Robertson, William

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Robertson, William (1770–1850). English-born architect, active in and around Kilkenny, often confused with Daniel Robertson. He designed numerous minor country-houses including Jenkinstown, Ballyragget, Co. Kilkenny (early C19—'cardboard' Gothick), Rosehill, Kilkenny (1820s—eclectic, but much damaged), and Gowran Castle, Co. Kilkenny (1817–20—Classical). He is primarily remembered for his rebuilding of the ancestral seat of the Ormonde Butlers, Kilkenny Castle (from 1826—castellated), which successfully obliterated virtually all the medieval fabric (the building was subsequently gone over by Deane & Woodward and others, badly damaged in the Civil War (1922), and drastically worked on in the 1970s by the Board of Works to eliminate persistent dry rot). Robertson appears to have had his eye on Kilkenny for some time, as in 1797 he exhibited a drawing of the Castle.

Bibliography

Bence-Jones (1988);
Williams (1994)

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