Introduction

Clara House would appear to be a mid to early eighteenth century house now much altered. Having once being of three storeys. It is now of three bays and two storeys over a basement. The large very modern roof would in William Garner’s view be very much out of proportion with the existing building. The walls are rendered and have channelling on the ground floor and the high quality limestone porch would appear to be circa 1820 with columns in antis and a round headed doorcase.

The house is also mentioned in Burke’s Guide to Country Houses where it is described as a “compact georgian block of three bays long and three bays wide, of the three storeys over a basement with rusticated ground floor: porch with three columns and corner piers. In 1837 the seat of Edward Cox, afterwards passed to the Goodbody Family”.

The house never appears to have been owned by the Goodbody family although they probably occupied it from 1860’s down to circa 1913 when it became a house for the rector of Clara under the terms of will of Colonel Ambrose Cox.

The house is believed to have been built by Andrew Armstrong of Clara in the early to mid eighteenth century. The Armstrong family were thought to have settled in Ireland after the Cromwellian Plantation and had come from Fermanagh. The family established itself in a number of centres in Offaly – at Ballycumber, Clara, Castlearmstrong, Gallen and Mount Heaton (now Mount St. Joseph). However, of the Mount Heaton Armstrongs, T. U. Sadler in his research on the King's County High Sheriffs states that a Mary Heaton married in 1731, a William Armstrong of Farney Castle, Co. Tipperary and not related to the other King's County families. Sadler with his appendix to Midland Septs, (p. 298).

The second North Offaly Armstrong to become High Sheriff was Warneford Armstrong of Ballcumber, c. 1699, married firstly Elizabeth, daughter of Milo Bagot of Kilcoursey and died 1767. The third High Sheriff was in 1751 when Andrew Armstrong of Gallen, Ferbane was appointed. The Ferbane family were High Sheriffs on several further occasions whenever the Clara family did not obtain such honours.

Andrew Armstrong was an enterprising man who was not afraid to involve himself in trade. Clara became a prominent centre of the linen industry from the mid-eighteenth century down to the 1820’s. In his report on towns and villages which might benefit from the development of the Grand Canal, General Charles Vallancey wrote of Clara in circa 1770’s:-
That the village of Clara contains about 200 well-built houses, a large Flour Mill, a good Bleach-yard, and a Buck-House at a convenient Distance; all which is the happy effect of the industrious Spirit of the Landlord who with an ample Fortune does not disdain to enter into trade as well for the Increase of his own Fortune, as for the sake of affording affording a comfortable Livelihood to his Tenants. Six years ago there was but one poor House in this Village, and that a sorry Inn: He was now brought together in this neighbourhood as many Linen Weavers as keep 600 Looms at work. The Yarn is brought up chiefly in Connaught, the Ashes and other heavy articles for bleaching, come from Dublin by Land Carriage, which (if the proposed Navigton was finished) would be brought by Water to Ballycumber on the Brosna river on which this Village is situated. There is also a large Hat Manufactory established for the use of the Army. The arable Ground is much reduced in this part of late: They buy most of the Wheat for their Mills at Athlone; fourteen Miles distant, and that Town is also the Market for their Flour. The poor in this part of the kingdom are all employed, there are no Beggars to be seen in this County but at Philipstown'.

The dating of the house as mid-eighteenth century is more drawn from inference than fact. However, looking at the Taylor and Skinner Road Maps of 1777 the house is shown as between the road to Athlone and the River Brosna and as the residence of Armstrong Esq. This would appear to be Andrew Armstrong prominent in trade in Clara.

The earliest known map of Clara is that of 1838 (the Ordnance Survey six inch map). On this map the house and grounds are shown as well developed with a walled garden, an orchard and a tree lined walk to the rear of the house and situate in the townland of Clara. The River Brosna serving as a southern boundary. The demesne included a deerpark, ice house and fish house. The northern boundary appeared to be a private road or laneway and further north was the road to Woodfield direct from the demesne and obviously laid out to take account of the entrance to the demesne. Both the 1838 map and the Taylor and Skinner Map can be seen in the Clara Pictorial History.

Sir Charles Coote in this survey of Offaly in 1801 makes no mention of Andrew Armstrong and describes Clara as the only town in the Barony of Kilcoursey and an excellent market for grain. He said that formerly there were no less then eleven distilleries in the town but now there is not one. He goes on to state that the barony is extremely well populated probably because of the importance of the linen manufacture.

