A (Neo)Classic Design

Jun8

Although Robert Adam is today represented in Ireland by just one house – a suite of rooms at Headfort, County Meath – examples of work by his rival James Wyatt can be found throughout the country. Indeed as Wyatt’s most recent biographer John Martin Robinson has noted, despite the fact that the architect only crossed the Irish Sea once, in 1785, ironically a much higher proportion of his houses survive in Ireland than in England. Wyatt’s earliest Irish commission was for the design of the Dartrey Mausoleum, County Monaghan dating from c.1772 and therefore contemporaneous with the architect’s famous assembly rooms on London’s Oxford Street, the Pantheon, with which it shares many features albeit on a smaller scale (for more on the Dartrey Mausoleum, see A Shining Distinction on Earth, September 15^th 2014). Thereafter for the next quarter century he never wanted for patrons here, aided by an excellent Irish agent, Thomas Penrose, member of a well-known Cork Quaker family. Ann engineer and architect, Penrose worked first with the Sardinian-born Davis Duckart before being employed by the Dublin Wide Streets Commissioners: in 1784 he was appointed Inspector of Civil Buildings in succession to the recently-deceased Thomas Cooley. It is indicative of the close working relationship between Wyatt and Penrose that elements of several buildings which the former designed are attributed to the latter. In any case, we know that thanks to Penrose’s presence in Dublin, Wyatt was able to send drawings from his London office to Ireland and be confident his intentions would be properly executed. The relationship only ended with Penrose’s death in 1792 but Wyatt’s appointment four years later as Surveyor General of the King’s Works in England meant he no longer had time for further Irish commissions.

Even without his physical presence in the country, Wyatt’s impact on Ireland was substantial and long-lasting. His style of neo-classicism continued to be admired and emulated for decades after the architect’s death in 1813. One well-known example of this abiding influence is the set of hall seats Wyatt designed in 1797 for Castle Coole, County Fermanagh and manufactured by London cabinet maker William Kidd. Distinctive features such as splayed saber legs and corresponding arms means it is easy to trace other items copied from these seats, beginning with a set of six originally produced for Dunsandle, County Galway and possibly ordered directly from Wyatt. Thereafter cabinet makers took up the design and would sometimes alter it to make the seat into a broader bench: one such piece features in the soon-closing exhibition, Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 at Chicago’s Art Institute. That particular example was made by the Dublin firm of Williams & Gibton possibly as late as 1842, in other words three decades after Wyatt’s death. John Martin Robinson points out other features from his architectural repertoire which entered into the Irish mainstream, ‘including his particular type of stucco arabesque, the use of Coade stone and the Wyatt tripartite form of sash window.’ The Wyatt window in particular became a staple of Irish domestic architecture, but as Robinson also observes, ‘There are dozens of surviving houses in Dublin with Wyatt-type stucco ceilings and wall decorations, which were probably not directly designed by him, and many country houses have Wyatt-derived rooms, which are not by Wyatt himself, but local craftsmen copying him.’ All of which makes it challenging to discern which buildings were indeed designed by the architect rather than by admirers.

The list of extant houses for which we are confident Wyatt produced designs includes the likes of Lucan, County Dublin; Mount Kennedy, County Wicklow; Abbeyleix, County Laois; and Slane Castle, County Meath. Others like the Oriel Temple, County Louth have been considerably altered since first constructed and it is therefore difficult to appreciate how they were intended to look. However, one of Wyatt’s most significant interior schemes still to survive is for the Picture Gallery, or Great Room in Leinster House, Dublin; this space now serves as the Senate Chamber in Dáil Éireann. The building had been designed by Richard Castle in 1745 as a town residence for the future first Duke of Leinster. After the latter’s death in 1773, the second Duke was left with a large incomplete space in the north end of the building and therefore invited Wyatt to come up with a scheme for its decoration: in September 1776, having married the heiress Emilia St George the previous year, he wrote to his mother ‘Mr Wyatt has sent me…the most beautiful finishing for my Gallery at L. House which I shall prepare and hope to do next Spring as have the furniture ready for it.’ Dating from 1777, the resultant room is rightly judged to be one of the finest interiors of the period, its plasterwork sometimes attributed to the stuccodore Michael Stapleton although Conor Lucey has commented that the factors leading to such an attribution ‘are no longer wholly reliable.’ No matter, the end result as Robinson remarks ‘launched the taste for Wyatt’s neo-classical decoration’ and led to a flood of further commissions, one of them being the dining room at Westport House, County Mayo.

