Tag Archives: Georgian Architecture

And Speaking of Ruins



At Coola, a mile to the north of Kilbeggan, County Westmeath and beside the river Brosna stand the remains of a once very substantial corn mill complex. Seemingly, it was initially started c.1770 by the Fitzpatrick family, who also had another such enterprise not far away at Ballynagore. The property was sold in 1781 to the Connollys who greatly expanded both the business and the buildings: by 1790 more flour was being produced here than at any other mill in Westmeath, sending 4,693 tonnes to Dublin.  Further development occurred in the early decades of the 19th century when oatmeal and barley were also milled on the site. Although predominantly utilitarian in design, there are some decorative flourishes such as the brick crenellations on one five storey block, at the base of which is the shell of a cottage with arched door and windows and hooded mouldings. The mill remained in operation until the 1970s, since when it has fallen into its present condition.



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In the Gallery


‘Over the Supper Room is the Picture Gallery, of the same dimensions, containing many fine Paintings by the first masters, with other great Ornaments, chosen and displayed with great elegance; the Ceiling is arched, and highly enriched and painted, from designs by Mr WYATT. The most distinguished Pictures are, a Student drawing from a Bust by REMBRANDT; the Rape of Europa by CLAUDE LORRAINE; the Triumph of Amphitrite, by LUCCA GIORDANO; two capital pictures of Rubens and his two Wives, by VAN DYCK; Dogs killing a Stag; a fine Picture of Saint Catharine; a Landscape by Barratt; with many others. In a bow in the middle of one side, is a marble Statue, an Adonis, executed by PONCET; a fine bust of Niobe, and of Apollo, are placed on each side. In the Windows of the Bow, are some specimens of modern stained Glass, by Jervis.’
James Malton, c.1795





Today occupied by Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann (the two houses of Ireland’s parliament), Leinster House was originally commissioned in 1745 by James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, and future first Duke of Leinster, as his Dublin townhouse, the largest and grandest such residence built in the city during the 18th century. Designed by Richard Castle, the house was intended to hold a picture gallery on the first floor, but this work was not undertaken before the architect’s death in 1751 and towards the end of that decade a second proposal for the room was produced by Isaac Ware. Based on a scheme published by Ware in Designs of Inigo Jones and others (1731), this was likewise unexecuted. The gallery remained an empty shell until 1775 when the second Duke of Leinster commissioned fresh designs from James Wyatt, and these are what can still be seen today. In that year, the duke married Emilia Olivia St George, only daughter and heiress of Usher St George, first Baron St George. The new duchess brought a substantial art collection with her, and the need to have a space in which these could be shown to best advantage gave a certain urgency to the matter. As executed, Wyatt’s proposals included inserting additional windows into the north side of an existing bow window (above which is a shallow half-dome) and dividing the shallow elliptical vault into three sections, all of which are decorated with elaborate neo-classical plasterwork. As described by Professor Christine Casey, the ceiling’s centre holds a chamfered octagon within a square and at each end a diaper within a square, each flanked by broad figurative lunette panels at the base of the coving and bracketed by husk garlands and garlands of leafy ovals. Between are ribs with attenuated tripods, urns and arabesque finials.’ The scheme’s coherence is illustrated by the inclusion of a pair of white marble chimneypieces with high-relief female figures on the uprights and putti marking the division between beaded spandrels enclosing urns and griffins, and then similar motifs being employed in pewter and gesso on the doors.





Following the Act of Union in 1800 and the death of the second duke four years later, Leinster House was scarcely used by the family and so in 1815 the third duke sold the property to the Dublin Society (later Royal Dublin Society). Many of the picture gallery’s contents were moved to the family’s country house, Carton House, County Kildare where alterations to accommodate the collection were made by Richard Morrison; many of the artworks were subsequently sold as the fortunes of the FitzGerald family declined in the last century. Meanwhile, the Dublin Society converted the room in which they were once displayed into a library, Francis Johnston inserting a gallery above the line of the window heads, although this was removed in the late 19th century. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Dail was housed – temporarily, it was thought – in the RDS’s lecture theatre, a large hall which had been completed a quarter century earlier. In 1924, the society sold the entire property to the government for £68,000 and moved permanently to the site it still occupies in Ballsbridge. Leinster House’s former picture gallery was then adapted with virtually no structural alterations to accommodate the Seanad, which it has continued to do ever since.


