Blenheim House

Blenheim house is a large Georgian residence built in 1763 It stands on 4 acres of lawns, shrubbery and private deer park. It offers its visitors an opportunity to experience the grandure of days gone by with the comforts of the present. Blenheim house is furnished throughout with antiques and objects d'art. Blenheim House offers its guests the quietness of the countryside while still only ten minutes drive from Waterford City. All rooms have private bathroom/shower en suite. Blenheim House is open all year round.

The hill on the opposite side of the road from Mount Druid is marked on the Richards and Scalé map of 1764 as Blenheim Hill. Why Blenheim? The short answer is that we do not know. To an English-speaker, the name Blenheim (pronounced Blennim) is forever associated with the great battle fought way back in 1704 between the English and their German allies against the French near the village of Blindheim. It was the first and greatest of four victories won by the Great Duke of Marlborough, and brought him a sizeable financial reward from a grateful parliament, thus enabling him to build himself a nice country pad in Oxfordshire – the huge and spectacular Blenheim Palace. That said and done, the battle produced enormous casualties on both sides and achieved ….. well, not a lot.
Later generations of English-speaking schoolboys learned by heart Robert Southey’s poem about the battle, written in 1798, in which “old Kaspar” who lives on the battle-site explains to his grandchildren why he keeps on digging up skulls. Teachers may have hoped to imbue their little charges with patriotic zeal, failing to spot the irony in what is actually an anti-war poem:

“And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why, that I cannot tell,” said he,
“But ….. ‘twas a famous victory.”

Opposite Mount Druid, beside the present Halfway House shop, a lane leads us to three attractive villas, all confusingly bearing the name Blenheim. In the early 19th century they were occupied by three families prominent in the trade of Waterford, each of whom coincidentally represented one of the three main religious traditions – the Ridgways (Quaker), the Sweetmans (Roman Catholic) and the Cottoms (Church of Ireland).
Henry Ridgway belonged to a Quaker family of Mountmellick in Queen’s County (Co. Laois). He settled in Waterford as a merchant in 1765 and entered into partnership with the Strangmans and Courtenays, forming a company which by the end of the century was dominant in the trade ofWaterford. In 1775 he married a daughter of George Penrose of Brook Lodge, an alliance that evidently brought further prosperity, and in 1793 leased from the Marquess of Waterford part of the lands of Ballymaclode, on which he built Blenheim House.
Henry died in 1827, and was succeeded by his eldest son George Penrose Ridgway. George died only five years later, in 1832. His son and heir Henry married in the following year and settled at Riverview House inNewtown (later the family home of Field Marshal Lord Roberts), leaving his widowed mother and his sisters at Blenheim. In 1857 the Ridgway family surrendered their lease of Blenheim and Lord Waterford rented it out to Henry Davis, of whom Robert Dobbyn has the following amusing entry in his diary:

9 May 1894. Pat Shelly (carpenter) died at Knockboy. A character in his walk of life, son of Billy Shelly who, to please Henry Davis of Blenheim (a lunatic) tied crows’ nests in the trees at Blenheim and swore he heard the crows would lay eggs and hatch them too and make a big rookery there if H. Davis would part his gun and give a cow to Billy Shelly, which H. Davis did.

In 1874 Blenheim House was rented to the Snow family, a junior branch of the illustrious family that had built Snowhaven and Snowhill on the northern bank of the river. Tragedy overtook the Snows in 1897 – again,Robert Dobbyn tells the story in his own forceful way:

6 July 1897. Harry Snow, only son of John Snow of Blenheim, and Dick Graves, youngest son of James Palmer Graves of Newtown, timber merchant, both drowned by upset of water wag in a squall off Templemore Bay, Co. Wexford. Snow made no fight, but Graves got off all his clothes, three times got back into boat, and after being four hours in the water eventually went down within five yards of Wexford coast, where man with ropes went to his assistance but failed to catch rope thrown by Graves from boat. Poor Graves made a splendid fight for life. D. Graves found next day and buried at Abbey churchyard [Ferrybank].
24 July. Body of Harry Snow found near Boat Strand beyond Garrarish, about five miles from Tramore. Brought back to Blenheim and buried Abbey churchyard.

1 Sept. 1904. John H. Snow of Blenheim Ho., Waterford, died this day aged about 78 years, murdered by John Jameson. For many years of most intemperate habits and especially since his son was drowned. Got his money badly and spent it worse. Poor little Mrs Snow is much to be felt for – a good little woman.

In recent times, having been derelict for some years, Blenheim House was carefully restored and the surrounding land beautifully landscaped. It has been a guest-house owned by the Fitzmaurice family since 1980.

Thanks to Julian Walton Waterford Historian