The story goes that the idea for Titania’s Palace occurred on a warm day in the Spring of 1907 when Sir Nevile Wilkinson was sketching in the woods behind his manor, Mount Merrion House. His daughter Guendolen, age 3, played nearby and suddenly cried out that a fairy ran under the roots of a tree. She felt sorry they had to live underground in damp caves and asked her father to have a proper house built for them, which led to the building of Tatiana’s Palace. 

Sir Nevile complied with her wish by laying out plans with a Dublin cabinet maker to create a structure for quite a lot of fairies. Titania’s Palace is four feet long and has eighteen rooms. It is in 1/12 scale and contains over 3,000 miniature objects.

A Point Of Honor

Twenty years later, just before Titania’s Palace was finally completed, rumors that Sir Nevile’s arch-rival, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and 1,000 craftsmen were constructing a royal dollhouse for Queen Mary.

Sir Nevile considered it a point of honor that his dollhouse must have its debut before Lutyens and accepted an invitation to exhibit Titania’s Palace at the prestigious Women’s Exhibition in London, under the auspices of the Daily Express. Seventeen thousand visitors paid their respects to the Fairy Queen. They donated ￡420 to children’s charities.

 The Auction Block

Titania’s Palace was exhibited near Dublin until 1967. Owing to the loss of its permanent home in Ireland, the estate trustees decided to sell the Palace at auction. The winning bidder was Legoland of Denmark. It stayed on display at Legoland until 2007, when a loan agreement was made to display Titania’s Palace at Egeskov Castle, where it can be seen today.

Irritated Irish

The Irish underbidders were so disappointed at the loss of their Palace, that they commissioned a new one, to be named Tara’s Palace. It is on display at the Tara’s Palace Museum of Childhood, located in Powerscourt Estate, near Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Ireland.

It is larger than Titania’s Palace, with a façade of 9 feet, and has 22 rooms. The design is a combination of famous Irish houses notably Leinster,

Carton and Castletown. Many of the unique interiors of those houses, such as the Print Room in Castletown, have been recreated in 1/12th scale.

Here are two more links you may enjoy: Tara’s Palace Museum blog which has great photos–and my favorite video of Titian’s Palace. The voice-over is in Danish, but the photography is gorgeous.

Patrick Owens

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Go to my website to see other articles and stories, including NOTES TO MY GRANDCHILDREN.