Armstrong Family

The Armstrong Family would appear to have come into the Clara district in the late seventeenth or early eighteen century. Prior to the 1650’s the district was owned by the Fox Family. A certain Hubert Fox involved himself on the Irish Catholic side in the 1640s rebellion and as a result lost his lands as part of the Cromwellian confiscation. The land would appear to have passed to a Samuel Rust according to the Book of Survey and Distribution. He may have been a Cromwellian soldier-settler who subsequently sold the property to the Armstrong and Bagots. The Bagot family was prominent in Clara and occupied the Kilcoursey/Charlestown end of the town. While the Armstrong Family occupied the western end with the two parts of the town connected by what came to be known as River Street. In dating Clara House it can be assumed that if Andrew Armstrong was wealthy enough to assist in the building of the Clara Church of Ireland Church in or about 1770 he already has his own mension house in the district.

The Clara estate of the Armstrong family passed to the Cox Family by purchase for £20,200 in 1802.

Burke’s Landed Gentry 1846 states that Andrew Armstrong was the son of Warenford Armstrong of Ballycumber and grandson of Andrew Armstrong of the same place who was born in 1669 and who had three sons, Warenford, George, and John. The latter was for a period Governor of Minorca and published a history of that island in 1752. Andrew died in 1717 and was succeeded by Warenford Armstrong who was sheriff of the King’s County in 1738 and whose memorial in 1719

Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Milo Bagot of Newtown. Their first child was Andrew born in 1727 upon when his father settled the town and lands of Clara (except the house and demesne) and the lands of Raheen. This Andrew is associated with the growth of Clara and died in 1802. His eldest son, Andrew died in 1798. His father’s death in 1802 and that of the son in 1798 may go towards explaining the financial exigencies of the 1800s when the estate was sold to the Cox family for £20,200.

In Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Clara is said to have a population of 1,049. The town is situate on the River Brosna near the Grand Canal and on the road from Tullamore to Athlone. It contained 228 houses most of which are neatly built. It formerly had a considerable trade and an extensive market for grain, not less than eleven distilleries were conducted with success but since the completion of the canal it has been deprived of most of its trade. The weaving of cotton and linen employs about 260 persons, the manufacture of tobacco, soap and candles is carried on; there are brewery and tanyard and four cornflour mills, the produce of it being exclusively for the English market; also an extensive bleach-green. The gentlemans seats are Clara House, the residence of Edward Cox Esq. The Proprietor of the Town; Woodfield of A. Fuller Esq. And Kilclare of John Armstrong Esq.

This reference in Lewis points to Edward Cox occupying Clara House at the time. When exactly the Cox Family came into possession of Clara House is unclear. However a letter published in the King’s County Chronicle of the 4th of March 1857 speaks in glowing terms of its then Landlord, Ambrose Cox, and indicates that Clara has improved tremendously since Ambrose Cox "came into possession of that estate which was for the last century and upwards inherited by his respected ancestors." The letter goes on to say that when Mr. Cox came into possession of this estate the greater portion of his tenantry were sunk in abject poverty; they were literally penniless but as a result of his reducing of rents and assisting tenants, the tenantry and the Clara estate became independent and those farmers who only a few years since were the inhabitants of miserable huts and squatted hovels had the happiness to behold them transformed into comfortable dwellings. It also goes on to say that when famine appeared amongst us all kinds of diseases there were little or no poverty and sickness on the Cox.

Of Clara House the letter recites that Mr. Cox resides there and that is a magnificent mansion on the building of which he expended many thousands of pounds; the architectural features are simple but very beautiful and of most chaste design. Here Mr. Cox and his family spend a greater part of the year.

No exhaustive search has been done on the Armstrong family but one search in the prerogative Wills Index show that a certain Andrew Armstrong died at Clara in 1802.

A further account of the Cox family appears in the Midland Tribune on the 19th April 1888- but only to report the bankruptcy of Colonel Cox-presumably the eldest son Ambrose Cox. Apparently a receiving order was made in a creditors petition in December of 1887. At the time Colonel Cox held the command of the third Leinster Regiment ( the Old King’s County Militia ) his only pay from this regiment was £35 a year. It is stated that Colonel Cox had no business but occasionally received commissions of business introduced to solicitors etc. The statement of affairs show that he had a life interest in the Clara House estates King’s County which he had mortgaged for £6,000 in 1866 and in 1870 the estate, then borrowing further sum upon it. The estate yielded £1,500 a year but practically there had been no profit rental from it between 1877 and 1882. He had charged the estate with a pre-marriage settlement in favour of his wife for a sum of £300 per year and the remainder of his son. He was married in 1870 when the settlement was made. His wife had property of her own producing about £900 a year.

In return of the Landowners of Ireland in 1874 Colonel Cox (or he then was Captain Ambrose Clement Wolseley Cox) was a Captain in the King’s County rifles a Justice of the Peace and High Sheriff in Offaly in 1873. He was a late lieutenant of the twelfth Lancers; A.D.C. to Lord Strathcairn Commander of the forces in Ireland. His Irish residence was Clara House and his clubs were navy and military and Kildare Street.

