The Irish Aesthete Recommends V

Oct5

A photograph of Dromore Castle, County Limerick built in the late 1860s for William Pery, third Earl of Limerick to the designs of Edward William Godwin (also responsible for James Whistler’s ‘aesthetic’ house on Tite Street, London). On a hill overlooking a lake and with views across the Shannon to County Clare, the castle looked ravishing but suffered from chronic damp (seemingly paint never stayed long on the walls) and was not occupied by the Perys for more than a few decades. The family sold Dromore in 1939 and since the middle of the last century it has grown steadily more ruinous: the roof was removed in the 1950s in order to avoid paying tax on the building. Today it can still be seen, a striking sight some twelve miles west of Limerick city.
Dating from around 1920 this photograph was taken by Franz S. Haselbeck, the son of German emigrants who had settled in Limerick in the early 1900s. Haselbeck was a professional photographer who lived and worked in the area until his death in 1973 and now a book of his images has been published by The Collins Press. With an introduction by his granddaughter who has been responsible for preserving the material, Franz S. Haselbeck’s Ireland includes pictures spanning the entire course of his long career, and shows scenes of a world which has since disappeared, many of them taken in the years before Independence. What makes the work especially fascinating are the photographs of buildings which subsequently fell into serious disrepair, not just Dromore but also Mount Shannon House in Castleconnell, immediately east of Limerick city. Acquired and greatly enlarged in the late 18th century by John FitzGibbon, first Earl of Clare (notoriously one of the most hated men of his generation), the house and its contents were sold by the family in the 1880s when they had run through all their money. After changing hands on a couple of occasions, it was burnt out in 1920 during the Troubles, so the picture below, which shows the rear of the building with its fine conservatory intact, must have been taken before that date. There are many other such photographs in the book, not all of them featuring country houses but all meriting close study.

Splendours and Follies

Sep30

Driving along a minor road in south County Kildare, one’s eye is caught by the sight of ruins rising high above a field of maize. These roofless blocks were once the stables attached to and now all that remain of Belan, seat of the Stratford family, Earls of Aldborough. That Belan was once rather splendid cannot be doubted: in 1786 George Powell who was related to the family through marriage, wrote ‘The Mansion House of Belan is most Magnificent as is also the Demesne thereto, containing 12 porters Lodges Erected by the present Earl at the six Approaches, who hath also added thereto a Fruitery, Green, Hot and Tea Houses, a Square of Offices, a Chappel & a Theatre & Expended near £8000 on the Estate…’
Almost all of this is now gone, and the only evidence of Belan’s former resplendence are the aforementioned stables, the shell of an octagonal tea house, a few obelisks and a small domed temple. For once, however, decline and fall occurred not during the last century but earlier and while members of the Stratford family were still, if only nominally, great landowners.

Originally from Warwickshire, the Stratfords seem to have settled in Ireland about the time of Charles II’s restoration in 1660. Within a few years Robert Stratford had acquired land around Baltinglass, County Wicklow and thereafter their rise was assured, not least through the ability to return two members to the Irish House of Commons. By 1690 they already owned property at Belan, since in July of that year Edward Stratford found himself successively entertaining the two rival Kings James and William, his personal sympathies lying with the latter. As William ultimately proved the victor, the Stratfords’ political and financial status was further strengthened. Edward Stratford’s third son John (who was made first Earl of Aldborough shortly before he died in 1777) inherited Belan around 1740 and soon afterwards commenced either to build anew or to enlarge his residence there. The architects for this property are held to have been Richard Castle and Francis Bindon.
We cannot say for certain what the house looked like since paintings in which it features by William Ashford (from which the engraving at the top of this piece is taken) and Francis Wheatley (see the very last picture, showing the second Earl reviewing the Aldborough Volunteers at Belan) display differences that suggest to some extent they reflected the owner’s aspirations for the building rather than its actual appearance. Nevertheless we do know the main block, large and plain, was 120 feet long and 44 feet deep, of three storeys with a gabled attic and projecting end bays. To its right were the pair of parallel stable blocks that still survive (albeit in ruinous state), the first of them linked to the house by a curved portico.

Here are some extracts from the delightful reminiscences of Georgina Sartoris (née Lyster) published in the Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society in January 1908 during which she recalls visiting Belan as a little girl in the 1830s:…’a fine stone mansion, a magnificent flight of granite steps, with two stone vases at the top, led to the entrance door. Though uninhabited for fully ten years, the house was in perfect repair, no trace of damp or decay and to all appearance, might have been lived in a week before. I have not a distinct recollection of all the rooms; but the dining room is fresh in my memory, also the saloon, and his late lordship’s bedroom. The dining room, not very large was panelled, family portraits being set in the panelling. I was too young to care much about them, but feel sure they were all of men. Had there been lovely ladies or pretty children amongst them, I should have remembered them. The saloon was lovely, with a polished floor of narrow oak boards…. on one occasion (why I know not) my sister and myself occupied his late lordship’s bedroom, very comfortable it was of moderate size, the fireplace like those of the other bedrooms surrounded with the prettiest tiles I have ever seen, the ground white with pink and blue landscapes, figures and flowers on it; a fine four post mahogany bedstead, Indian chintz curtains, some Chippendale chairs, and a wardrobe are all I remember of its furniture…The grounds of Belan were very beautiful, and of considerable extent. On one side though not seen from the house, were the celebrated fish ponds (not that in my time there was a fish in them), large and deep, the trees around them giving them a secluded and fascinating look. Here, on hot summers’ evenings, we used to sit and watch the dragon flies. I had never seen dragonflies before, and could not associate them with flies – I could only think of them as tiny winged spirits, whispering messages from afar to the reeds and irises which grew at the water’s edge. The gardens were at some distance from the house, and were large and walled in. I do not think I was often in them. What struck me most was the enormous quantity of lily of the valley. I have never seen anything like it elsewhere and its scent lingers with me still…’