Like Leinster House, the core of Westport House was designed by Richard Castle who in 1731 designed a new residence for John Browne, later first Earl of Altamont. Towards the end of Lord Altamont’s life he commissioned designs to extend the building from Thomas Ivory and while it is not certain whether these or other proposals were adopted, Westport House was enlarged towards the end of the 1770s. As often happened, it was left to a later generation to finish off the interior decoration of the newer parts of the property. In this case the third earl (subsequently created first Marquess of Sligo), a year after inheriting the family estates in 1780 invited Wyatt to come up with a scheme for Westport’s dining room. Drawings for the design remain in the house and show how faithfully the architect’s proposals, as can be seen in today’s photographs. The dining room at Westport is not unlike that at Curraghmore, County Waterford designed by Wyatt a couple of years earlier for the first Marquess of Waterford. In both instances the elaborate decoration of walls and ceiling is broken up by medallions featuring classical figures. But whilst those at Curraghmore are painted in colour and grisaille, the Westport figures are moulded in low relief. Given the blue colour scheme of the walls, the overall effect is not unlike stepping into the world of Josiah Wedgwood whose Jasperware was then deemed the height of fashionable popularity. Set inside square and rectangular plaster panels the medallions are both round and oval, sometimes with one, sometimes with several figures, sometimes cheerful (putti playing with bows and arrows), sometimes sombre (a woman elegantly leaning on a funerary urn). Their immediate frames are picked out in gold, as are other elements in the scheme such as festoons and garlands. The ceiling on the other hand has a more complex colour scheme incorporating shades of pink and cream and brown, providing a contrast to the walls’ blue tones. Dated February 1781, the original drawings have a scheme of green and white: the present polychrome colouring dates from a repainting exactly a century ago. Nevertheless, now over 230 years old Wyatt’s dining room at Westport House continues to delight and helps to explain why his work has for so long been admired in this country.

Fine Dining

Jun6

A mahogany sideboard in the dining room at Ballywalter, County Down, with wine cooler beneath and a pair of knife urns on top. Above hangs a portrait of nine-year old Daphne Mulholland painted in 1900 by society artist W.E. Miller: she would later marry the ninth Earl of Darnley. Ballywalter was designed by Charles Lanyon in the late 1840s for Daphne’s great-grandfather, the Belfast businessman Andrew Mulholland (whose son would be created Baron Dunleath) and is one of the houses to feature in a new television series Lords and Ladles beginning tomorrow, Sunday June 7th, on Ireland’s RTE One. In each programme three chefs will recreate an historic dinner in a different country house around Ireland: the Irish Aesthete is to be spotted consuming their efforts in several episodes…

At the Castle Gates

Jun3

The remains of the principal gate lodge at Castleboro, County Wexford. The main house (burnt in 1923) had been built around 1840 for the first Lord Carew to the designs of Daniel Robertson of Kilkenny. The single-storey lodge, marking the entrance of a new approach to the house through its parkland, dates from some twenty years later and features a tetrastyle Roman Doric portico. Sad to see this crisp granite building slip into what appears to be irreversible decay.

His Snug Little Farm

Jun1

The popular image of the Irish farm house has long been fixed in the global mind. Invariably consisting of just one storey, it has white-washed walls and a thatched roof, as well as an equally simple, mud-floored interior in which a turf fire is forever smoking. Few such houses exist anymore and no wonder: they were almost invariably dank, miserable places that bred ill-health and unhappiness. Fortunately some of the country’s larger, better-constructed farm houses have survived, although the majority of them are today abandoned and in a poor state of repair. On the other hand, in recent years some of these dwellings have been restored by those with enough imagination to recognise their inherent charm and potential.

