at one end and a more angular tower at the other. The cost far exceeded the budget and bankrupted White in the process. James Brooks later extended the house.
William Hume, the Weygands and Mimi's Gift to Her Tenants, to 1992
Fitzwilliam's only son, William Hume, inherited the property, was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Wicklow and served as High Sheriff of Wicklow for 1896. After his death the estate passed to his daughter Catherine Marie-Madeleine, known as Mimi, who had married Jacques Weygand, son of the French general Maxime Weygand. They had no children. Shortly before her death in 1992, Mimi Weygand presented the majority of the estate cottages, several of them in Kiltegan itself, to her tenants.
From Renata Coleman's Private Hotel to John Malone, 1992–2024
The castle and its 450-acre estate were sold at auction to the German businesswoman Renata Coleman for £1 million. Coleman developed the house into an upmarket private hotel and introduced duckshooting and polo in the grounds, then marketed it in 2004 at an offering price of 16 million euros, and sold it to the Galway developer John Lally's company, Lalco, to be further developed. Economic conditions were unfavourable, and in 2012 the house was sold at a loss for 8 million euros to the American billionaire John C. Malone, who owned it as of 2024.
Step inside
12 places to explore in 1870.
The record describes 12 distinct spots at Humewood Castle, including 7 interiors: banqueting hall / ballroom, drawing room, dining room and more. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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Recreate Humewood Castle with AI to explore it.
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Clans who held Humewood Castle.
The families that held Humewood Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Hume
The Humes settled Humewood in the 15th century and built the present mansion in 1870; held by descent until sold at auction.
