Boyle chose to live in his newly acquired Wicklow estate and was granted a royal charter to establish a new town there on a greenfield site, which he named Blessington - or Blesinton as it was more commonly referred to during the 1600-1800s.

[1] The building had a recessed centre at the back, eight dormers on the roof, and typical of many houses of the period was designed to have its principal rooms on the first floor, according to the piano nobile architectural principle.

[5] Lucas was also tasked with designing the interior of the house, while a Dublin mason named Thomas Browne was assigned with carrying out all masonry work.

[1] Construction of such a large building was a huge financial undertaking and consequently Boyle, as Chancellor, sought from Thomas Osborne, the Lord High Treasurer, an increase in his salary from £2,000 to £3,000 per annum.

[13] The landscaping on the estate was typical of the seventeenth century, with ponds, canals and a formal garden, which all converged on the house at the apex of a crow's foot pattern.

[15] These types of dwelling, according to Trant, "with extensive windows and spacious interior, had replaced the earlier tower houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which had been built mainly with defence in mind".

[22] When Anne's son William Stewart died in 1769, also without a male heir, the Blessington title became extinct once more, and all the Boyle estates went to Charles Dunbar, a grandson of Morough's daughter Mary.

Various other jobs were carried out by skilled tradesmen, as described by Trant: Despite Hill's works, the general state of the building as a whole was still a cause for concern by this stage, after decades of intermittent use.

Hill put more money into the house and by 1791 redecorating was in progress; "'42 dozen sattin ground tabby paper' and a border to match at a cost of almost £12 had been bought and £1.16s was spent on 'twice colouring the parlour'".

[30] Original drawings by the Dublin stuccodore Michael Stapleton exist detailing designs he made for the Marquis of Downshire's Dining Parlour (probably for Blessington House) from the 1770s-80s.

[32] At that time, the Hill family were among the wealthiest landowners in Ireland as well as England, and Arthur had also married one of the richest women in the British Empire; Mary Sandys.

[33] Despite this wealth, Arthur Hill had difficulties meeting his financial responsibilities and Charles Lilly, the builder involved with the refurbishment of Blessington House, was pressing for the £800 due for works on same.

At the end of the eighteenth century, agrarian secret societies began to form consisting of citizens, mostly Catholic, who resented the fact they had been dispossessed of their lands and had been forced into life as smallholders under the Protestant Ascendancy, which Boyle and the Hills represented.

[34] The first indication of disaffection in the Blessington area occurred in 1796 when the local inhabitants refused to bring provisions or supply turf to the troops stationed in Russborough House.

[35] A division of yeomanry controlled by the local estate owners based in Blessington served to defend the British ethos as represented by the landed gentry and maintain their wealth and position.

[36] In August 1797, a spy working for Dublin Castle, William McCormack, infiltrated the local branch of the United Irishmen and was going to give evidence against them at the county assizes.

[37][35] The yeomenry, headed by Richard Hornidge of Tulfarris and William Patrickson, were heavily outnumbered and unable to protect him, and McCormack was summarily dragged from his home and murdered.

[35] A report in Faulkner's Dublin Journal stated that "he was dragged from the arms of his family, alleging he was an informer, and was murdered in a cruel manner, which only the diabolical ingenuity of the United Irishmen could devise, severing the head from the body and tearing the limbs apart".

In early May 1798, John Patrickson reported that Blessington House had been raided a few nights previously and that "seven guns, two cases of pistols and three swords" had been taken.

[37] A section of Joe Holt's men surrounded the church and occupied the yeomanry while the remainder herded cattle, sheep and horses from the demesne.

[44] Later that same month, a force of 2,000 soldiers from Dublin marched on Blessington, meeting up with a contingent of cavalry already posted in the town, assembling in Tooper's Field / Troopersfield[45] where General Lake had his headquarters.

As John Patrickson wrote: "No day, no night passes without numerous robberies, murders and burnings... if something is not shortly done there will not be a Protestant left in our part of the country.

[53] The matching tuscan column pairs marking the entrances to both Blessington Garda Station (c.1820)[55] and the Downshire Hotel (c.1810)[56] were salvaged from the ruins of the house.