The fall of the house of Stratford was as spectacular as its rise. The second Earl, a man of great energy, not only greatly improved the house and demesne at Belan but was also responsible for developing Stratford Place in London and for building the immense (and now sadly dilapidated) Aldborough House in Dublin in the years preceding his death in 1801. Although twice married, he had no children and so a younger brother inherited. The last member of the family to live at Belan, he was likewise childless meaning everything passed to another brother, the fourth Earl who preferred to occupy a house elsewhere on the estate, Stratford Lodge (subsequently destroyed by fire) and who abandoned Belan to an agent more interested in helping himself than in looking after his employer’s property. The next heir, Mason Gerard Stratford, fifth Earl was a hopeless spendthrift who, when short of funds, would visit London money lenders with a gun and threaten to shoot himself if they did not give him cash. He was also a bigamist, possibly even a trigamist, and on his death the eldest son from one of these marriages had trouble claiming a right to the title and what remained of the family property. Sixth and final Earl of Aldborough, he died without heirs in 1875.
By that date Belan was already in poor condition and some thirty years later Mrs Sartoris, who remembered the house intact, could write that ‘Beautiful Belan lies in ruins, the wind blowing where it listheth, sighs over the desolate grounds and gardens once so beautiful, a herd lives in the yard, sole occupant of that once lovely demesne.’ As late as the 1940s the main walls of the house still stood, but this shell was subsequently swept away. Today only the remnants of the stables survive to remind us of what once stood on this site and to serve as a warning that nothing is eternal.

Majestic Though in Ruin

Sep9

On August 29th last, the Irish Times reported that the portico of a small 18th century lodge in County Kilkenny had collapsed. Not, one might reasonably think, a matter of great import, certainly not as momentous as the disintegration of other buildings reported by the Irish Aesthete over the past year. But this is to ignore the architectural significance of the structure in question, and what its neglect over the past decade says about our failure to care for the built heritage.
The temple or columnar lodge stands within the grounds of Belline, an estate not far from Piltown. In the second half of the 18th century Belline was occupied by Peter Walsh (d. 1819), whose family appear to have been agents for the Ponsonbys, Earls of Bessborough whose Irish seat Bessborough House was in the same part of the country. Walsh may well have been a tenant of the Ponsonbys; it is known that Lady Caroline Lamb, daughter of the third Lord Bessborough, stayed at Belline with her husband William (the future Lord Melbourne and future Prime Minister at the time of Queen Victoria’s accession) in September 1812 in the aftermath of her highly-publicised affair with Lord Byron.
Whatever Peter Walsh’s precise status, he was regarded in Ireland as an improving landholder, much given to agricultural improvements and to bettering the circumstances of less-fortunate residents in the region. Of particular relevance to the subject under consideration here is the fact that he was also an ardent antiquarian, commissioning and collecting architectural drawings of Ireland’s ancient monuments, and keen to preserve the relics of our history, some of which have since passed into national collections. Both during his lifetime and after his death Walsh was held in high regard; James Norris Brewer in his Beauties of Ireland (1825) declared ‘we are well convinced that every reader, to whom he was known, will join in the warmth of our admiration and the sincerity of our regret; so general was the esteem created by his unassuming virtues!’

Dating from around 1770, Belline House was built by Peter Walsh who then went on to construct a number of other splendid edifices in the surrounding grounds, the majority of which survive to the present day. These included a detached gallery, known as the ‘Drawing School’ since according to Brewer, it ‘was constituted as a sort of academy for students by the active liberality of the late Mr Walsh…several children of the peasantry in this neighbourhood have lately evinced a considerable degree of genius for drawing. Such as were of greatest promise, Mr. Walsh took under his immediate protection, and supported in the pursuit of the art to which they aspired.’ Then there was ‘a most admirable pattern for a farm house; it is an octagon of two stories, inclosing a yard in the centre; below is a dairy, a residence for the dairy-man, cow-house, stable, and other offices, above is a loft for corn, extended over the whole building.’ And in addition there is a pair of circular pavilions behind Belline House, each three storeys high, the top floors serving as pigeon houses, and a pair of octagonal stone gate lodges (one still standing) at the southern entrance to the demesne.
Finally we come to the smallest but perhaps most remarkable of Peter Walsh’s buildings: the temple lodge. Comprising portico, front room and two rear chambers, its precise date of construction and purpose are unclear; standing in the midst of the estate and not beside an entrance it was unlikely to have been a gate lodge but might have been intended as a summer pavilion or model dairy. But what is most important is that Belline’s temple lodge has been judged the earliest known example in Britain and Ireland of the 18th century ‘rustic hut’ inspired by theories on the origins of man-made structures expounded first in 1753 by the French Jesuit and philosopher Marc-Antoine Laugier in his Essai sur l’architecture (translated into English in 1755) and then by Sir William Chambers in A Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture (1759). In fact it has sometimes been proposed that the Belline lodge was designed by Chambers since it shares similarities with a drawing he made in 1759 for just such a building. The identity of the architect responsible may never be known but we can be confident that the Belline lodge is an important expression of the 18th century’s interest in exploring the past, and that its composition reflects the ideas proposed by Laugier and Chambers. Hence the building is intentionally ‘primitive’ incorporating tree trunks bound with ropework on every side and a pedimented portico to the front below the gabled roof that extends beyond the walls to end in stone blocks.

