Happily Disposed in the Most Elegant Taste


Heywood, County Laois has featured here before (See To Smooth the Lawn, To Decorate the Dale, May 12th 2014), the focus on that occasion being primarily the terraced gardens designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1906. However, both Lutyens and his client, Colonel William Hutcheson Poë, did not start with a virgin site. On the contrary, they were working within a landscape that had been carefully laid out more than a century earlier. The main outlines of the estate here were created by Michael Frederick Trench, son of the Rev. Frederick Trench. Of French extraction, the first of the family arrived in Ireland in 1631 and purchased the land and castle of Garbally, on the outskirts of Ballinasloe, County Galway: ultimately this line would become Earls of Clancarty. In the early 18th century, a younger son William Trench settled in Laois and acquired land there which was initially developed by his heir, the Rev. Frederick. The English antiquary Owen Brereton wrote of the property in 1763, describing it as ‘a sweet Habitation’ with ’24 Acres Walld round 10 feet high. The ground naturally in fine Slopes and Rising, large trees properly disperst, a River of very clear Water running through it. Pouring Cascades, upon which I counted near 100 Couple of rabbits & 100 of Brace of Hares which are in this Grounds…very extensive Views.’ Both the habitation and the grounds were enlarged by the Rev. Trench’s son Michael Frederick Trench who in 1773 built a new house which he named Heywood after his mother-in-law’s maiden name. A wealthy barrister and amateur architect, Trench is believed to have been primarily responsible for the building’s design although James Gandon may also have had a hand in the work. In 1771 a drawing was shown at the Society of Artists exhibition of the ‘Front of Mr Trench’s house in Ireland…from a design of Mr Gandon’s.’ On the other hand, Sir Charles Coote’s Statistical Survey of the Queen’s County (1801) states that the house was built after Trench’s own plan. A view of the building’s façade (c.1789 and attributed to James Malton) shows it to have been a neo-classical villa: this was engulfed by a much larger house in the late 19th century and the whole was destroyed by fire in 1950. We will probably never know.




If Michael Frederick Trench took an active part in the design of his country residence, the same is likely to have been true of landscaping the demesne which then followed. Heywood sits on high ground about a mile from the village of Ballinakill lying to the south-west. Trench laid out the grounds so that they could be enjoyed both from the windows of the house and during a drive or leisurely walk from the building down to Ballinakill. Large earthworks had to be undertaken in order to create a suitable landscape: today the Lutyens terraces (which sit directly below where formerly stood the house) rest behind large buttressed stone walls. When Samuel Lewis published his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837, a year after Michael Frederick Trench’s death, he was able to call Heywood a ‘richly varied demesne ornamented with plantations and artificial sheets of water.’ In contrast to the classical severity of the building, the grounds were deeply romantic, and resolutely looking to the past. Setting the tone, the main entrance featured gates set between a pair of Gothic polygonal towers, their rooflines generously castellated. From here the drive winds to the first folly, a slim hexagonal gothic column of limestone column which serves both to commemorate Trench’s close friendship with his distant cousin and fellow-patron of the arts Andrew Caldwell, and also to mark the distance to various locations including Ballinakill and – somewhat further away – Dublin. The column is also close to the point where the first of three lakes rises: these follow close to the line of the drive, with a number of (now over-grown) rustic bridges allowing views down to the village. Moving close to the latter and in contrast to the gothic column one reaches a plain classical gazebo called Claude’s Seat, its name perhaps derived from Claude Lorrain whose pastoral scenes are evoked by the view across a lily-strewn lake. Directly behind the building is a small chamber with the remains of plaster stalagmites on its coved ceiling: this may have served as a hermitage.




Moving back towards the house, on a bluff above the drive and facing each other are two more substantial Gothic follies created by Michael Frederick Trench. One of these is a small sham castle with circular corner towers and castellated parapets. A triple lancet-arch window lights the modest interior, with a corresponding arched opening beneath. Directly opposite is can be seen what are intended to look like the ruins of a mediaeval church; the fine traceried window is said to be 15th century and to have been brought from the former Dominican friary at Aghaboe, some twelve miles away. Above both was another, more finished structure, a Gothic orangery built of red brick with limestone hood mouldings and obelisk pinnacles along the roofline. Today this is just a shell but other buildings that once could be seen in the Heywood demesne have gone altogether: for example, on a hillock to the south of the house stood an Ionic Temple of the Winds. For many years, this landscape and its diverse follies was neglected and allowed to fall into ruin, but of late much work has been done to clear back the vegetation and allow Trench’s original scheme be understood. As Sir Charles Coote wrote in 1801, ‘The demesne of Heywood deserves particular attention; except in the irregularity of ground, this charming spot had few natural advantages to recommend it to even the most experienced and judicious taste, which Mr Trench the proprietor must be acknowledged most eminently to possess. Nature has been so truly copied by him, that in none of the numerous elegant improvements is seen anything of artificial appearance. In each of the approaches the most delightful scenes are presented to the eye, and the senses of some voluptuaries would indeed be ravished with views of such exquisite beauty. The water, which appears from so many vistas, is all artificial and covered with wild fowl in the season. Several architectural ornaments of true classic merit are happily disposed in the most elegant taste; the ruin has all the appearance of gothic antiquity, and its view from several partial spots of the demesne has the best possible effect.’

