The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 13, September 26, 1840

Among the very many beautiful residences of our nobility and gentry, situated within a drive of an hour or two of our metropolis, there is probably not one better worthy of a visit than that which we have chosen to depict as the illustration of our present number—Hollybrook Hall, the seat of Sir George Frederick John Hodson, Bart. It is situated in the county of Wicklow, about a mile beyond the town of Bray, and about eleven miles from Dublin.
To direct public attention to this charming spot is no less our pleasure than our duty, for we feel quite assured that even among the higher classes of our fellow-citizens but a very few know more respecting it than its name and locality, and that it will surprise the vast majority to be told that Hollybrook Hall is no less remarkable for the beauty of the sylvan scenery by which it is surrounded, than as affording in itself the most perfect specimen of the Tudor style of architecture to be found in Ireland.
That Hollybrook is thus little known to the public, is not, however, their fault: excluded from the eye by high and unsightly stone walls on every side by which it might otherwise be seen by the traveller, it is passed without even a glimpse of the bower of beauty, which would attract his attention and excite the desire to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with objects of such interest by a request to its accomplished owner, which we are satisfied would never be denied.
Hollybrook Hall, like Clontarf Castle, of which we have already given some account, is a fine specimen of the many recently erected or rebuilt residences of our nobility and gentry, which we esteem it our duty to notice and to praise. Like that fine structure also, it is an architectural creation of that accomplished artist to whose exquisite taste and correct judgment we are indebted for so many of the most beautiful buildings in the kingdom; and in many of its features and the general arrangement of its parts, it bears a considerable resemblance to that admirably composed edifice. In its ground plan and general outline, however, it is essentially different; and it is, moreover, characterised by a peculiarity which perhaps no other of Mr Morrison’s works exhibits, namely, that it has no mixed character of style, but is in every respect an example of English domestic architecture in the style of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or, in other words, it uniformly preserves through all its details the character of the Tudor style.