| Description |
Keenehan and others state that Woodbrook House was built around 1780 by the Phibbs family although there may have been an earlier house on the site. The Kirkwood family purchased the property sometime in the early nineteenth century. At the time of Griffith's Valuation Sarah Mary Kirkwood was leasing a house at Usna, barony of Boyle, valued at £14, from Robert H. Brewster French. From the 1890s-1911 Woodbrook was a very successful racing stables run by Colonel Tom Kirkwood. Life in the house in the post-WWI era has been made famous by the memoir ''Woodbrook'' written by the Scottish author David Thomson, a tutor to the daughters of the family. In 1946 over 50 acres of the estate was sold to the local golf club while the Land Commission subsequently divided the remainder. Woodbrook House is still extant. |
