Seen yesterday, a detail of the stair hall at Castletown, County Kildare. Commissioned by Thomas and Lady Louisa Conolly this graceful plasterwork dates from the mid-1760s and is the work of the Swiss-born stuccodore Philip Lafranchini.
More about Castletown before too long.
Readers of Selina Guinness’ memoir The Crocodile by the Door ought to recognise the open-mouthed beast seen above. It was shot in Persia by the brother of the author’s great-granfather, the head then stuffed amd mounted by a taxidermist in London before being sent to Ireland to serve as a letterbox. Ever since the crocodile’s bonce has been found in the entrance hall of Tibradden, County Dublin although today more conventional methods of despatching letters are employed. Designed by Dublin architect Joseph Maguire, Tibradden was built in 1859 to mark the marriage of that same great-grandfather, Thomas Hosea Guinness, to Mary Davis.
I will be in conversation with both Selina Guinness and author and broadcaster Polly Devlin next Saturday June 8th at the Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas, County Carlow. For further information see http://festivalofwritingandideas.com
St Werburga was born in Staffordshire in the seventh century, the daughter of King Wulfhere of Mercia and his wife Ermenilda who is likewise deemed a saint. Werburga spent most of her life as a nun and ended her days as Abbess of Ely (like her mother, grandmother and great-aunt before her: the odour one detects is a subtle blend of sanctity and nepotism). Dying c.699 she was initially buried in Hanbury, Staffordshire but owing to the threat of Viking invaders her tomb was moved to Chester Abbey (since 1540 Chester Cathedral), and she remains the patron of that city. The cult of St Werburga was sufficiently strong for churches to be founded in her name elsewhere, not least in Dublin where the original St Werburgh’s was established close to Dublin Castle around 1178.
The first church was burnt down in 1300 and rebuilt. It subsequently underwent many vicissitudes, being rebuilt in 1601 and enlarged sixty years later but remained in use and Jonathan Swift was baptised here in 1667. At the start of the 18th century, Dublin’s then-Anglican Archbishop William King, who was responsible for restoring many of the city’s old churches, decreed that St Werburgh’s should once more be rebuilt. Ireland’s Surveyor General Thomas Burgh, also responsible for the likes of the library at Trinity College and Dr Steevens’ Hospital, was given the job of designing a new church for the site. It is sometimes suggested that Alessandro Gallilei (original architect of Castletown, County Kildare) had a hand in the task and certainly the original facade was distinctly Italianate in character.
That original facade’s octagonal tower crowned with a cupola – seen above – was replaced in 1729 by a square tower with Corinthian pilasters, the whole being finished by a spire in the late 1760s. It rose to a height of 160 feet and must have been a marvellous spectacle. However in the aftermath of Robert Emmet’s abortive rebellion of 1803, the government authorities were suspicious that the spire St Werburgh’s overlooked Dublin Castle’s Upper Yard (as can be seen in James Malton’s 1792 print above) and so arranged for no less than seven architects to declare the structure unsafe. Although another architect, Francis Johnston, offered to secure the spire, it was nevertheless taken down in 1810. Twenty-six years later the tower, and it is presumed the upper section of the facade, was likewise removed. What remains, looking magisterial but decidedly truncated, is a building of three bays faced in sandstone and dominated by towering Doric pilasters, the centrepiece being a powerful segmental-pedimented Doric doorcase. From the exterior St Werburgh’s conveys the impression of a scarred but still noble giant.
In 1754 St Werburgh’s had suffered another grievous fire when the roof of the church fell ‘all at once’ into the main body of the building (with such an unfortunate history of conflagrations, no wonder the entrance porch continues to hold a number of ancient fire-fighting devices). The interior was accordingly rebuilt seemingly as a re-creation of what had been lost. The main body of the church is a long high hall with a simple coved ceiling. The recessed chancel’s upper walls are decorated with paired and tripled Ionic columns on the parapet above which rest a sequence of oversized urns, interspersed with masks and garlands of flowers; the plasterwork was executed by Michael McGuire and Thomas Tierney. The main body of the stone-flagged church is filled with dark stained boxed oak pews, above which runs a gallery with additional seating. In 1767 a wonderful new organ was installed at the west end of the gallery, its elaborate case designed by John Smyth. Immediately in front was the vice-regal ‘box’ rather like that in an old theatre, faced with a large carved and painted panel featuring the royal coat of arms.
In the early 19th century, St Werburgh’s lost not only its spire but also its status as vice-regal church since during this period Francis Johnson was responsible for building the Chapel Royal within the walls of Dublin Castle. Yet ultimately St Werburgh’s gained something from this deprivation since in 1878 it acquired the oak pulpit designed by Johnston and carved by Richard Stewart for the aforementioned Chapel Royal. In high Gothick manner, the octagonal pedestal is reached by a flight of steps with thin traceried balusters and is supported by a single slender column. On a swollen base sits a copy of the bible from which rises a cluster of colonnettes, their capital being composed of heads of the four Evangelists on each of whose heads can be found a copy of his own gospel. The sides of the pedestal are likewise heavily carved and carry sundry royal and religious coats of arms. Quite different in spirit from the rest of the interior, this virtuosic piece of work somehow finds a place within St Werburgh’s.
