The home was built to the designs of James Rawson Carroll on land purchased from William Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple.

The site was known locally as "The Bloody Fields";[2] 2,000 Catholic and Royalist troops had been killed by Roundheads and buried there during the Irish Confederate Wars.

Benjamin Gibson was chaplain, Richard J. Leeper was registrar and a Mrs Le Breton Simmons was lady superintendent.

[7] The complex is built of red brick and slate in a Gothic Revival style.

[3][8] Thirty-nine houses, an infirmary and a Church of Ireland chapel surround a central green.