The Palladian house first introduced to Ireland in the early 18^th century quickly became popular throughout the country and while intended for homes of the wealthy, the design was modified to suit the domestic requirements of all levels of society: even the humblest Irish farmhouse might contain echoes of its grander neighbours. In particular, the formal placement of outbuildings such as barns, sheds and byres around the main residence was borrowed from the Palladian model. These additional secondary structures were located to either side of a forecourt before the front door or else in a similar fashion to the rear. The second layout is seen at the farmhouse shown here. Located in County Cork, it is an archetype of the genre in its functionality and absence of superfluous decoration. It is impossible to date the building, since stylistically it could have been erected at any point between the late 18^th and mid-20^th centuries.

From the start, farmhouses of this kind conformed to certain norms in all having the same thick walls made from rubble stone covered in render as well as small, almost square, windows and single pitch slated roofs. Inside they were equally understated with a narrow entrance hall leading to the best room, or parlour on the left (a room rarely used except on special occasions such as a visit from the parish priest) while to the right stood the family room and kitchen. A staircase would lead to several bedrooms on the first floor. The starkness of design led to the houses falling from favour in recent decades as Ireland grew more affluent and farming families sought a greater degree of comfort. Throughout the country large numbers of old properties were simply abandoned in favour of new bungalows and the majority of them fell into complete ruin. It takes a particular eye to recognize the merits of this housing type and fortunately the owner of the house in question possesses just such an eye.

When the present owner first saw his home 18 years ago it had been unoccupied for more than two decades and, as he says, ‘the place was in rag order.’ Cattle had been permitted access to the ground floor which as a result had turned into a mess of churned mud. Neither plumbing nor electrical wiring had ever been installed and most of the windows were missing. Thankfully the slate roof had somehow survived but even so the restoration programme took some 12 months, with the owner acting as his own architect. Ten years ago he embarked on further building work to add a large kitchen at the back of the house, constructing it on the footprint of an old outbuilding. Just as much attention has been paid to the building’s surroundings: the owner has created a vegetable garden and planted an orchard containing forty different trees: apple, pear, quince, medlar and damson. Other sections of the garden are given over to pot with herbs and flowering plants.

At all stages, while comforts such as bathrooms were added, the owner wisely never attempted to disguise his home’s relatively humble origins. So, for example, the original tongue-and-groove paneled ceilings have been retained. Likewise in the kitchen/dining areas the floor is covered in nothing grander than untreated concrete tiles, albeit they enjoy the benefit of underfloor heating; elsewhere plain seagrass matting has been used. On the first floor, the old doors and their surrounds were kept intact since these had been carefully ‘grained’ by a previous occupant to give the impression that they were made from expensive dark wood rather than cheap pine. And former residents would have appreciated some of the present furniture, such as the stained kitchen table surrounded by dark green chairs; timber was often painted in Irish farmhouses both to disguise the fact that different woods had been used in the same piece and to provide some very necessary colour. That was certainly the case with the large painted dresser dominating the kitchen. Once a staple in every Irish farmhouse, thousands of these pieces were thrown out of homes in the closing decades of the last century and whatever survives is now highly collectible. This example, with its paneled doors and carved board, is especially fine and acts as an ideal display unit for some of the owner’s substantial collection of John ffrench pottery. Seemingly destined to become a ruin like so many of its ilk, instead this old Irish farmhouse has been returned to vibrant life.

Well Curlicued

May30

A rococo flourish of plasterwork on the wall of the staircase hall at Glasnevin House, Dublin. The decoration here is attributed to that unknown but clearly very talented craftsman, the St Peter’s Stuccodore. At Glasnevin he allowed his imagination free rein to cover walls and ceilings with embellishment of the highest order.
For more on Glasnevin House, see Misjudging a Book by its Cover, December 22nd, 2014.

Catching the Eye

May27

On the brow of a hill to one side of but some distance from Gloster, County Offaly stands this eye-catcher comprising a stone arch flanked by obelisks. Dating from the early 18^th century, its design is attributed to Sir Edward Lovett Pearce who most likely also designed the main house for his cousin Trevor Lloyd.

