History

The earliest recorded family history of Walton Court dates from 1576, when the original fortified Tower House, stable courtyard and 1000 acre farm estate were in the ownership of the Roche family of Norman origin, who first came to the area in 1167.

By 1642 James Oge Roche was charged with treason and disinherited, the ownership of the small castle overlooking Oysterhaven Bay and surrounding farm land passing to Captain Swithin Walton.

In 1776 his son and heir Thomas Walton remodeled the house in the Georgian style, with stonemason George Keane employing 100 local men to cut the distinctive ashlar stone blocks now facing the house.

His brother Robert emigrated to the United States, where he was one of the founders of the Rugby commune in Tennessee, building a wooden “replica” of Walton Court.

The Walton family archives and historical documents show that they were a colourful family, relying on smuggling brandy and silk from France to Ireland for their living, outrunning the English coastguard cutters in and out of the many local bays and inlets.

Archives show the Waltons involved in the relief effort during the Great Famine, distributing produce from the then farm estate and bread from the estate bakery, now restored as a cottage in the old courtyard.

The house later passed to the Cork merchant banking family of Sir Thomas Roberts through marriage, and then into the Knolles family of nearby Oatlands House, now sadly demolished.

Subsequent owners have included Church of Ireland minister Reverend Harold Hadden, whose obsession with the Walton legend of smugglers tunnels under the property led him to map and excavate the land in search of buried treasure, a retired Irish tea planter from India, Andrew Carnegie, and two retired Catholic Priests, Fr. Richard O’Callaghan and his brother Paul, who ran the local pub here until the 1980’s.

An ambitious ten year restoration project of the house, stable courtyard and gardens began in 1996 with artisans from Ireland, Wales, Switzerland, England and Belgium working on the project using traditional materials, many reclaimed from now sadly lost great houses of Ireland and beyond.

The result is an eclectic mix of old and new, preserving the eccentricity and atmosphere of the old estate so loved by families, guests and friends.

Walton Court House is listed as a building of local and national historical importance, and is catalogued as one of the historic houses of Ireland, with the sympathetic and painstaking restoration attracting comment from the Irish Georgian Society, Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings and Cork County Council planners.

The distinctive stone frontage of the house carries the inscription “TW 1776”below the gable which was added by Thomas Walton following his Georgian improvement extension.

The Walton family crest bears the motto “Omnia Vincit Amor” or “Love Conquers All”.