It was one of those autumn evenings. The summer a distant memory but winter not yet upon us. I was caught up in heavy traffic in Mount Merrion. As the traffic continued to crawl that autumn evening, I found myself thinking back over the years to a short spell I spent in Colaiste Carmen in Wexford.

I was brought one Saturday afternoon to Ballynastragh House in Gorey, home to the Countess of Wicklow to see a doll’s house. But this was no ordinary doll’s house. This was one of the greatest ever built– Titania’s Palace.

It was in 1907 that Sir Neville Rodwell Wilkinson K.C.V.O. (1869-1940) an accomplished officer of arms and a veteran of the Boer war was strolling around his garden in Mount Merrion House. His daughter Gwendolyn, who was three years old, claimed to have seen a fairy running under the roots of a tree at their home in Mount Merrion. She felt sorry for the fairies who had no home and her father promised to make a palace for them.

That is how this great doll’s house came about. It was built by Sir Neville between 1907 and 1922 for the fairy queen and her royal family. The story of Titania and Oberon in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ inspired the name and the actual building of the Palace was placed in the hands of well-known Dublin furniture maker James Hicks, while Sir Neville did most of the decoration, even perfecting a technique of painting, a sort of miniature point painting.

It was inaugurated on July 16th 1922 on the anniversary of the wedding by Queen Mary and shown to the public at the Women’s Exhibition that same summer. It travelled the world and collected huge sums of money for neglected, disabled and unhappy children. Titania’s Palace was built in sections so that it could travel safely. This great fairy home designed and decorated by Sir Neville contains his private collection of tiny objects of art, objects he acquired during thirty-five years of travel around the world.

There are sixteen rooms and three thousand tiny works of art built around a courtyard. I remember the Hall of Guilds, The Hall of the Fairy Kiss, The Chapel and The Throne Room with its diamond peacock set in the back of the throne made by a French jeweller Baugrand for the Paris exhibition of 1856.

In front of the throne is the inscription that dedicates the palace to the crippled children for whom it was built. The inscription written in Greek translates as ‘Silver and Gold I have none, but what I have I give you’.

This great doll’s house was auctioned at Christie’s in London and sold to Legoland in Denmark. There it remains on display. What a shame that each generation of children in Dublin do not have the opportunity to visit this wonderful fairy home.

Sir Neville married Lady Beatrix Francis Gertrude Herbert first daughter of the 14th Earl of Pembroke. They moved into Mount Merrion House and lived there until the start of world war one in 1914. They had two daughters, Gwendolyn and Phyllis. To celebrate their births two redwood trees were planted opposite the entrance to the Chapel of Therese. Sir Neville was survived by his widow and two daughters.

As the traffic finally moved that evening in Dublin, I drove out of Mount Merrion and thought how one child’s imagination inspired such a wonderful creation. It is a beautiful story of a promise fulfilled and as with all good stories it’s one to pass on.

In 1980, work began on Tara’s Palace, which was inspired by Titania’s Palace. It is on display from April to September, Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm at Malahide Castle. (Tel: 8463779). As well as the doll’s house there is a collection of dolls, antique toys and other doll’s houses on display.

Pictured above is Titania’s Palace, now in Legoland, Denmark, with, inset, Sir Neville Wilkinson.