On the Town V

May25

Like so many Irish towns, Edenderry (from the Irish Éadan Doire meaning ‘hill-brow of the oak wood’) in County Offaly is effectively one long narrow street that dribbles away to an unsatisfactory conclusion at either end. It was ever thus: from the 18^th century on visitors to Ireland have commented on the way urban settlements here were rarely planned but developed in a haphazard, higgledy-piggledy fashion. On occasion an improving landlord would try to impose order, and indeed this happened at Edenderry but not until long after the place had first come into existence. While there is a pre-Christian hill-fort in the area, it was really with the arrival of the Normans that permanent residential structures began to appear around what is now Edenderry. In 1325 John de Bermingham, first Earl of Louth (famous for having killed Edward Bruce – younger brother of Robert, King of Scotland – in 1318) founded a Franciscan Friary at Monasteroris to the immediate west of the town; little of it remains today. Although from the mid-14^th century this part of the country was officially under the authority of the Earls of Kildare, in practice it came under the control of the O’Connors. They were likely responsible in the 15^th century for what is now known as Blundell Castle, eventually destroyed by Jacobite forces in 1691; the ruins stand on a hill above the town. In the middle of the previous century Offaly was shired as King’s County and its land granted to men loyal to the English crown, among them Sir Henry Colley whose father Walter had served as Principal Solicitor for Ireland and later as the country’s Solicitor-General. The connection with the Colley family meant that for sometime thereafter Edenderry came to be known as Coolestown. Henry Colley’s granddaughter Sarah married Sir George Blundell and so the land passed into the hands of his family, remaining with them until the death in 1756 of Montague, first and last Viscount Blundell. His only daughter Mary inherited the property as in turn did her only daughter, another Mary who in 1786 married Arthur Hill, second Marquess of Downshire.

Thanks to his marriage, the Marquess of Downshire acquired some 14,000 acres of land around Edenderry. He vigorously opposed the 1800 Act of Union and as a result earned the enmity of the London government which exacted retribution by depriving him of governorship of County Down and the colonelcy of the local militia, and dismissing his supporters from official posts. He died the following year; his widow blamed official hostility, but, having inherited an estate in England from a childless uncle, was somewhat consoled in 1802 by being created Baroness Sandys in her own right. Meanwhile her twelve-year old eldest son became heir to the Irish properties. It was he, the third Marquess of Downshire who after coming of age in 1809 left the most lasting visible impact on Edenderry. This was despite the fact that he inherited responsibility for his forbears’ considerable debts and that his mother continued to receive two-thirds of the rent from the Offaly estates until her death in 1836. Among his most notable legacies to the town is the large former Market House, designed by Thomas Duff in 1826 and built at a cost of £5,000. Today used as a courthouse and local authority office, this handsome cut limestone building has a five-bay pedimented facade and presumably once featured an open arcaded groundfloor and assembly room above. Standing in the middle of what is now called O’Connell Square, it is testament to Edenderry’s prosperous past as a market town, a history echoed by other buildings in the town. These include Blundell House, named after the former owners of the estate but erected to his own design in 1813 by James Brownrigg who like his father worked for the Downshires and acted as agent for the County Offaly estate. Of two storeys over half-raised basement, its groundfloor has an exceptionally wide door fanlight and Wyatt windows to either side. Lying to the immediate east is the town’s Quaker meeting house which dates from the first decade of the 19^th century and replaced earlier premises on the site.

Lord Downshire’s engagement with Edenderry was not restricted to public buildings like the Market House: he also undertook to better the condition of the rest of the town, replacing mud cabins with slated, two-storey stone houses. Many of them remain and often carry a date from the early 1820s above the entrance
The materials used in the construction of these and other buildings were brought to Edenderry thanks to an initiative undertaken by his father: the creation of a branch of the Grand Canal into the town. Work began in 1797 and was completed with a harbour in 1802 at a total cost of £692 which was financed by the Downshires. The quays still lead right to the main street and conclude in a squared-off section surrounded by limestone wall. For much of the 19^th century the canal provided a vital social and commercial link for Edenderry, and helped to bring prosperity to the region. The last barge left the quays here in 1962, around the same time that the railway at the other end of the town also closed. As with the canal, this was a branch line, known in its day as the Nesbitt Junction after a Miss Nesbitt who contributed £10,000 to its cost so that she could convey prize cattle to the Royal Dublin Society. Its buildings, erected in 1877 by the Midland Great Western Railway, remain although the little stone ticket office looks sadly neglected. The third Marquess’ contribution to the town’s development was commemorated a year after his death in 1845 with the erection of a statue to his memory sculpted by Joseph Robinson Kirk, son of Thomas whose figure of Nelson adorned the top of the pillar on Dublin’s O’Connell Street until blown up in 1966.