By the mid-19th century Belline had reverted to the Bessboroughs and remained in their ownership until 1934 after which the estate changed hands a number of times until being bought ten years ago for €3 million by businessman James Coleman. Managing director of a company called Suirway Forklifts based in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary Mr Coleman has in the past declared himself a passionate enthusiast of motor rallying and indeed his business has sponsored a number of events for this sport. On the other hand, he seems less keen to support and sustain the national heritage, since over the past decade Belline’s temple lodge has fallen into such dilapidation that, as was reported by the Irish Times less than a fortnight ago, the building’s portico has now collapsed.
It is inconceivable that the lodge’s deteriorating condition was unknown to its owner: there have been two reports on the building and its importance, one compiled by architect John Redmill in 2005, the other by chartered surveyor Frank Keohane earlier this year. Furthermore the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage designated the lodge as being of architectural interest under the Categories of Special Interest. On the other hand as Frank Keohane noted in his report, to which I am much indebted, until now the lodge has not been designated a protected structure in its own right but rather ‘deemed to be protected owing to its being located within the cartilage of Belline House which is a protected structure.’ Clearly this has proven inadequate.
Keohane wisely makes the point that the lodge at Belline must be regarded as of international importance both in its own right and as part of a planned 18th century demesne in which diverse complementary elements contributed to the resultant whole. As he writes, ‘The temple lodge is not an artefact to be appreciated in isolation. It is in fact an important element in a group of related structures within the demesne.’ Destroy one of those related structures and you disrupt the entire picture: it is not unlike cutting a section out of a painting.
According to the Irish Times, John McCormack who is a Director of Services at Kilkenny County Council with responsibility for heritage said the authority had served a planning enforcement notice on Mr Coleman in May 2012 ‘for failing to undertake works to prevent this protected structure from becoming or continuing to be endangered.’ Legal proceedings commenced the following October and since then ‘there have been four separate court appearances in relation to this prosecution while the council sought to negotiate with the owner. A full hearing of the case is listed for October 7th next at Carrick-on-Suir District Court.’
One waits to see what will happen in four weeks’ time since not only is the survival of Belline’s temple lodge at stake but the forthcoming hearing represents something of a test case. If owners of protected structures can ignore their responsibilities with impunity, then still worse misfortunes lie ahead for our architectural heritage. The national patrimony is at risk in a way that would, one imagines, have appalled Peter Walsh.
The first two photographs show Belline’s temple lodge as it looked in the 19th century, note how at one time the building was thatched. The next three show the lodge in 2005, already with its slates removed from the roof, followed by another three photographs taken earlier this year. Finally below is a picture of the lodge as shown in the Irish Times with its portico in ruins.

Vanity of Vanities; All is Vanity

Sep2

Some buildings make better ruins than do others. But few look as splendid as Duckett’s Grove in County Carlow. Fantastically towered and turreted and castellated, the remains of this large house rise about the surrounding flat agricultural land, like some 19th century interpretation of a castle in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Originally at the centre of a 12,000 acre estate the core of the structure is older, probably dating from the early 1700s and taking the form of a regular three-storey over basement, five-bay residence. Precise information about this building does not exist, but one may assume it was built for one of the first Ducketts to settle in this part of the world, perhaps Thomas Duckett who came from Grayrigg in Westmoreland and bought land here in 1695. He had the sense to marry an heiress, as did several of his successors with the result that the family grew ever-more prosperous, with an average annual income of £10,000. This wealth allowed John Dawson Duckett to embark on a transformation of the old house from 1818 onwards.

For his architect, Duckett picked someone little known outside the immediate area, perhaps because he received so many commissions in County Carlow and its environs that he had no time to take on work further afield. This was Thomas Alfred Cobden, believed to have been born in Chichester in 1794. It is unknown how this young man came to be in Ireland, or how he came to be so much in demand in the Carlow/Wexford area where he designed churches (and even a cathedral) and public buildings as well as private houses, all in a variety of styles. But nothing else quite matches his work at Duckett’s Grove where, presumably at the request of the client, he let rip with almost every decorative motif available. The old house was smothered in a superfluity of turrets, crenellations, arches and niches, oriel windows and quatrefoil decoration before being further embellished with busts and urns and statuary, some of it attached to the building, some free-standing in the immediate grounds. Furthermore the structure was given what has been described as ‘wilful asymmetry’ through the addition of sundry towers, none of which correspond to the others in either shape or height. Further work was undertaken in the 1840s by another relatively obscure architect John Macduff Derick who designed the immense granite entrance gates to the estate as almost a castle in their own right. Given the style of this work, one wonders whether he was also responsible for the more rugged elements of Duckett’s Grove, those parts of the building (likewise in granite) which are Norman rather than High Gothic in inspiration?