A Lakeside Lament

 

The shore of Lough Tay, County Wicklow into which the ashes of the Hon Garech Browne were committed yesterday in the company of family and friends. The devoted custodian of the Luggala estate for half a century, his generous cultural patronage, not least through the creation of Claddagh Records, were deservedly eulogised during the afternoon in words and music alike. While Garech has gone, he leaves rich memories and a legacy certain to last as long as water laps on Lough Tay’s shore.

A View to Die For


The memorial shown here is situated
on rising ground at Brittas, County Meath and is inscribed as follows:Beneath this Monument Are interred the remains of Thomas BLIGH, Lieutenant General of his Majesty’s  forces. General of horse at the battles of Dettinggen, Val, Fontenoy and Melle. And the commander in chief of British Troops at Cherburg, Who after spending many years In the service of his country with unwearied application Retired to a private life Therein to prepare his old age For a change to a better state And to enjoy with unspeakable comfort The hopes of a happy immortality. Born A.D. 1695 Died Aug. the 17th, 1775 Aged 80 years.’ To one side of the monument are planted a series of trees ranked in the same formation as were the general’s troops during one of his campaigns. To the other the land drops away to offer a view of the house where he retired to enjoy the aforementioned private life and to prepare for ‘a happy immortality.’

Spot the Difference

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A mural above the drawing room chimney piece of Mount Ievers Court, County Clare showing the house and its surrounding parkland. Mount Ievers was built between 1733 and 1737 for Henry Ievers to the design of John Rothery who seems to have been a local architect and who died before the building’s completion. Depicting the north facade of the house, the mural is usually considered to have been painted not long after work finished and to be an accurate record of Mount Ievers. Yet a quick look at images of the building then and now shows one crucial difference. In the picture, the entrance is shown as accessed via a horseshoe staircase, whereas today, as can be seen below,  a double-flight of stone steps runs directly up to the door. So did the painting show what was intended but not executed, or what was constructed but subsequently altered?
(For more on Mount Ievers, see A Place of Magic, December 16th 2013).

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A Heartless Pastime

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Kilconnell Friary, County Galway

‘To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime, and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.’ From Italian Hours (1873) by Henry James.

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Tyrone House, County Galway

‘I salute you, lonely ruins. While your aspect repulses with a secret fear the gaze of the vulgar, my heart finds in contemplating you the charm of a thousand sentiments and thoughts. How many useful lessons and touching reflections do you not offer to the spirit which knows how to consult you!’
From Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires (1791) by Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney.

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Mount Shannon, County Limerick

‘I do love these ancient ruins
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history;
And, questionless, here in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some men lie interr’d
Lov’d the church so well, and gave so largely to ’t,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till dooms-day. But all things have their end;
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,
Must have like death that we have.’
From The Duchess of Malfi (1612) by John Webster.

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Former Church of Ireland church, Rathcormac, County Cork

‘The ideas aroused within me by ruins are lofty. Everything vanishes, everything perishes, everything passes away, only the world remains, time alone endures. How old is this world! I walk between these two eternities…What is my ephemeral existence compared to that of this crumbling stone?’
From Denis Diderot’s Salon (1767).

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Duckett’s Grove, County Carlow

‘At fifteen I went with the army,
At fourscore I came home.
On the way I met a man from the village,
I asked him who there was at home.
That over there is your house,
All covered over with trees and bushes.
Rabbits had run in at the dog-hole,
Pheasants flew down from the beams of the roof.
In the courtyard was growing some wild grain;
And by the well, some wild mallows.
I’ll boil the grain and make porridge,
I’ll pluck the mallows and make soup.
Soup and porridge are both cooked,
But there is no one to eat them with.
I went out and looked towards the east,
While tears fell and wetted my clothes.’
Chinese poem by an unknown author, translated by Arthur Waley (1919).

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Belan, County Kildare

‘What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
O’er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye
Whose agonies are evils of a day! A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. . . .
Then let the winds howl on! Their harmony
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night
The sound shall temper with the owlets’ cry,
As I now hear them in the fading light…’
From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818) by Lord Byron.

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Dromore, County Limerick

‘Where rev’rend shrines in gothic grandeur stood,
The nettle, or the noxious night-shade spreads;
And ashlings, wafted from the neighboring wood,
Through the worn turrets wave their trembling heads.
I left the mantling shade in moral mood . . .
Sigh’d, as the mould’ring monuments I viewed.
Inexorably calm, with silent pace,
Here Time has pass’d What ruin marks his way!
This pile, now crumbling o’er its hallow’d base,
Turn’d not his step, nor could his course delay.’
From Poems chiefly Pastoral (1766) by John Cunningham.

