Two years ago the Irish public voted Sir Frederic William Burton’s 1864 watercolour The Meeting on the Turret Stairs the nation’s favourite painting. Burton, who eventually became director of the National Gallery in London, was born in this house, Clifden, County Clare in 1816. The Burtons were landowners in this part of the country: Sir Frederic’s grandfather was High Sheriff of Clare in 1780. The family seem originally to have lived in a house called Riverstown which Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) reported as being ‘now converted into a chief constabulary police station.’ It was presumably succeeded by Clifden, believed to date from c.1800 and a house of seven bays and two storeys over basement. The rendered façade is distinguished by the charming blind niche directly over the main entrance with its handsome cut limestone doorcase. The property has been recently and very sensitively restored.
Is this the charming house that one sees on the left on the way into Corofin from the Ennis side ? If it is ,you have put my curiosity to rest ,,finally ..Time and again when passing I have vowed to find out a little detail “next time” I think you have done it for me ..Thank you .
Thanks for getting in touch Patricia. I’m not sure if you would see it from that direction (my sense of geography in that part of the world isn’t great) but if you have seen the house at a distance, then most likely yes.
Wonderful. Thank you for the discovery.
Thank you, it is a charmer of a house, with a delicious patina of age that has been preserved.
wonderful restoration
how do you obtain this well worn colour
Thank you for getting in touch. To obtain that well-worn, yet actually new, colour you use a very good painter…
A GOOD PAINTER ,THANK YOU SO MUCH,THAT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS NO ?
BUT WHICH PAINT OR OTHER MATERIAL TO OBTAIN THIS EFFECT ?
THIS DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A PAINTED EFFECT ,
IS IT LIME BLENDED WITH LOCAL SOIL FOR COLOUR ??
IS IT THEREFORE STUCCOED?
Apologies, I was being facetious. Actually I don’t know precisely how the effect was achieved but I imagine it is a limewash blended with some colour – also the light on the day I visited and the cloud movement (always a feature in Ireland) helped to create the particular dappled effect on the surface of the building. If I find out more I shall let you know…
pls ,no poblem!
I have fotos from before the restoration,
the brickwork ha been covered with stucco? and then limed ?
l looks wonderfully worn in such a short time ,I
I want to reproduce this on a belgian ,ca 1763 ,very Georgian looking property (but with a small tower) in a park
The patina is effectively the pattern of damp after a heavy rain, which with a proper lime render will evaporate slowly and evenly, unlike acrylic render, where the rain tends to leave a dirty streaking effect.
Thank you, yes you are right altho’ in this instance the effect is also rarely caused by the play of sunlight through moving clouds on the building’s surface.