Like so many Irish towns, Edenderry is in seemingly irreversible decline, as the above photographs make clear. The outskirts, spread randomly and with no apparent forethought, are full of generic housing estates. One is currently being constructed at the immediate west end of the main street and has been given a name every bit as banal as the design of the supposedly ‘exclusive’ houses contained therein: Cedar Lawns. Meanwhile the centre of Edenderry slides ever further into decrepitude with a terrifying number of premises vacant and unkempt. Groups of listless youths – presumably residents of the aforementioned exclusive housing estates – drift along the pavements past properties that might entertain or engage them but instead exhibit empty windows. Even in O’Connell Square, while money has been spent on renovating the old Market House it is surrounded by properties with well-worn signs offering them for sale. For the moment Edenderry still has a post office and branches of the main banks: but for how much longer? The reality is that as the centre decays and householders travel elsewhere to spend their money, those banking businesses will find it no longer viable to maintain an operation here. They will duly close down and the standard outcry will ensue, yet this is the inevitable consequence of failure to maintain a vibrant town centre. The general tattiness and want of adequate maintenance is apparent everywhere, beginning with the ruins of Blundell Castle where the bars of a protective fence have long-since been wrenched off, if the quantity of mouldering empty beer cans discarded inside its walls can be taken as evidence. By failing to take care of Edenderry’s most ancient site, the local authority is sending out a signal of indifference which will noted by all those late-night drinkers, and everyone else as well. The same sense of apathy and disregard is emitted by every other building permitted to suffer neglect. Among the remaining retailers, the word Eden – a none-too-subtle pun on the town’s name – is often deployed. Frankly Eden lies well east, or west or anywhere else. Whatever one might think of absentee landlords and whatever his motivation, at least Lord Downshire tried to improve circumstances in Edenderry. Nobody today seems interested in following his example.

TLC Needed

May23

The entrance to Knockdrin, County Westmeath. Like the main house, this was designed for Sir Richard Levinge around 1810 by Richard Morrison. The high-romantic and intentionally asymmetrical style of arched gateway flanked by dummy turret on one side and taller octagonal tower on the other serve as a prelude to what lies at the end of the drive: a full-blown castle.
For more on Knockdrin, see Knock Knock, August 5th 2013.

Finely Carved

May20

The limestone chimney piece in the entrance hall of the Hugh Lane Gallery, formerly Charlemont House, Dublin. This building, begun in 1763 to the design of Sir William Chambers, features the work of a number of master craftsmen including the London-born sculptor and stonecutter Simon Vierpyl. It is believed he was responsible for this chimney piece with its vigorous carving of a rams skull, and scrolls and swags in the upper section and a variety of tools and instruments running down the sides.
A reminder that I shall be speaking of Hugh Lane in the gallery tomorrow evening from 6.45. Admission is free.

Exuberance

May18

Paolo Lafranchini (1695-1776) and his younger brothers Filippo (1702-79) and Pietro-Natale (1705-88) were three of fifteen children born to Carlo and Isabella Lafranchini in the parish of Bironico which lies within the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino. This part of the world produced a number of distinguished stuccodores including Giovanni Bagutti, and Giovanni Batista Artaria and his son Giuseppe. The two Artarias were employed to decorate the interior of the cathedral in the German city-state of Fulda. In 1720 Paolo Lafranchini is recorded as working for Fulda’s Prince-Bishop at his castle of Johannisberg, after which he is believed to have moved to England whence the Artarias had also gone. Giovanni Bagutti likewise relocated during this period and worked in several English houses including Castle Howard.