The history of Duckett’s Grove in the 20th century was not a happy one. John Dawson Duckett’s son William inherited the estate on his father’s death and although twice married he had no children. When he in turn died in 1908 he left everything to his second wife, Marie who had a daughter from her own first marriage but likewise no other offspring. By 1916 Marie Duckett had moved out of the house and moved to Dublin where her late husband had bought her a place, and thereafter Duckett’s Grove was looked after by an agent. Because the family had been good landlords, always permitting access to the gardens (until 1902 when they felt their hospitality was being exploited by visitors) and looking after their workforce, Duckett’s Grove suffered no damage during the War of Independence. But already a lot of the estate had been parcelled off for sale to former tenants, and in 1923 Marie Duckett disposed of the contents of Duckett’s Grove in a three-day auction. Even before then she had sold the house and remaining 1,300 acres to a group of local farmers who together took out a £32,000 loan. However, they quarrelled over its division and failed to repay the bank, so eventually the Land Commission assumed responsibility and divided up the land between another 48 small holders. Duckett’s Grove and its immediate 11 acres were acquired by a Carlow businessman in 1931 for £320. He demolished some of the outbuildings (stone from these was used to construct a new Christian Brothers school in Carlow town) but had not yet decided what to do with the house when it was mysteriously gutted by fire in April 1933.

Marie Duckett does not appear to have been in any way troubled about the destruction of her late husband’s family home, perhaps because by this date she was already enmeshed in the delusions and squabbles that overwhelmed her last years (the story of her will, in which she effectively dispossessed her daughter, and of the court case after her death can easily be found elsewhere). For over seventy years Duckett’s Grove stood open to the elements and largely unprotected. Finally in 2005 Carlow County Council acquired the property and has since restored the old walled gardens, and installed various facilities in part of the old stables.
The main house remains a shell and frankly one wonders if in this instance that is not the best fate for the place. Duckett’s Grove, as overhauled in the 19th century, can never have been an object of much beauty. All that over-ornamentation, all those statues and busts and other decorative flourishes must have been somewhat excessive, redolent of the era’s likewise immoderately decorated interiors with their potted palms and red plush sofas and antimacassars. Stripped of the accretions Duckett’s Grove today possesses a grandeur that probably eluded it when still roofed and occupied. The line of towers on the skyline now has a greater dignity than was ever formerly the case. Duckett’s Grove was made to be a ruin, and as such it is rather splendid.

Ignorance is Never Better than Knowledge

Aug24

Earlier this week photographer James Fennell took a number of extraordinary pictures showing an old house at the entrance to the 18th century planned Quaker village of Ballitore, County Kildare being enveloped within a new structure; once the latter is complete, the old house will be demolished. The company responsible for this undertaking is Glanbia plc which grandiloquently describes itself as ‘a global nutritional solutions and cheese group’ and which on Wednesday announced a 13 per cent rise in revenue to €1.68 billion in the first half of 2013. Glanbia already has a plant in Ballitore and last year applied for planning permission to extend the premises, which involved the demolition of the house, referred to in the application as a ‘two storey office building’ thereby conveniently ignoring its history as part of a long-standing residential settlement.
Permission for this work to proceed was duly granted by Kildare County Council, after its conservation advisors advised that the structure had been so altered and refurbished that it ‘no longer retains any features of special significance’ and could accordingly ‘be deemed to be of little significance within the architectural heritage of Kildare.’ Leaving aside the fact that the local authority permitted those alterations and refurbishments to take place, the approval also ignored the house’s importance within the overall framework of the village of Ballitore, a unique collection of houses that are each part of a greater whole; damage one element and you damage the entire site and thereby irreparably alter its distinctive character. Glanbia is not some foreign entity (its origins lie in the Irish co-operative movement and it ought therefore to have a sense of community) so neither this organisation nor Kildare County Council can claim ignorance of the history of Ballitore. No doubt the inevitable economic arguments will be trotted out in justification for this act of cultural vandalism. Tourism is also an enormously important money-generating industry in Ireland: this is not Soviet Russia and tourists do not come here to look at factories. By assisting in the demolition of a fine old house and its replacement with a characterless monolith, the two bodies responsible will have inflicted damage on both the appearance of Ballitore and on the local economy.

