A Feast of Colour and Light

The first member of his family to settle in Ireland, Anthony Atkinson appears to have arrived here in the late 16th/early 17th century, serving as a soldier who rose to the rank of Lieutenant. In due course, he was granted land in County Offaly where, prior to his death in 1626, he built a residence called Cangort Castle. During the Confederate Wars and their aftermath, this building was garrisoned for the crown but later captured by members of the Commonwealth army and badly damaged. When the original owner’s grandson, another Anthony Atkinson, recovered the property in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660, he built a new house adjacent to the ruins of the castle and, allowing for various additions and alterations, this remained the family’s home until it was sold in 1957. In the early 18th century, a third Anthony Atkinson, married to Mary Guy (whose father was Admiral John Guy, remembered for breaking the boom across the river Foyle and thereby relieving the Siege of Derry) trained as a barrister and served as an MP in the Irish Parliament. Several generations later, in 1859 the estate was inherited by 12-year old Guy Newcomen Atkinson, and it would seem that once he came of age in 1868, the house was extensively remodelled to its present appearance. On his death in 1890, he, in turn, left a young heir, Guy Montague Atkinson, who after coming of age chose to sell Cangort to his uncle, William Henry Atkinson; it was the latter’s grandson, Major Anthony Guy Atkinson, who sold the house in 1957, thereby ending the family’s link with this property.

The present Cangort House owes much of its appearance to architect William George Murray, who, as mentioned, likely received this commission from Guy Newcomen Atkinson after the latter had come of age in 1868. The son of William Murray, a cousin of Francis Johnston in whose office he trained, the younger man had become a partner in his father’s practice in 1845 along with Abraham Denny. Following Murray senior’s death four years later, the two younger men remained partners until 1855, after which William George Murray ran his own practice with considerable success, specialising in banks and railway buildings. However, in his final years, the architect found himself embroiled in a legal action taken by one of his clients, the Provincial Bank of Ireland, concerning this organisation’s headquarters located on the corner of College Street and Westmoreland Street, Dublin. When this building was completed in 1867, the cost was double the estimate and while the banking hall had been completed, the intended first-floor offices for the directors and management had not been fitted out. The bank took Murray and the building contractor John Nolan to court, alleging fraud and collusion in connection with the issue of certificates for extra work on the property. Although the two men were acquitted, the court of appeal ruled that, because of errors and negligence on Murray’s part, an inquiry should be held to establish whether the sums of money for extra work which Nolan claimed from the bank should be paid. Murray died in 1871, not yet aged 50. The former bank building is now part of the College Green Hotel.

The initial impression of Cangort House suggests that the whole building is an example of the Jacobethan style which became popular in the 19th century. But the west front provides evidence that at least some of the earlier structure remain, with a series of tall arched windows on ground and first floors breaking up the rendered surface. The three-bay south front is faced in ashlar limestone with advanced gabled bays having tripartite windows at either end and a pair of coats of arms in panels set each side of the central doorcase: perhaps prior to Murray’s makeover, this might have been the entrance front? The latter is now on the east side of the house, which has another coat of arms above an additional gable, and a smaller gabled porch to one side; the service yards on the north side lie behind a screen wall here. Inside the building, the same Jacobethan inspiration prevails, the various corridors’ ribbed vaulted ceilings resting on corbels. As with the exterior, only on the east side of the building is its earlier decorative history apparent. The present owners, who have recently decided to sell, wisely chose to brighten up what would otherwise threaten to be a series of mid-19th century sombre spaces. As a result, this is a house of colour and light, boldly demonstrating that Victorian interiors need not be dark. Nor indeed need their exteriors, as shown by the addition of a natural pool on the east side, fed with rain water and filled with aquatic plants. Today a feast of colour and light, the building offers a gloriously alternative approach to the Irish country house.