A detail of the plaster frieze running around the walls of the staircase hall at Ardbraccan, County Meath. We know that in 1773 James Wyatt produced drawings for the centre block of the house. These were commissioned by Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath whose brother Barry Maxwell, Earl of Farnham would likewise employ Wyatt to design a new house for him in County Cavan a few years later. In the event, the architect’s plans for Ardbraccan were modified to incorporate elements from schemes by both Thomas Cooley and Daniel Beaufort, the latter a gifted amateur who was also Rector of nearby Navan. However, the staircase hall’s plasterwork is distinctly Wyatt’esque and so it is surely not too fanciful to imagine that at least this part of his proposal was executed without intervention from other hands.
Best wishes to you Mr O’Byrne for the new year and thank you for your most interesting posts !
As a French reader with Irish origins in County Waterford, I am fond of your work which keeps me
connected to Ireland through my interests , arts, heritage and history . Thank you again !
Thank you for getting in touch and for your kind comments on this site which are most appreciated. I hope that it will continue to keep you connected with Ireland in the months ahead.
Might you give us some sense of scale of this frieze? An approximations of the dimension bead to bead that defines the limit of that hugely elegant wave scroll. Truly tremendous.
Apologies for not reverting to you sooner with this information. I have now measured the frieze which is approximately 19 inches in full height, the more ornamental section being 11 inches. From bead to bead is approximately nine inches.
I hope this is of help to you, and thanks for getting in touch and showing such interest.
I think we will blow up your frieze photo to full scale in order to pin on the wall in the office and see what it really looks like.
Thank you!
MS
You are most welcome. Lucky you living in lovely C’ville…