Killegar Stables

This Church of Ireland (Protestant) church was built in 1861, funded by the 7th Viscount to replace the old Stagonil church which stood on his estate. (That old church was less convenient for parishioners once the village moved from Stagonil to Enniskerry; its ruin is hidden in the woods of the estate, and some of its masonry was re-used for the Pepperpot Tower.) The new church has attractive stained glass windows and a bosky graveyard.

The grand house is now a hotel, see Sleep. So it's the magnificent gardens you visit, looking towards the Wicklow mountains and the distant waterfall. Laid out 1860-80, their highlights include Tower Valley with the Pepperpot Tower, the Japanese gardens, the winged horse statues, Triton Lake, the pet cemetery, Dolphin Pond, walled gardens, Bamberg Gate and the Italian Garden. The gardens ticket doesn't include the waterfall.

There are 134 graves, mostly air force and navy personnel from World War II, in a moving setting. The spy Hermann Görtz is among them: he was about to be deported at the end of the war and, fearing he'd be handed over to the Soviets, he swallowed poison. The single free-standing stone cross in the rear right hand corner of the cemetery was carved by him during his wartime internment, with the same care and skill that he'd used for sketching RAF airfields.

The Powerscourt lands once stretched 7 km from house to here; they no longer do so but the waterfall remains part of the estate. It's not a pure drop, but a steep slope where the River Dargle cascades 121 m into a corrie etched out by glaciation. It fans out so the cataract can be seen from a great distance, year-round thanks to the rainfall on the mountains, so it's long attracted painters and photographers. In 1821 when King George IV visited, the Viscount dammed the upper river so that it would form a dramatic torrent when he and the king came to admire it. But the king lingered at dinner and didn't come, just as well as the torrent when released swept away the bridge they were to stand on. (Actually George IV didn't so much linger at dinner as gorge and sluice mightily, so the bridge was at risk from his bulk anyway.) The ticket doesn't include the estate gardens, they don't do a combi.