In A Book of Architecture (published 1728) James Gibbs made reference to Artaria and Bagutti but not to the Lafranchini brothers who had yet to arrive in England: evidently Filippo and Pietro-Natale followed the example of their elder brother and emigrated in pursuit of work. Carlo Palumbo-Fossati who investigated the careers of the siblings in 1982 proposes that while in England, ‘they almost certainly met James Gibbs, Daniel Garrett and, possibly Lord Burlington.’ Who can say for certain? It has been suggested that around 1730 a Lafrancini worked with Artaria and Bagutti at Moor Park, Hertfordshire, a Palladian house designed by the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni. More specifically in the archives of Drummond’s Bank, London are listed payments from James Gibbs’ accounts to ‘la Franchino’ in December 1731 (for ten guineas) and to ‘Mr Lafranchini’ in August 1736 (for £95). And the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford contains a design for an unknown house of two ceilings by Gibbs with an agreement in Italian on the verso for their execution signed Paolo Lafranchini.

By 1739 Paolo Lafranchini was in Ireland and working at Carton, County Kildare alongside his brother Filippo; according to an article written by Lord Walter FitzGerald, the pair was paid £501 that year, presumably for the decoration of the saloon at Carton. The youngest of the trio, Pietro-Natale does not seem ever to have worked in this country but to have remained in England where among other properties he was employed at Wallington Hall, Northumberland, Hylton Castle, County Durham (both redesigned by the aforementioned Daniel Garrett) and Northumberland House, London. Meanwhile in Ireland, after finishing in Carton Paolo and Filippo moved on to 85 St Stephen’s Green (see The Most Beautiful Room in Ireland?, November 17^th 2014) and possibly Tyrone House (now the Department of Education), Marlborough Street, as well as at Russborough, County Wicklow, Curraghmore, County Waterford and two houses in County Cork, Riverstown and Castle Saffron. By the mid-1750s Paolo Lafranchini was back in the family’s native town of Bironico and appears to have remained there until his death over twenty years later.

Unlike his elder brother Filippo Lafranchini, although he returned to Bironico in 1757, spent the greater part of his later years in Ireland. Here as surviving documents attest he worked at Castletown, County Kildare. In May 1759 the house’s chatelaine Lady Louisa Conolly wrote to her sister, the future Duchess of Leinster, ‘Mr Conolly and I are excessively diverted at Franchini’s impertinence and if he charges anything of that sort to Mr Conolly there is a fine scold in store for his honour.’ Whatever might have been the difference of opinion between the Conollys and their stuccodore – who would be responsible for the decoration of the house’s staircase hall – it passed and he appears to have remained close to the family for the remainder of his life, possibly even dying at Castletown in 1779. Lady Louisa’s accounts note in October 1765 ‘Paid John Earsum his bill for Claret on Frankinys acct. when I was absent. 14s.’ There are also a couple of references to Filippo Lafranchini having a room at Castletown. Meanwhile Mr Conolly had paid the craftsman for his work, a total of £96, thirteen shillings and nine pence at the end of 1765 and the balance owed of £298, thirteen shillings and three pence the following year.

In the mid-1760s, around the time he was being paid for his work at Castletown, Filippo Lafranchini is believed to have undertaken another commission: the decoration of Kilshannig, County Cork. Built to the designs of the Italian-born engineer and architect Davis Ducart for a rich banker, Abraham Devonsher, Kilshannig is a Palladian house with outstanding interiors. While the Lafranchini’s earlier work was inclined to baroque formalism, here the prevailing spirit is exuberantly rococo. The entrance hall has a coved and sectioned ceiling filled with an abundance of swags and foliage and baskets of fruit. It provides access to the central reception room, a saloon that is half as high again as the entrance hall, and has a ceiling centred on three exquisitely worked figures of Bacchus, Ariadne and Pan. Around them double medallions contain the four elements, as well as Justice and Minerva. To the left lies the dining room the ceiling of which like that in the entrance hall is predominantly given over to foliage and fruit but also contains clusters of dead game and masks. At the other end of the saloon, the library has a ceiling with a central frame containing the figures of Apollo and Diana, as well as corner sections featuring the Four Seasons and immediately above the cornice, framed female heads in profile believed to represent membes of the Devonsher family. Both the passage outside and the circular Portland stone staircase to which it provides access, also contain further stucco decoration. Kilshannig represents the apogee of the Lafranchinis’ work in Ireland and is a testament to this expertise of this exceptional family who chose to spend time in Ireland and left behind such an outstanding legacy of stucco work.

More about Kilshannig at a later date.

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