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‘Fall’n, fall’n, a silent heap; her heroes all
Sunk in their urns; behold the pride of pomp.
The throne of nations fall’n; obscur’d by dust;
Ev’n yet majestical; the solemn scene
Elates the soul, while now the rising Sun
Flames on the ruins in the purer air
Towering aloft upon the glittering plain,
Like broken rocks, a vast circumference;
Rent palaces, crush’d columns, rifled moles…’
From The Ruins of Rome (1740) by John Dyer.

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Downhill, County Derry

‘…Since first these ruins fell, how chang’d the scene!
What busy, bustling mortals, now unknown,
Have come and gone, as tho’ there nought had been,
Since first Oblivion call’d the spot her own.

Ye busy, bustling mortals, known before,
Of what you’ve done, where went, or what you see,
Of what your hopes attain’d to, (now no more,)
For everlasting lies a mystery.

Like yours, awaits for me that common lot;
‘Tis mine to be of every hope bereft:
A few more years and I shall be forgot,
And not a vestige of my memory left.’
From Elegy on the Ruins of Pickworth (1818) by John Clare

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Shane’s Castle, County Antrim

‘Amidst the gloom arose the ruins of the abbey, tinged with a bright ray, which discovered a profusion of rich Gothic workmanship; and exhibited in pleasing contrast the grey stone of which the ruins are composed, with the feathering foliage that floated round them. . . . The imagination formed it, after the vision vanished.’
From Observations on the River Wye, and several parts of South Wales, etc. relative chiefly to picturesque beauty; made in the summer of the year 1770 (1782) by William Gilpin.

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Folly at Bellevue, County Galway

The Lonely Sentinel

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A solitary obelisk standing on raised ground in what was once the parkland of Dangan Castle, County Meath. Dangan was the seat of Richard Wesley, created first Baron Mornington in 1746. He spent a great deal of money improving his house and grounds, and Bishop Pococke in his 1752 Tour in Ireland described the former as being ‘situated on a most beautiful flat, with an Amphitheater of hills rising round it, one over another, in a most beautiful manner; at the lower end is a very large piece of water, at one corner of which is an Island, it is a regular fortification, there is a ship a sloop and boats on the water, and a yard for building; the hill beyond it, is improved into a beautiful wilderness: on a round hill near the house is a Temple, and the hills round are adorned with obelisks: Pillars and some buildings, altogether the most beautiful thing I ever saw.’ Mrs Delany also visited Dangan several times, being godmother to Mornington’s heir Garret, future first Earl of Mornington and, in turn, the father of Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington who likewise spent much of his childhood here. Yet before the end of the century the family had sold the estate, the house was accidentally destroyed by fire and in 1841 J. Stirling Coyne could write ‘The noble woods, too, which adorned the demesne, have shared in the general destruction; and all the giants of the sylvan scene have been prostrated by the ruthless axe.’ Today there remain few signs of Dangan’s former splendour other than this obelisk rising in the midst of a field, and another not far away, the latter restored of late with help from the Meath branch of An Taisce.

Strait is the Gate

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An admirable pair of stone piers in the grounds of Borris House, County Carlow, ancestral home of the MacMorrough Kavanaghs (once High Kings of Leinster). The original 18th century building, having been damaged during the 1798 Rising, was refurbished some twenty years later in Tudor Gothic style by the Morrisons père et fils. But these gates look to pre-date that overhaul; elsewhere an entrance to the estate features granite ashlar piers topped with ball finials and dates from c.1780. Perhaps these gateposts, grander in scale and splendidly finished with slender urns are from around the same period?

Post No Bills

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Last year there was a flurry of correspondence in Irish newspapers about the national postal service’s tendency to remove charming old post boxes without notice and substitute drearily standardised replacements. Well here is one that has so far survived the attentions of An Post. Set into a stone wall in front of the former Church of Ireland parish church (now a private residence) in Drumcree, County Westmeath, the box’s two initials indicate it dates from the time of George V, the last British monarch to claim authority in this part of the country.

Croquet at the Casino

Casino Croquet

Following last Monday’s post about the casino at Marino (Casino Royale, March 25th) a regular reader sent me the image above. This shows the Irish Croquet Championships in 1874 which evidently took place in the grounds of Marino just a few years before the place was sold by the Caulfeild family.
Many people regard croquet as the archetypal English game but in fact its origins lie in mid-19th century Ireland: in August 1858 The Field published a piece on The Rules of the Oatlands Club by ‘Corncrake’ the pseudonym of George Annesley Pollock who lived at Oatlands, County Meath. Here and in other local houses he and his friends often played croquet. The oldest extant croquet club is in Cobh (formerly Queenstown), County Cork. The Rushbrooke Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club was founded in 1870, initially just for playing croquet, tennis being added ten years later.
With thanks to Rose Anne White for the image.