Very Mannered



The 18th century English polymath Thomas Wright has featured here before because of his rightly-renowned work at Tollymore, County Down (Do the Wright Thing « The Irish Aesthete ), but it is apparent that while in Ireland during the year 1746-47, he also designed a number of other garden buildings elsewhere in the country. One of these is a rustic archway at Belvedere, County Westmeath, which would have been constructed around the same time as the villa here and so commissioned by Robert Rochfort, then Baron Belfield and future first Earl of Belvedere. This extraordinary structure is almost Mannerist in style and, as has been pointed out, would not look out of place in the 16th century Sacro Bosco of Bomarzo: the openings on the facade suggest a giant’s startled face. The arch stands at the end of a long drive from the house and although sometimes thought to have been an entrance lodge, this seems unlikely since its rear – which visitors would have encountered first had it served as a point of arrival to the estate – is unornamented. Clearly therefore the building was meant to close a vista and, since it once held several floors, to offer views back to the main residence and across Lough Ennell: note the wonderful rusticated oriel window on an upper level. 


A Country Retreat



Today known as Mount St Anne’s, this handsome villa was originally called Mount Henry, presumably after Henry Smyth who in the first decade of the 19th century commissioned the building’s design from Sir Richard Morrison: the central recessed entrance with pedimented Ionic portico between bowed bays can also be seen, albeit on a larger scale, on the facade of Lyons, County Kildare, for which Morrison was also responsible. It is unclear whether the now-exposed stone walls were once stuccoed. A wing containing a billiard room was added in 1868 by Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon but otherwise few changes were made to the house even after it was acquired by the Presentation order of nuns in the 1930s but some thirty years later, when the Roman Catholic church was going through an expansionist phase, an oratory and other ancillary buildings, none of them of particular architectural merit (or displaying much sympathy with Morrison’s work) were constructed to the rear of the villa. Today Mount St Anne’s is used as a retreat and conference centre.


Green Fingered


Regular readers will be aware that over the past couple of years, the Irish Aesthete has devoted much time and attention to the subject of the Irish country house garden and its evolution since the early 17th century. This study has taken a number of forms, including an exhibition of paintings of walled gardens (which show, incidentally, can at present be seen in Kylemore Abbey, County Galway, which has its own restored walled garden), a two-part television documentary, and a conference on the subject. The last of these, held last autumn, has now spawned a book, Digging New Ground: The Irish Country House Garden 1650-1900. Co-edited by Professor Finola O’Kane, the publication contains essays from a wide variety of knowledgeable experts in this field of study, all of whom offer fresh insights into their chosen topic. 





Country house gardens, like country houses themselves, only really begin to appear in Ireland from c.1600 onwards; prior to that date, the only cultivated areas resembling gardens as we know them would have been attached to religious houses, monasteries and convents. In her contribution, Vandra Costello looks at these early domestic gardens and what form they took, much influenced by ideas from Italy, France and Holland, while Terence Reeves-Smyth explores the evolution of the walled garden, once an essential feature of any country house of substance. But while early gardens almost celebrated their artifice, from the mid-18th century onwards, the natural and the romantic – sometimes in conflict, sometimes in harmony – came to dominate horticultural theory and practice alike, influenced by such notable English practitioners as Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. However, during this period Ireland produced her own distinguished garden designers, not least John Sutherland whose highly successful career is examined by Patrick Bowe. Thomas Pakenham looks at the creation of arboretums in this country, and Seamus O’Brien explores the explorers: those intrepid botanical hunters forever in search of new plant species to bring back to Ireland. There are essays on garden buildings by Ruth Musielak, on the effect of technological advances in the production of glass and iron by Laura Johnstone, on evaluations of and improvements in gardening during the 19th century by Finola O’Kane, and an assessment of the Irish country house garden in the 21st century by Catherine FitzGerald. Plus, the Irish Aesthete tells the story of John Hennessy Saul, born into a family of gardeners, who emigrated to the United States where he established a thriving horticultural business, involved in the design and creation of gardeners throughout that country.


John Hennessy Saul was born in December 1819 at Carey’s Wood, a dower house on the Castlemartyr estate owned by the Boyles, Earls of Shannon: appropriately enough, the place, now called Carewswood, is a garden centre. Both Saul’s grandfather and father were gardeners, so it was almost inevitable that this would also be his choice of profession, as was also the case for several of his brothers. After working first in Ireland and then in England for some years, in 1851 he emigrated to the United States where he was almost immediately employed by the country’s most influential landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, with whom he then worked on the layout of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Following Downing’s untimely death in July 1852, Saul established his own business in the city, and within a few years was running an 80-acre nursery supplying plants to customers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, not least Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City, along with many other public and private commissions. Saul’s catalogues often offered opportunities to buy varieties of plants that he had cultivated: charmingly, he tended to call these after his wife. He also wrote regular specialist articles for all the leading horticultural publications of the time, won prizes in all the major competitions then being held and served on a number of important horticultural boards and committees. When the District of Columbia’s Board of Works established a Parks Commission in Washington in 1871, Saul was one of its founding board members and produced plans to increase the number of trees throughout the city: he was serving as the commission’s chairman at the time of his death, aged 77, in May 1897. John Hennessy Saul was clearly a remarkable man, and an outstanding horticulturist who learnt his skills while young and working in an Irish country house garden. Across the centuries, emigration has sent millions of Irish men and women around the world, and it seems probable that at least some of them worked in the same field as Saul, and perhaps enjoyed similar success. Their stories wait to be rediscovered and told, thereby enriching Ireland’s own gardening history.