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Commemorating the Living



Rather unusually, this monument was erected while the person to whom it paid honour was still very much alive. In 1829, the Barrington family decided to put up a free-standing limestone column in Limerick city celebrating its popular MP, Thomas Spring Rice, future first Lord Monteagle (he would only die in 1866). On a plain limestone ashlar cylindrical base approached by three steps, the fluted Doric column designed by Henry Aaron Baker carries a statue carved by Thomas KIrk (also responsible for the figure of Admiral Nelson that once stood atop his own column in Dublin) showing the subject dressed in robes and looking towards a terrace of six houses, the only part of the scheme for a splendid square in this part of Limerick that was completed as intended in the 1830s.



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Disrobed



Tucked away in an eastern corner of a garden behind the former bishop’s palace in Kilkenny is this charming little pavilion. Its construction is attributed to the writer and antiquarian Richard Pococke who lived in the main house 1756-65 while serving as Bishop of Ossory (although some sources attribute it to Charles Este, who held the same office 1735-40, and then went on to commission a new episcopal palace in Waterford). Inside the single room pavilion is a chimneypiece flanked by arched plaster recesses, the walls on either side panelled in wood. A door on the south side formerly opened into a Doric colonnade which in turn led to a door in the north transept of St Canice’s Cathedral, thereby allowing the prelate to move from one building to the other without stepping outdoors: in the early 19th century, architectural purists decried the colonnade as being out of keeping with the medieval site and it was removed. As for the pavilion, it has long been called the Robing Room, suggesting this was where the bishop donned the appropriate garments before taking a service in the cathedral. More likely it was simply intended to be a summerhouse and indeed this was how the building was described by a later Bishop of Ossory, William Newcome who in 17775 wrote that it was ‘of a very good size with a fireplace, fit for drinking tea or a glass of wine.’ The Robing Room underwent restoration some 20 years ago when the palace, vacated by the Church of Ireland, was being prepared for its current occupant, the Irish Heritage Council.  


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Taken to Court



After Monday’s exploration of Kilmainham Gaol, here is its immediate neighbour, the neo-classical ‘Sessions House’ designed by William Farrell and opened in 1820. Faced in granite, the main entrance is of two storeys and has a pedimented three-bay breakfront with arched windows on the first floor. Below, the rusticated ground floor has blind doors flanking the entrance, while on either side are single-bay outer bays with tripartite windows on the first-floor and blind equivalents below them. Inside the building, the rear section is given over to a double-height, galleried courtroom with Diocletian window above the judge’s bench. To the front is a similarly double-height entrance hall lit by the aforementioned three arched windows on the facade. 


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Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch’intrate



One of the most visited sites in Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol is today primarily known for being the place where in May 1916 fourteen key figures in the Easter Rising were executed by firing squad. Yet this was only one incident in the building’s history, which goes back to the late 18th century when ideas of prison reform and the provision of better accommodation for convicted criminals led to the construction of the gaol in Kilmainham. It replaced an earlier prison a little further to the east in an area called Mount Brown: a parliamentary report on this premises in 1782 noted that not only was the building ‘extremely insecure, and in an unwholesome bad situation with narrow cells sunk underground, with no hospital’ but in addition, ‘Spirits and all sorts of liquors were constantly served to the prisoners who were in a continual state of intoxication.’ The ‘New Gaol’ as it was initially known, was intended to improve conditions for prisoners, with single cells and the opportunity of exercise in open yards. 





