rotunda

Great place to visit now --inside and the parklands!

Streetview is all through the grounds.

The house dates from 1860 in this form, per the NIAH

I was just there yesterday. Thought I had taken, processed and uploaded this pic unconsciously!

If the 1900-1920 catalogue date is correct (and no reason to believe otherwise), then this image may have been commissioned or otherwise permitted by the 6th Earl Portalington - Lionel Arthur Henry Seymour Dawson-Damer (1883–1959). A 2nd Lieutenant in the Irish Guards, he served in WWI. (peerage) He left Ireland shortly after the war, and the house, gardens and lands ceded to the state in the 1920s - and were used by the Jesuits from the 1930s. Before eventually returning to the state in the 1990s. (wikipedia)

Is that the steam launch 'Ena'? -

This [imho hideous!] building was "The Landing Pavilion". Full details of the Royal visit in the SMH of 28/5/1901 page 5 onwards, including illustration of this building. Read all about it - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14387721

Certainly not a 'rotunda'. I agree with beachcomber! Hideous - but tastes change!

beachcomber australia John Cowper Thanks folks, we'll update the caption.

BobMeade BobMeade knows all about the history of this "extraordinary" pavilion. See this 2009 entry on his blog here - lifeasdaddy.typepad.com/lifeasdaddy/2009/09/commonground-... - including a brilliant double-photo from the National Library of the ceremony itself.

Cairo replaced Gibraltar on Saturday 25th March 1809.

British Press - 16 March 1809:

Barker also had a Panorama in the Strand, where interesting views of Dover and Copenhagen could be seen in the summer of 1809 (Morning Post 28 July 1809).

Cairo and Dublin were still on view at the Leicester Square Panorama in September (Morning Herald (London) 30 September 1809)

The Dublin exhibit was closed on 27th February 1810, replaced by Flushing. Cairo was to continue for a short time. ( Morning Chronicle 17 February 1810). The Flushing view showed the recent attack by land and sea, with the town in flames.

A diagram of the Leicester Square Panorama building here

Some background to Barker and the Panorama in The Stage 17 November 1988

These were all the rage in the 19th century, spectacular artefacts made possible by a Scottish artist Robert Barker who discovered a means of presenting an all-embracing view, by painting on the inside of an enormous cylinder and placing the spectator at its centre.

It was a technical problem of considerable complexity. In a picture painted round a circumference of 360 degrees, straight lines had to be curved, and curved lines straightened. Distances called for finely graduated brush- work to create the illusion of depth and perspective had to be observed.

Barker called the picture a Panorama, patented the process in 1787 and first exhibited "Mr Baker's Interesting and novel view of the City and Castle of Edinburgh and the whole adjacent and surrounding Country" in 1788 exactly 200 years ago.

In 1789, Barker's Panorama came to London. It was so successful the artist had it permanently housed in a vast brick rotunda he built for it near Leicester Square in 1793. There it continued to draw the town at the moderate entrance fee of one shilling.