Looking Well



The main farmyard at Ballinkeele, County Wexford. The classical house here, notable for its massive porte cochère, was designed by Daniel Robertson in 1840 for John Maher; originally from County Tipperary, he had bought the estate 15 years earlier from the previous owner. There had already been a house on the site, and therefore one assumes that this yard also dates from the previous period in Ballinkeele’s history. It is a particularly fine example of country house agricultural architecture, a well-considered melange of stone and brick, with cut granite used for key features such as the entrance arch and window lintels, the whole forming a courtyard around the central well.


Killare



After last Wednesday’s entry about the mausoleum at Fore, County Westmeath (To the Fore « The Irish Aesthete), here is the burial site of another branch of the same family. Located in Killare, this one holds the remains of the Nugents of Ballinacor, a property they acquired in the first half of the 17th century. Although confiscated by the Cromwellian government, Ballinacor was subsequently returned to Edmond Nugent after he had been declared ‘An innocent Papist.’ Indeed, successive generations remained loyal to their Roman Catholic faith, one of them, John Nugent, fighting for the French army and being awarded the Cross of St Louis for his bravery at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, when the British and Dutch forces under the Duke of Cumberland were defeated. Nugents remained at Ballinacor, an 18th century house, until the aftermath of the Great Famine when it was sold in the Encumbered Estates Court in 1852. Ballinacor was demolished as recently as 1995, meaning this mausoleum provides the only surviving evidence of the Nugent family’s long presence in the area.


A Romantic Hideaway



The story is often told that Martinstown, County Kildare was built so as to provide Augustus Frederick FitzGerald, third Duke of Leinster, with a discreet location in which to meet his mistress. Curiously, the name of the duke’s inamorata is never mentioned, nor any further information given about the nature of the affair. Biographical information primarily focuses on his early support for Catholic Emancipation, his loyalty to the Whig party (traditional in the FitzGerald family) as well as his long and close involvement with Freemasonry:  he was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ireland for 61 years until his death in 1874. In 1818 he married Lady Charlotte Augusta Stanhope, a daughter of the third Earl of Harrington, with whom he had four children. If there were any marital indiscretions, they do not seem ever to have become known in the public realm. 





An estate map of Martinstown dated February 1833 and signed by one W. Clutterbuck, depicts an altogether more modest dwelling house than what can be seen on the site today, little more than a farmhouse (now the kitchen wing). At the time, the property belonged to Robert Borrowes (otherwise Burrows) whose family had moved to Ireland in the late 16th/early 17th century from Devonshire. Robert Borrowes was a younger son of Sir Kildare Dixon Borrowes, fifth baronet, of Barretstown Castle. That house passed to Robert’s older brother, while he was given the nearby Gilltown estate. Martinstown, therefore, was never a primary residence but rather a secondary farm which, according to Clutterbuck’s map, had been heavily planted with trees over the previous 15 years. However, a second extant drawing made in 1840 shows a building much closer in style to that which stands on the site today. The main, two-storey garden front is asymmetrical, heavily ornamented with a series of pinnacled gable-ends, cusped bargeboards and twisted, Tudoresque chimney stacks. Its design has been attributed to English architect Decimus Burton, best-known in this country for his work on the gate lodges of Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Martinstown is altogether more fanciful than those buildings, a late flowering of the Georgian Gothick cottage orné, likely developed as a shooting lodge rather than a venue for romantic ducal rendezvous. 





The main entrance porch on the narrow north-west side of Martinstown has a half-timbered room above it which seems to be one of a number of later additions to the building. The walls of the house’s entrance hall show one of the most recent of such alterations: covered in murals representing an idealised landscape, they were an early commission received by artist Jane Willoughby. From here, visitors enter the central stair hall, decorated in a delightful Tudoresque manner. The west side of the room features a triple-arched arcade with open-work spandrels and a rosette cornice. Doors at either end of this open into the dining room and what is now a study.
As befits a cottage orné, the majority of rooms are cosy with low ceilings. An exception to this is the double-height drawing room with coved ceiling, added to the house in the 1870s when Martinstown was let to members of the British army then in residence just a few miles away on the Curragh: its scale is substantially larger than any other space in the building: the upper part of the walls here were painted with garlands of leaves and ribbons by another artist, Phillipa Bayliss.
Today available to rent for weddings and other events, during the last century Martinstown passed through several hands, the most notorious being those of Austrian-born Otto Skorzeny, a former Lieutenant-Colonel in the German Waffen-SS during the Second World War. Skorzeny and his wife, who were then living in Spain, visited Ireland for the first time in 1957 and two years later, they bought Martinstown and 168 acres of land from its then-owner Major Richard Turner, for £7,500. However, although they initially paid regular visits to the property, the couple were never able to secure residents’ visas from the Irish government and spent little time here after 1963, selling the place in 1971. Today the property acts as both a family home to the present owners, and as a popular venue for weddings: somewhere romantic for couples to marry rather than meet for illicit trysts. 