As opened in 1796, Kilmainham Gaol was designed by Sir John Trail, an engineer thought to have come to this country from Scotland and employed first by Dublin Corporation and then by the Grand Canal Company to work on the completion of this project and bring fresh water to the city. Although dismissed in 1777 after the standard of work on the project was found to be defective and the expenditure to have exceeded estimates (a not-unfamiliar tale in Ireland), Trail continued to flourish and, as engineer to the Revenue Commissioners, was responsible for designing twin octagonal lighthouses on Wicklow Head in 1781. The following year he was appointed high sheriff of Co Dublin and later knighted. In 1787, he was given the task of coming up with the design for a new gaol, which by the time of its completion almost a decade later, had cost the Grand Jury of County Dublin some £22,000. At the time, both the gaol and its surroundings looked very different from the way they do today. Built on a rise above the river Liffey known as Gallows Hill, it was then surrounded by open fields, the intention being that fresh air would be able to circulate through the prison. As first constructed, the building looked somewhat different from what can be seen today. Facing north, Trail’s facade was centred on a three-bay breakfront with long wings running back on either side to create a U-shaped prison. Each of the wings held cells while the main block was used by the gaolers. Enclosed behind high stone walls, a series of yards to the rear were used for exercise or various activities. The main entrance was at the front, incorporating vermiculated stone work and a number of writhing forms: what precisely they represent – snakes? dragons? a hydra? – and who was responsible for this carving remains unknown. Directly above it was an opening with a gallows and this was where public hangings took place: the last such event occurred in 1865. 





Within a matter of just a few decades, Kilmainham Gaol had proven to provide insufficient space for the numbers of prisoners being sent there and in 1840 a block of thirty cells was added to the west wing. However, the onset of the Great Famine led to a further rise in admissions (being in gaol which provided accommodation and food, no matter how inadequate either, was preferable to starving on the streets), and in 1857 an architectural competition was held for enlarging and remodelling the building. The eventual winner was John McCurdy, now best-remembered for having also designed the Shelbourne Hotel a few years later. At Kilmainham, McCurdy oversaw the demolition of the east wing and its replacement with a new three storey over basement, bow-ended block. Inspired by the 18th century social reformer Jeremy Bentham’s ideas for a Panopticon prison, the ninety-six cells here ran around a central glazed atrium, making it easier for warders to see what was going on while also offering a light and airy space within the prison. At the front of the building, two bow-fronted wings were added, thereby creating a courtyard: that to the east held the prison governor’s apartments, and that to the west the Stonebreakers’ Yard (which is where the 1916 executions took place). Ironically, towards the end of the 19th century, the number of criminals being jailed declined, and as a result, the official Prisons Board decided to close some gaols, including Kilmainham, which closed in 1911. Three years later, with the outbreak of the First World War, it found a new use as a military billet for new army recruits, and as a military detention centre. In the aftermath of the failed Easter Rising, as already mentioned, 14 key figures, half of whom had been signatories of the Proclamation of the Republic, were brought to Kilmainham Gaol and there executed. With the onset of the War of Independence, the buildings were once more used by the British government to house Republican prisoners and then, with the subsequent Civil War, it was likewise employed by the Free State authorities to imprison and sentence their Anti-Treaty opponents, several of whom were executed. In 1924, with the Civil War at an end, the gaol was emptied of prisoners, an official closing order being issued in 1929, after which it was left to moulder. By the 1950s, large sections of the site were in a ruinous condition but then a voluntary group, the Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Society, boldly took the initiative to rescue the building, with work beginning in 1960 and being sufficiently complete to open to the public in April 1966, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. In 1986, the property was transferred to state care and has since been the responsibility of the Office of Public Works



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Pathetic Residue




A gate lodge, almost all that remains of Ballywilliam, a former estate in County Limerick owned by the Maunsell family from the mid-18th century onwards. The main house here has long gone but this pathetic residue serves as a memory of what was once here. In his guide to the lodges of Munster, J.A.K. Dean ascribes the building’s design to Charles Frederick Anderson, and suggests a date after 1824 when Ballywilliam was inherited by George Meares Maunsell. A wonderful example of neo-classical design, the building has a pedimented breakfront supported by Doric columns, all in crisp cut limestone. Flanked by a curtain wall, pedimented projections extend the single-storey lodge to accommodate three rooms, that in the centre having a brick-vaulted ceiling, the floor below now covered in detritus.