No Room at the Inn

Aug21

Seen from a towpath on the opposite side of the Grand Canal, the old hotel at Robertstown, County Kildare retains its charm. Originally opened in 1801, this hostelry attracted so much business that within three years it had to be extended. But with the advent of railways came a decline in canal business and by 1869 the Royal Irish Constabulary had been granted a lease on the premises. In the last century the building was used for various purposes; from the mid-1960s onwards it was the centrepiece of an annual summer festival in which the Irish Georgian Society became involved. Famously on one occasion a demonstration was given by Desmond Leslie of water-skiing on the canal. What made his activity distinctive was that Leslie was pulled by a horse being ridden at speed along the bank. Now the hotel is empty and falling into dereliction (all window openings are filled with painted boards). A five-year old planning application attached to the main door proposes a four-storey, 44-bedroom extension and sundry other changes but that option now seems unlikely. Although listed as a protected structure, the future does not look good for this important vestige of Irish transport history.

Lost Horizon

Aug19

Travelling along Belfast’s Outer Ring Road through the the Newtownbreda area one passes signs for Belvoir Park. The picture above, dating from 1805 and painted by Vice Admiral Lord Mark Kerr, shows a house of that name. Today the name is almost all that remains of what was once the largest private residence in this part of the country. An keen amateur watercolourist of some ability Lord Mark, the third son of the 5th Marquess of Lothian, enjoyed a successful career in the Royal Navy until 1805. His connection with Ireland came through marriage in 1799 to Lady Charlotte McDonnell who would later become Countess of Antrim in her own right. During the early 1800s the Kerrs stayed at Belvoir Park, which belonged to Lady Charlotte’s half-brother and it was during this period that Lord Mark painted this picture along with another, both of which were in the collection of the Knight of Glin until sold at Christie’s in 2009.

There are earlier, and finer, views of Belvoir Park, the first of which is shown immediately above. This is one of four oils painted by the artist Jonathan Fisher (fl. 1763 – d. 1809) at the request of the house’s then-owner Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon. Fisher is believed to have been born in the 1740s and to have spent some time in England, first coming to attention here in 1763 when he was awarded a premium for a landscape by the Dublin Society (he would receive another five years later). He exhibited some 57 pictures with the Society of Artists in Ireland between 1765 and 1780, including the four views of Belvoir which were shown in the organisation’s premises on South William Street, Dublin (now the headquarters of the Irish Georgian Society, see Restoration Drama, July 15th). The pictures are highly significant because they show us the house from different aspects when it was newly completed and before alterations were made towards the close of the 18th century. They also offer us views of the landscape around Belfast before the city had much expanded and show how lovely this region looked prior to the onset of the industrial revolution (the last of the pictures at the end of this post offers Fisher’s bucolic view of the area as it would have been seen from the house).

Sir Moyses Hill was the first member of his family to settle in Ireland in the 1570s and it was his descendant Michael Hill who purchased for £2,000 the land on which stood Belvoir, then called Ballyenaghan, although the family’s main estate was at Hillsborough. Michael Hill’s wife Anne Trevor, subsequently married to Viscount Midleton, is reputed to have given the place its new name, in part owing to the view (‘Belle Vue’) and in part in recollection of Belvoir Castle, the Duke of Rutland’s seat in England where she had spent a large part of her childhood. Thanks to Lady Midleton, the property was inherited by her younger son Arthur who in 1766 was created Viscount Dungannon.
When Walter Harris published his survey of County Down in 1744 he described Belvoir as being ‘laid out lately in Taste; the Avenue is large and handsome, the Fruitery, from an irregular Glyn, is now disposed in regular Canals, with Cascades, Slopes and Terraces, and the Kitchin Ground inclosed with Espaliers, the best of the Gardens lying over the Lagan River, which is navigable to this Place. The Offices are finished, but the House not yet build.’ There does appear to have been a small residence on site but building work on something more splendid must have started soon afterwards. Even so when the indefatigable Mrs Delany came to stay in October 1758 she described it as a ‘charming place, a very good house, though not quite finished.’
Faced in brick, Belvoir Park’s main elevation looked north with views over the Lagan river and thence to the mountains beyond. This front was of seven bays, the three centre ones incorporating immense Ionic pilasters beneath a pediment with carved wooden mouldings. The entrance front faced west while the south side featured a canted bow. Belvoir Park is often attributed to Richard Castle, although if this were so it would have been a very late work since he died in 1751. He certainly designed the nearby Knockbreda Church for Lady Midleton (it can be seen to the left of the house in the first of Fisher’s pictures above). More recently the proposal has been made that a lesser known architect Christopher Myers was responsible for Belvoir Park.