Just Plain Cross



More High Crosses, these ones found in the graveyard of St John’s church in Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare. The first stands to the immediate north of the early 19th century church. Standing 3.4 metres high, it is composed of three elements: head, shaft and pyramidal base. Rather than the usual elaborate carving customary on these crosses, it is relatively plain, perhaps because carved from unyielding granite. The only decoration of note can be seen on the west face which features a central boss with rounded moulding within a solid ring. Possibly dating from the 10th century, the cross’s two arms carry an inscription noting that it was re-erected on the present site by Ambrose Wall in 1689; he would be killed the following year during the Siege of Limerick. What remains of a second cross can be found south of the church; all that survives here is the tapered shaft and, deep in the vegetation, another pyramidal base. 

To the Fore



Fore, County Westmeath is known for the remains of its mediaeval Benedictine abbey, originally founded much earlier by St Féichín, and the seven ancient ‘wonders’ associated with the site. On a slope high above these ruins can be found a former anchorite’s cell that was subsequently used as a mausoleum. In its earlier incarnation, the squat rectangular, two-storey tower dates from the 15th century, but most likely replaced an earlier building on the same spot. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in the 17th century the cell was adapted as a resting place for members of the Nugent family, Earls of Westmeath. , In 1867 a descendant, Lady Rosa Greville, commissioned Pugin & Ashlin to design an extension to the building to create a small chancel, the work being executed by Sibthorpe & Son of Dublin.


The Bells, The Bells


Earlier this month, one of Cork city’s best-known landmarks celebrated the tercentenary of its construction. Located high above the river Lee and immediately west of Skiddy’s Almshouses (see Alms and the Man « The Irish Aesthete) St Anne’s church dates from 1722 when it was constructed close to the site of an earlier place of worship, St Mary’s, which had been severely damaged in 1690 when Cork was besieged by Williamite forces under the authority of John Churchill, future first Duke of Marlborough. The exterior of the building is rather plain, using a mixture of red sandstone rubble that seemingly came from the mediaeval Shandon Castle which stood nearby, and cut limestone for quoins and the round-arched window surrounds taken from a former Franciscan friary elsewhere in the city. The most notable external feature is the substantial entrance doorcase, approached via two flights of stone steps and comprising a round-arched doorway flanked by Tuscan pilasters supporting a very substantial entablature. 





The interior of St Anne’s underwent an extensive refurbishment in the last decade of the 19th century when the pine barrel-vaulted ceiling was installed and much of the chancel panelled in the same dark-stained wood. Either then or at some other date, the customary box pews were also removed from the nave although a version of them survives in the short north transept which also holds a monument incorporating a mosaic panel depicting St George and dedicated to members of the parish who had died during the First World War. Supported on Ionic columns, a gallery at the west end remains from the original design, as do the barley-twist balusters of the communion rail, but the stained glass is predominantly late-Victorian, as are the pulpit and desk, both carved from Devonshire stone. 





As mentioned, St Anne’s best-known feature is its bell tower, a sturdy piece of work rising 120 feet with walls seven feet thick: energetic visitors can climb 132 steps to reach this point, which offers spectacular views across the city and surrounding suburbs. In 1749-50, the tower was raised a further 50 feet by the addition of three diminishing stages, clad in limestone and with clasping pilasters in Tuscan, Doric and Ionic orders successively, the whole crowned with a lead dome with a gilded weathervane in the form of a salmon: in Cork parlance, this is known as ‘the goldie fish.’ The city corporation was responsible in 1847 for adding a clock face to each side of the tower. Again, locals have called this the ‘four-faced liar’ since the time on each clock does not always correspond with that of its immediate neighbours. The eight bells within the tower are much loved by Corkonians; they were cast in Gloucester in 1750 and installed two years later, ringing for the first time on 7th December 1752 to mark the marriage of Henry Harding to Catherine Dornan. Each bell carries a different graceful inscription, such as ‘When us you ring we’ll  sweetly sing’ and ‘Prosperity to the city and trade thereof’. Shandon’s Bells are synonymous with the city, but a decision not to ring them was taken two years ago at the start of the Covid pandemic, and they have not been heard since. The people of Cork will know normality has returned when the bells of St Anne’s ring out once more.

Pocket Gothick


A pocket Gothick house on Castle Road, forming the upper portion of O’Mahoney Avenue in Bandon, County Cork. This is one of a six such properties located immediately outside the demesne wall of Castle Bernard, former home of the Earls of Bandon, which was burnt out in June 1921 (see A-Bandon « The Irish Aesthete). Originally a classical house, around 1815 Castle Bernard was given a gothic makeover by an unknown architect, and these two-storey cottages. of rough cast stone with ornamental brick surrounds on the door and windows, were presumably built at some date thereafter to reflect that style; the architect responsible is unknown, and it seems impossible to find any further information about them. While some are still occupied, others have sadly been allowed to fall into ruin.