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At Peace


The Echlin family has been mentioned here before (see Lost Heritage « The Irish Aesthete). The first of them to settle in Ireland was Robert Echlin, a Scots-born clergyman who in 1612 was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor by James I. His great-grandson Henry Echlin, a judge and bibliophile, was created a baronet four years prior to his death in 1725. The family continued to thrive for a period, but already before the end of the 18th century, much of their fortune had been dissipated and by the time the third baronet died in 1799 without a direct male heir, not a great deal remained. Nevertheless, in circumstances reminiscent of Bleak House’s Jarndyce V Jarndyce, in 1827 the fourth baronet, Sir James Echlin became involved in a complex legal dispute. By the time the matter eventually concluded in 1850, Sir James was dead and legal fees had swallowed up all the money. As Sir Bernard Burke noted in Vicissitudes of Families, Volume II (1869), ‘the litigation went on year after year; the lawyers enjoyed it amazingly; they chuckled and punned, and cracked jokes about it. To them it was food and raiment; to the Echlin family, death and destitution.’ Sir Bernard went on to quote a letter written in June 1860 by the Rector of Carbury, County Kildare concerning the fifth baronet, Sir Frederick Echlin, who lived in the parish: ‘Sir Frederick can neither read nor write, and his brother is also quite an illiterate and uneducated man…He is now upwards of seventy, and utterly destitute, his only means of support being two shillings and sixpence a week, which I allow him out of our collection for the poor, together with occasional donations from Christian persons in this neighbourhood, and contributions which I get for him from my friends’ Since he was unmarried, the baronetcy passed to his younger brother Fenton, who also lived in County Kildare, ‘deriving his only support from contributions from his sons, very deserving young men, one a Policeman, another a private in the Life Guards, and the third a Footman.’ The policeman, a sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary and based in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, in due course became Sir Thomas Echlin, seventh baronet. Aside from the title, he inherited little  other than some family memorabilia, including a number of portraits, an oak box containing parchments, records, and deeds to the former estates and a sword used by Lieutenant General Robert Echlin at the Battle of the Boyne. The last of the baronets, Sir Norman Echlin, died on the Isle of Wight in April 2007. 





Not all members of the Echlin family suffered such serious reversals of fortune. In December 1804 Anne Echlin, described as a spinster and living in a house on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin died and left a will indicating that she owned property in County Galway, ‘estates in the North of Ireland’ and an estate in County Carlow. While the Galway and Northern Irish estates went to two cousins, Dublin barrister George Vesey and the Rev. George Vesey, the Carlow land was bequeathed to Robert Marshall and then to his wife Frances Marshall, a sister of the Rev George Vesey. The Veseys were cousins of Anne Echlin, her grandmother Frances Vesey having married Robert Echlin. However the Marshalls did not receive their inheritance outright since the will specified, ‘I have let to my friend Clement Wolsely, Esq., the house and demesne of Sandbrook, part of said Carlow estate, consisting of 165 acres for 61 years at the annual rent of 40/- by the acre, which agreement is to be confirmed.’ Just a few years later, in 1808 the Marshalls sold the entire property formerly owned by Anne Echlin, running to some 500 acres and including Sandbrook, for £488. The new owner was Robert Browne of nearby Browne’s Hill (see Escaping the Wreckers’ Ball « The Irish Aesthete) and while the Wolseleys continued to own and occupy Sandbrook until at least the middle of the 19th century, by 1888 it was occupied by Robert Clayton Browne. However, early in the 20th century, it belonged to an army man, Colonel (later Brigadier General) Bridges George Lewis before becoming home to Brigadier Arthur George Rolleston. In 1960 he sold the house and 85 acres to John and Mary Allnatt. Sandbrook was then inherited by Mrs Allnatt’s son before being bought in 1997 by the present owner, Christopher Bielenberg, who now lives there with his wife, interior designer Arabella Huddart.  





From the exterior, Sandbrook looks like a larger house than proves to be the case, the main body of the building being just one room deep. This suggests an early date of construction, likely during the first quarter of the 18th century when the building was only of five bays and two storeys over basement, a further two bays being added at either side in the 19th century, perhaps when owned and occupied by the Brownes. The central breakfront bay is delineated by quoins and features a pediment incorporating an oculus. Below, the simple granite doorcase (its more substantial lintel again being a later insertion) gives access to the panelled entrance hall with fluted Ionic pilasters and doors with shouldered architraves. A gable-ended extension to the rear accommodates the staircase with shallow treads and fluted balusters.  The reception rooms opening on either side of the hall are more simply designed, although they all have fine chimneypieces of various dates. As seen today, Sandbrook, which is available for hire for the likes of family gatherings or weddings, is relaxed, comfortable and peaceful. Hard to believe that it might ever have been associated, however tangentially, with the turmoil of the Echlin family.