Following the first Lord Dungannon’s death in 1771, title and property alike passed to a young grandson (his only son having predeceased him by a year). The second viscount appears to have lived and entertained lavishly and as a result further work was undertaken on the house, notably by the addition of a third attic storey which can be seen in Lord Mark Kerr’s watercolour. In the mid-1790s Lord Dungannon moved to his Welsh estate and Belvoir Park was left unoccupied except by the agent, and by the Kerrs for a period. Eventually the entire place was sold in 1809 and after passing through various hands was acquired in 1818 by Belfast banker and landowner Robert Bateson around the time he became a baronet. He did much to improve the Belvoir, as did his son Sir Thomas Bateson (later first Lord Deramore) who around 1865 commissioned Newry architect William Barre to carry out some alterations to the house, including balustrades around the roof parapet and a balustraded entrance porch. At that stage the estate ran to more than 6,000 acres but decline set in soon after Lord Deramore’s death in 1890. Belvoir was let to various tenants but by this time Belfast was fast expanding and the land on which house and grounds stood just a few miles from the city centre was wanted for housing. In the 1920s part of the estate became a golf course while it was suggested the house become a residence for the Governor of Northern Ireland (ironically the Hill family’s former principle property, Hillsborough Castle, was instead selected). During the Second World War the site was used by the Admiralty, but from 1950 onwards the buildings started to fall into ruin. The succession of photographs seen here show the building in 1961 shortly before it was blown up by members of the army; today only parts of the old yard remain. 185 acres of the former estate are a forest park but the rest of the land is given over to suburban housing. The loss of Belvoir Park must be judged a grievous one but thankfully the paintings of Jonathan Fisher survive as evidence of this once-fine house. Privately owned, the pictures have been loaned for inclusion in an exhibition on Irish landscape art currently running at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

An Irishman’s Home is His Tower House

Jun3

All across Ireland can be seen buildings commonly known as castles but which ought more correctly be called tower houses. The tower house is not exclusive to this country, similar structures being found along the Scottish Borders. However, the sheer quantity of these edifices make them one of the most distinctive features of the Irish landscape: it has been estimated that between 1400 and 1650 in the region of 3,000 tower houses were constructed.
A statute issued by Henry VI in 1429 declared, ‘It is agreed and asserted that every liege man of our Lord, the King of the said Counties, who chooses to build a Castle or Tower House sufficiently embattled or fortified, wither the next ten years to wit 20 feet in length, 16 feet in width and 40 feet in height or more, that the commons of the said Counties shall pay to the said person, to build the said Castle or Tower ten pounds by way of subsidy.’ It is often proposed that this piece of legislation, with its financial incentive, did much to encourage the popularity of tower houses, and also their uniformity of design.

There is some dispute whether the tower house’s primary purpose was defensive or residential; one suspects it varied according to geographic and political circumstances. Typically the building is rectangular and constructed of irregular stones, the walls in excess of four feet thick at base level and rising four or five storeys high. A single arch doorway offered admission with the large arched ground floor devoted to diverse purposes including storage of foodstuff and livestock. Above the entrance was an opening called the Murder Hole, through which boiling liquids or arrows could be directed in the event of an attack. Windows at this level were little more than slits although they were larger further up. The family lived on the tower’s top storeys, but levels of comfort were pretty minimal.
Various descriptions of life in a tower house have come down to us and none of them make it sound especially luxurious. For example the Spaniard Cuillar wrote in 1588 ‘The Irish have no furniture and sleep on the ground, on a bed of rushes, wet with rain and stiff with frost…’ Half a century later the French traveller, M. de la Bouillaye le Gouz observed ‘The castles of the nobility consist of four walls, extremely high and thatched with straw but to tell the truth, they are nothing but square towers without windows or at least having such small apertures as to give no more light than a prison. They have little furniture and cover their rooms with rushes, of which they make their beds in Summer and straw in Winter. They put rushes a foot deep on their floors and on their windows and many of them ornament their ceilings with branches.’

In many respects Kilbline Castle, County Kilkenny is a typical Irish tower house. Rising five storeys high, it has round bartizans or wall-mounted turrets at each corner of the east front and a slender chimney-stack between them. The surrounding bawn wall survives in part but some sections were demolished in the last century to permit the erection of modern farm sheds. Kilbline is usually dated to the 14th/15th centuries but a large limestone chimneypiece on the first floor carries the date 1580 so it is possible that was when the building was completed. On the other hand, there is reference to Kilbline Castle being forfeited by one Thomas Comerford of Ballymac in 1566 so perhaps the chimneypiece was inserted into the tower by its subsequent owner.
That person may have been a member of the Shortall family of Rathardmore Castle in the same county. Thomas Shortall of Rathardmore died in 1628 and not long after his heir Peter moved to the castle of Kilbline, where he subsequently lived. His estates, which ran to some 1,500 acres were declared forfeited by the Cromwellian government in 1653 and his sons ordered to be sent to Connaught, although one of them seems to have returned to Kilbline, perhaps after the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Nevertheless, Kilbline once more changed hands during this period.

Originally from Newcastle in Northumberland, William Candler is believed to have served as an officer in Oliver Cromwell’s army during the Irish wars of 1649-53. As a reward for his endeavours, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and granted lands in County Kilkenny, including those on which stands Kilbline Castle. He and his wife Anne Villiers had two sons, the younger of whom John is known to have lived at Kilbline. John Candler had a single son Thomas who, in turn, had only the one child, Walsingham; he never married and so that line of Candlers came to an end.
To return to Lt.Col. Candler, his older son Thomas who lived at Callan Castle had four sons, the youngest of whom Daniel caused a rumpus within the family by marrying an Irishwoman, possibly a Roman Catholic, called Hannah and as a result was obliged to leave first County Kilkenny and then Ireland. Around 1735 Daniel and Hannah Candler moved to the America Colonies, initially settling in North Carolina before they moved to Bedford, Virginia. Their great, great, great-grandson was Asa Griggs Candler, the entrepreneur who in 1888 bought the formula for Coca Cola and made himself fabulously rich as a result.

