Enniskerry is an estate village and until recent times its prosperity depended on the local landlords, the Viscounts Powerscourt. The village began as a cluster of cottages beside a ford over the Cookstown river and, when the great house of Powerscourt was rebuilt in the 1730s, it grew mainly to accommodate those employed by the estate. More development occurred in the early 19th century with the building of a school, Courthouse and several fine houses for the gentry. New roads followed the coming of the railway to Bray in 1834. The buildings with their distinctive gables and ornamental woodwork were remodelled in the 1850s and 60s by the 7th Viscount Powerscourt. Two churches were built in 1859: St. Patrick’s Protestant Church to replace one constructed in the 1600s beside Powerscourt House and St Mary’s Catholic Church near the bridge at Knocksink.
Architecturally very little has changed in the village since then. New building is mainly beyond the village bounds and the centre remains recognisably an 18th and 19th century landlord’s village.