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Remembrance of Things Past



Recently going through the ever-expanding collection of photographs, the Irish Aesthete came across a cache, taken some years ago and showing Drummin, County Kildare. Until his death five years ago, this house was home to the hospitable Grattan de Courcy Wheeler, whose many lunches and dinners, prepared by an ever-loyal housekeeper Mary, were renowned for their length and liveliness. Grattan was a throwback to the kind of 18th century landed gentleman described with various degrees of delight and disapproval by the likes of Sir Jonah Barrington, Arthur Young and many others. Drummin too seemed to belong to an earlier age, certainly many modern comforts were not to be found there but that rarely deterred guests from accepting an invitation to visit and, if the evening went on too late (and the claret was poured too liberally), to stay overnight. 





Its name derived from the Irish Droim Mín, meaning ‘Little Ridge of a Hill’, Drummin dates from the mid-18th century, a lease for some 580 acres of land here being taken out in 1746 by the Rev Richard Grattan: in 1840 this lease would be renewed for three lives by his grandson Dr Richard Grattan. The Grattans of Drummin were related to Ireland’s famous parliamentary patriot, Henry Grattan, both branches seemingly descended from the Rev Patrick Grattan of Belcamp, County Dublin: two of the Rev Patrick’s sons, Robert and John, also both clergymen, were executors of the will of Jonathan Swift, a family friend. As for Drummin, the original house was of two storeys over basement and with a rendered facade of three bays (five bays to the garden front). It is thought that the centre breakfront originally contained the main entrance to the building (where an arched window is now) but in the 19th century single bay extensions were added to either side, that to the north containing a new entrance hall. According to legend, when the house was first being constructed, a curse was put on the place that no eldest son would succeed his father, and indeed this is what came to pass while the Grattans owned the property. The aforementioned Dr Richard Grattan, a distinguished Dublin physician, had two sons, one of whom died at the age of 15, the other at the age of 22. Drummin was therefore inherited by the doctor’s daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, and, following the former’s death, the house and estate, which by then ran to 2,000 acres, passed to Robert ‘Diamond’ de Courcy Wheeler, a doctor who served as Chief Medical Officer to the British army in Malta during the First World War. 





Robert de Courcy Wheeler does not appear to have spent too much time in Drummin, living for many years in south Dublin. In 1939 the property was inherited by his son, Cecil de Courcy Wheeler who, when the Land Commission broke up the old estate, established a successful mushroom growing business on what land he still retained. In due course, Drummin passed to his son, Grattan and following the latter’s retirement from many years working in banking in England and the United States, he settled in the house and, as already mentioned, embarked on some two decades of entertaining his wide circle of friends. Little was done to the place, with rooms always rather higgledy-piggledy and heating something of a rarity: on winter nights, guests could be found jostling for a place in front of the drawing room fire. Some time after Grattan de Courcy’s death, Drummin was sold. Now in new ownership, no doubt it will undergo some changes and necessary improvements. But these pictures are a souvenir of how it used to look, a remembrance of things past.



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Something of a Mystery



Occupying a prominent site on Main Street in Eyrecourt, County Galway, this curious building is now known as St Martin’s but, one suspects, formerly had another name. The house may date from the 17th century but was given much of its present appearance in the 18th, likely when the present three-bay, two storey-over-basement central block was constructed, perhaps as a dower house for the main Eyrecourt House, the ruins of which lie not far away to the north-east (see Bring It Home « The Irish Aesthete). The half-bow to the immediate right is something of a mystery (on two occasions, the Irish Aesthete has been unable to explore the interior): it then extends further before running down to the rear and leading to a series of walled enclosures. The two-storey flat roofed extension to the left may be easier to explain: in the 1820s the house was occupied by a wealthy local man, Christopher Martin, who provided much of the funds for the adjacent Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Brendan. Seemingly, a first-floor passageway provided a direct link to a balcony at the rear of the church. For some time in the last century, the house served as a presbytery for the parish priest, its name St Martin’s perhaps a tribute to St Brendan’s patron. The gryphons perched atop columns at the base of the steps are particularly fine, although whether they are original to the site is open to question.



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