Kilbline Castle continued to be occupied until just a few decades ago. At some point, probably in the 19th century, a two storey three-bay house was added on the west end of the tower house and a further single storey structure abuts this. The interior of the house remains relatively intact and suggests a degree of affluence on the part of the occupants.
However, the most architecturally significant feature of Kilbline is a wonderful panelled room on the south-east corner of the ground floor. Most likely of oak (it was hard to tell with certainty) this looks to date from the late 17th or early 18th centuries and must therefore have been created while the building was occupied by the Candlers. Although the ceiling is now covered in tongue-and-groove boards, all the wall panelling is intact, as is the old chimneypiece (the latter marred only by a shelf added at some later date). This rare instance of early Irish interior decoration is some 300 years old and given that the house has been empty for some time it remains in remarkably good condition, as can be seen in the pictures above. The present owners, although they do not live in the building, are aware of its importance and would dearly love to restore Kilbline and ensure its future.

Killeen with Kindness

May25

A watercolour of Killeen Castle, County Meath, painted by Lady Emma Frances Plunkett (1826-1866), daughter of the ninth Earl of Fingall. The Plunketts are of Norman origin and established themselves in this part of Ireland at the end of the 14th century. The Earls of Fingall were notable for remaining Roman Catholic throughout the Penal era, unlike their neighbouring cousins, the Lords Dunsany who converted to Anglicanism. The picture is significant because it shows Killeen prior to extensive changes made to the structure from 1841 onwards by Lady Emma’s father, in other words it must have been painted while she was still an adolescent. At the age of 24 she married William Ince Anderton, member of an old Lancashire recusant family and together they embarked on the construction of a new chapel on his estate at Euxton Hall to the designs of Edward Welby Pugin; following Lady Emma’s death in 1866, a large stained glass window was installed in the chapel which shows her kneeling at the foot of the cross.
Killeen remained in the ownership of the Plunkett family until it was sold by the twelth and last Earl of Fingall in 1951. Thirty years later, after changing hands a couple of times more, the castle was gutted in an arson attack. It then stood ruinous until the estate was bought in 1997 by a development company which undertook to restore the building as centrepiece of a luxury hotel and spa. The rest of the same organisation’s scheme, including the inevitable championship golf course and series of commuter houses went ahead but of course the castle’s restoration stalled: when I visited some years ago, the roof had been repaired and concrete floors installed but little further work undertaken. Below is another watercolour by Lady Emma Plunkett, this one showing Dunsany Castle which happily remains intact and in the ownership of its original family. Both pictures, and three more by the same amateur artist, are included in an exhibition opening next week in Dublin’s Gorry Gallery (see http://www.gorrygallery.ie).

Of Wonderous Beauty Did the Vision Seem*

May13

Writing to a friend in September 1795, the English Romantic poet Anna Seward, known during her lifetime as the Swan of Lichfield, reported ‘I must not conclude my letter without observing, that, on my second visit to the fairy palace [Llangollen Vale], a lovely Being cast around its apartments the soft lunar rays of her congenial beauty. — Mrs. Tighe, the wife of one of my friend’s nephews, an elegant and intelligent young woman, whom I should have observed more had his wife’s beauty been less. I used the word “lunar” as characteristic of that beauty, for it is not resplendent and sunny, like Mrs. Plummer’s, but, as it were, shaded, though exquisite. She is scarce two-and-twenty. Is it not too much that Aonian inspiration should be added to the cestus of Venus? She left an elegant and accurate sonnet, addressed to Lady E. Butler and her friend, on leaving their enchanting bowers.’
The ‘Mrs Tighe’ to whom Seward here refers was another poet, Mary Tighe, while ‘Lady E. Butler and her friend’ were the famous Ladies of Llangollen, and a house in Ireland, today a ruin, links them all together: Woodstock, County Kilkenny. Lady Elinor, who grew up in Kilkenny Castle, knew the place well since it was here in 1768 that she met her lifelong companion, Sarah Ponsonby. Lady Elinor was then aged 28, Miss Butler some fifteen years younger but they formed so close a bond that more than a decade later, braving the opprobrium of their respective families, and of society at large, they ran away together and set up home at Plas Newydd, near the Welsh town of Llangollen. Although living quietly and on a relatively modest income, they soon became famous and attracted visitors from throughout Britain and Ireland: Queen Charlotte wanted to see their house and persuaded George III to grant them a pension. Writers in particular were especially fascinated by the Ladies of Llangollen and among those who travelled to see them were Lord Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott. Plus, of course, both Anna Seward and Mary Tighe.