Original Title to Clara House

The original title to Clara house and the lands of the Cox Estate at Clara would appear to be with the Land Commission under record number EC7261.

An abstract of the title to the property is to be found with the deeds with the house and recites the following:-

  1. In 1788 Andrew Armstrong took a Lease from the Reverend William Digby of the lands at Raheen situate in the King’s County at a yearly rent of £400 and which Lease was a virtual sale in that the Lease had a perpetual renewal clause and a fine of a peppercorn.
  2. On the 14th of June 1802 one of the master of the court of Chancery in Ireland together with members of the Armstrong family principally Andrew Armstrong Senior and the children of Andrew Armstrong Junior and others conveyed the town and lands of Clara containing 363 acres (possibly Irish plantation measure) and also the lands of Raheen to Ambrose Cox for the sum of £20,200.00.
  3. This Ambrose Cox by his last will dated the 25th of August 1815 bequeathed his lands to his son Edward Cox by way of life interest with remainders to the first and other sons of Edward Cox and soforth. Ambrose Cox died in October 1823 without altering his will. On his death Edward Cox went into possession of the ands and continued so until his death. He is the Edward Cox who occupied the property at the time of the publication of Lewis Topographical Dictionary and this Edward Cox died without issue in April 1843. As he died without issue the property went to his brother Ambrose Cox, the second who continued in possession of the property until his death on the 27th April 1863. It is this Ambrose Cox the second who is the subject of the congratulatory letter in the King’s County Chronicle of 1857.
  4. On the death of Ambrose Cox the second the property was inherited by his eldest son Lieutenant Colonel A.C.W. Cox as a tenant-in-trail. He attained the age of 21 years on the 14th of August 1866.
  5. On the 30th of May 1867 Lieutenant Colonel Cox made a conveyance to John Julian. This John Julian was a Solicitor and it would appear that the purpose of it was to break entail. Two years later in 1869 Colonel Cox mortgaged the property to Thomas Farrell of Cherryfield, Templeogue, in the County of Dublin for a sum of £6,000. The following year he married Louisa Elizabeth Helen Donaldson and charged the property in her favour and gave her a life interest.
  6. Colonel Cox made his last will on the 18th of January 1907 and by that Will appointed E.H. Browne and Edward White his Executors and Trustees and bequeathed to them all his real and personal estate upon certain trusts. He died on the 9th of January 1913 and probate of his will was extracted on the 29th of September 1913. His wife had pre-deceased him on the 18th of August 1905 and the only child of their marriage died a year earlier on the 11th of November 1904.
  7. The old mortgage of 1869 was transferred to one William McDonnell in June 1905.
  8. One of the provisions of the will of Colonel Cox was that the house at Clara which was the Clara house, on the termination of the Lease to Richard Goodbody it would be let to the Rector of Clara on certain conditions at a normal rent and that during this time the remainder of the property of Colonel Cox would be converted into cash and held by the trustees. This charitable trust was broken by order of the high court on the 10th of December 1984 when the matter came before Mr. Justice Costello at the request of the Bishop of Meath and others.

Following on the court order Clara house and lands were sold to a company known as Big Track Limited. On his company going into receivership the property was sold to the present owner.

The title raises a few questions first of all in regard to the 1802 deed this was signed on the 14th of June and might fit in with the death of Andrew Armstrong Senior in that year as is stated in Burke. A further research would need to be done on this to establish the circumstances as to weather his estate was insolvent and this caused the sale. The title does not show when the present house was built and the title would suggest that major reconstruction or new structures were erected after the purchase by Ambrose Cox in 1802 or when he died in 1823 and his son Edward came into possession of the property. No where is it stated what Armstrong title to Clara was, but one can assume that it went back to early grants/conveyances of land either prior to 1700 or shortly thereafter.

Finally it should be mentioned that in February of 1944 the Trustees of the will of Colonel Cox for a sum of £4,100.00 conveyed the freehold in lands leased in December of 1878 and being a dwellinghouse, mill stores and machinery on a plot of ground called the Island and which premises were held to the three Goodbody brothers and subsequently held by Sammy Robinson and latterly by Robert Perry & Co. together with watercourses, damps, tail races, water powers and rights to water etc and together with all the right title and interest of Ambrose Cox in the water of the river Brosna and the water power thereof.

It would appear that Colonel Cox is buried in the graveyard of the parish church of Wymering in Hamshire in the grave of his wife and next to that of his son. He directed under his will that the headstone was to read “also of Colonel Ambrose Clement Wolseley Cox J.P. eldest son of the late Ambrose Cox D.L.J.P. of Clara House, King’s County Ireland who died on the day of 19 “Lord now let us thou servant depart in peace”.