This was a visit to the 🏰. We'd a young lady called Sylvia, who's very knowledgeable about the 🏰 & grounds. she took us on a guided tour, altho you don't have to go for the tour, you can take yourselves around the grounds & look for yourself. the tour lasted about 90 minutes, a few of us had to stop, cause the walking was a bit much & there's no where to sit on the tour & I didn't see many round where we went. there's so many trees in the grounds, 1 of the very big trees is around 4/500 years old, the only way to know is to cut it down, which they don't want to do, obviously. 😄 it's an enormous place to be kept going, I'm sure she said how many grounds keepers were there, but I xant remember 😅 but there's 4? staff in the 'big' house. we're given time to walk back to the café where our driver (local community guard was waiting) some of the ladies wanted to see the gardens & flowers, unfortunately they couldn't get in to see the flowers, 😪 we split up, on the way back, some ladies were more agile, some of us took advantage of a seat on the way back. all in all it's a lovely place to visit, I'm sure it'd take a couple of days, to really walk the grounds. we're shown the biggest telescope that 1 of the Earls made for his interstellar
We had a fascinating visit to the castle! 🌟 Sylvia's guided tour was very informative and engaging. The castle's grounds are very impressive, with those ancient trees being a highlight. 🌳 It's great that they're preserving them for future generations.
The lack of seating during the tour might have been a bit challenging for some us, but it's lovely that we could take breaks and enjoy the scenery at your own pace. The gardens and flowers seemed like a lovely addition, though it's a shame some of the ladies couldn't access them.
The telescope was an interesting piece of history! 🔭 In the early 1840’s, the Third Earl of Rosse designed and built the largest telescope in the world - The Great Telescope (also known as The Leviathan of Parsonstown). With this telescope, he discovered the spiral nature of galaxies, and from 1845-1914 this remained the largest telescope in the world! Standing at an impressive 72 feet long with a mirror measuring 6 feet in diameter, (there were 2 mirrors, so that when one mirror was being cleaned they had one spare theyd use, the telescope was not just a scientific instrument, but a symbol of human curiosity and innovation, built using cutting-edge engineering techniques of its time. I wouldn't like to have been 1 of the men having to hand turn the telescope, for the earl. 😆 when the telescope was refurbished they tried to salvage anything they could from the 🔭 & surrounding walls were taken apart, fixed & put together with the original pieces, they'd to change some bits. The bricks of the walls surrounding the 🔭 were numbered, taken out of the wall, cleaned & put back in the same place it'd have been taken out off!!!
Overall, the castle is a wonderful place to explore, and it would take a couple of days to fully appreciate the grounds. 😊
Mary Mitchell
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10 July 2025
10.0