Mary Tighe (née Blachford) was born in 1772, the daughter of a Church of Ireland clergyman who died when she was very young. Her mother Theodosia Tighe was an early supporter of John Wesley and Mary had a severely religious upbringing. At the age of twenty-one she married her first cousin Henry Tighe but it appears the union was not happy. In addition Mary soon began to manifest signs of the tuberculosis that would eventually kill her.
From an early age she had written both poetry and prose but only in 1805 was her long poem Psyche, or the Legend of Love privately printed in an edition of just fifty copies. Nevertheless, it brought her considerable fame: in the same year Thomas Moore wrote his own poem To Mrs Henry Tighe on Reading her Psyche which opens with the lines, ‘Tell me the witching tale again/For never has my heart or ear/Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain/So pure to feel, so sweet to hear.’
Psyche is a six-canto allegorical poem in Spenserian stanzas recounting the classical myth of the love between Cupid and Psyche, and the travails the couple must endure before they can achieve happiness. In sentiment it is of its own era and not of ours, but stylistically the work is highly accomplished and one can understand why it achieved such renown in the early 19th century. A year after the death of the poem’s lovely young author in 1810 a new edition of Psyche, along with some of her other verses, was published and this helped to cement Mary Tighe’s fame across Europe.

Mary Tighe spent the final months of her short life at Woodstock which belonged to her brother-in-law William Tighe. Wonderfully located on high ground above the village of Inistioge and the river Nore, the house dates from around 1745 and is believed to have been designed by the architect Francis Bindon for Sir William Fownes. Its north-east front of six bays and three storeys over part-raised basement is notable for having an elaborate central doorway comprising the door itself and two flanking windows immediately above which is a niche which originally contained a life-size statue, and an oculus over that again. So deep is the building that it has a small inner courtyard to light the central rooms.
Woodstock was inherited by Sir William Fownes’ grandson William Tighe and c. 1804 he was responsible for adding the flanking single-storey wings with pedimented breakfronts, the designer of these being local architect William Robertson. The interior was especially noted for its fine library and a couple of old photographs show ceilings with elaborate rococo plasterwork. The main hall contained a white marble figure representing Mary Tighe carved by the Tuscan Lorenzo Bartolini some five years after her death. This has gone but her mausoleum survives in the graveyard attached to the former Augustinian priory of St Columbkill is Inistioge. Inside the severe neo-classical limestone structure is another life size figure carved by the English sculptor John Flaxman and showing the recumbent poet with a small winged figure – Inspiration perhaps? – crouching beside her head.

Set on sloping ground, the gardens of Woodstock were originally laid out in the ‘natural’ style popularized by Capability Brown. However they were transformed in the middle of the 19th century by Lady Louisa Tighe, wife of another William Tighe; Lady Louisa was the daughter of the fourth Duke of Richmond and therefore the great-niece of the Lennox sisters who made such an impact on Ireland during the previous century (as anyone familiar with Stella Tillyard’s 1995 book Aristocrats will remember). Late in life, Lady Louisa who was born in 1803 recalled attending her mother the Duchess of Richmond’s legendary ball in Brussels, held three days before the Battle of Waterloo: ‘I well remember the Gordon Highlanders dancing reels at the ball. My mother thought it would interest foreigners to see them…some of the poor men who danced in our house died at Waterloo.’ (A piece of trivial information: four years after Waterloo, the Duke, by then Governor General of Canada, was bitten by a pet fox and subsequently died of rabies.)
Working with her then-head gardener Pierce Butler, Lady Louisa’s interventions at Woodstock were extensive, beginning with a series of three terraces to the immediate west of the walled garden. The middle of these three was aligned to the south with a large circular conservatory designed by the Dublin iron master Richard Turner. This work completed and Pierce Butler having died, Lady Louisa then embarked on another major project with her new head gardener Scotsman Charles McDonald: the creation of a winter garden to the immediate rear of the house. Consisting of four sunken panels each filled with elaborately planted parterres, its creation involved the removal of more than 200,000 cubic yards of soil and the building of massive granite embankments. Extant photographs indicate the style of these gardens to be of the kind now found only in municipal parks, with lines of bright bedding plants and even at Woodstock pathways of different coloured gravel. Less lurid elements elsewhere in the demesne included an arboretum, yew walk and rose garden, Monkey Puzzle and Noble Fir avenues, a grotto, rustic summer house and various other features.

Lady Louisa and William Tighe had no living children and although she remained in residence at Woodstock until her death in 1900 the estate passed to her husband’s nephew Frederick Tighe who in turn left it to his son Edward. Perhaps because Lady Louisa continued to live in the house, this branch of the family spent less time at Woodstock and once the War of Independence broke out the Tighes brought the house’s more valuable furniture and pictures to England. It proved a judicious move since the building was occupied first by members of the hated Black and Tans and then by the Free State Army. The latter left Woodstock on July 1st 1922 and the following day it was set alight, most probably by anti-Treaty forces. All the remaining contents, including the library and Bartolini’s statue of Mary Tighe, were destroyed in the blaze. It was, like so many similar occurrences of the period, an entirely gratuitous act of vandalism that did nothing other than rob Ireland of another part of her cultural heritage.
Woodstock has stood a ruin ever since, its external walls now needing support if they are not to fall down. In recent years Kilkenny County Council has undertaken extensive restoration of the gardens which are open to the public and much prized. The pity is that the once splendid house which was their centerpiece and source of meaning provided should remain a hollow shell. If only in memory of the poet Mary Tighe, Woodstock deserves better than its present condition.

*From the first Canto of Psyche.
A new biography of Mary Tighe by Miranda O’Connell has just been published by the Somerville Press.

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