Despite its association with the vice-regal court, even in the 18th century St Werburgh’s was never a rich parish; by that period, fashion had moved north and east, and Toby Barnard (in his 2003 book A New Anatomy of Ireland) noted that of 114 named pew holders in 1725 a mere five were listed as ‘esquires’ with the majority being grocers, goldsmiths, printers and so forth, explaining why the previous decade the parishioners had been described as ‘mostly shopkeepers and tradesmen.’ There were a few notable incumbents, not least Dr Patrick Delany (subsequently husband of the wondrous Mary Delany) who was rector in 1730. But mostly St Werburgh’s was left to slumber. The advantage to this state of affairs is that, whatever about its exterior, after the 1760s very little was done to alter the inside of St Werburgh’s probably because of shortage of funds. It therefore remains as an admirable example of the 18th century Anglican church, box pews and gallery still in place, even the windows’ clear glass remaining in place. Even better, unlike many other city centre parishes services continue to be held at St Werburgh’s and the building has undergone a certain amount of refurbishment in recent years, without any loss of its distinctive ambience. At the moment the church is open for a certain number of hours each day, and a visit is to be encouraged.
‘For the last fifty years of my life I have lived in a cottage – a cottage hanging above Ardmore bay, above the village and the Catholic church, its east window lighted over the sea on winter evenings. Beyond my cottage one of the finest round towers in Ireland reaches up to the sky above the ruined and beautiful church and monastery at its foot.’ Part of novelist Molly Keane’s charm is her ability to exaggerate to just the right extent. In this instance, the length of time she lived at Dysart in Ardmore, County Waterford has been amplified to half a century. In fact, she remained in the house for forty-four years, from 1952 until her death at the age of 91 in 1996, and as a result Dysart is replete with memories of its former chatelaine.
Anyone interested in Ireland’s historic houses and their near-universal decay during the course of the last century will be familiar with the work of Molly Keane. In the words of my clever friend Polly Devlin, she ‘observed and preserved…the sounding of the tocsins and the minutiae of the last days of the Irish Raj,’ a surveillance which had begun back in 1800 with the publication of Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent. Molly Keane was successor to Edgeworth, just as she was to Somerville and Ross, and like these earlier writers she combined keen scrutiny with black humour, fully aware she was chronicling the decline and fall of her own people but refusing to be cast down by the prospect. As her older daughter Sally has commented, ‘Her long life almost spanned the century. She has to be the last of the Anglo-Irish writers, because she bore witness to the dying away of her world.’
I never had the good fortune to meet Molly Keane but know well both Sally and her younger sister Virginia who now has charge of their mother’s house in Ardmore. This is a charming coastal town which has been a favourite holiday resort in the area since the 19th century. As already mentioned, it became the last stop in the peregrinations of Molly Keane, born Mary Nesta Skrine in County Kildare in 1904. When she was aged six her family moved to Ballyrankin House, County Wexford; in July 1921 the building and its contents were burnt out by members of the IRA and its owners forced to walk to the nearest town in their nightwear. Despite this Molly’s father Walter declared, ‘I would rather be shot in Ireland than exiled to England’ and remained in the country until his death nine years later. By that time, his daughter was well established as a writer.
Molly’s first novel, The Knight of Cheerful Countenance, came out in 1926; she was later rather disparaging about it but I find the book admirable and already full of the themes that recur in her later work, not least love of the Irish countryside and of hunting. It was because of her involvement with the latter that she published the majority of her books under the pseudonym of M.J. Farrell, the name borrowed from a pub she regularly passed on her horse. ‘For a woman to read a book, let alone write one was viewed with alarm,’ she later explained. As for her own books, ‘no-one connected them with me. I didn’t want to be recognised as a writer. I only wanted to be good in the hunting field and to be popular at hunt balls. I was so starved of fun when I was young, and I loved fun so much.’ Her books – and the plays she wrote with John Perry – provided her with that fun, and with much-needed income both before her marriage and during her long widowhood. In 1938 she married Bobby Keane but he died only eight years later after what was supposed to be a routine operation in London.
During her marriage and for the first years of widowhood, Molly Keane lived at Belleville outside Cappoquin, a house dating from around 1830. The drawing room, Sally remembers, ‘had a 1930s flavour. It was sort of glamorous, with plumped cushions and a cocktail shaker in the corner. It was decorated in peaceful shades of pale grey, dark blue and rust colours. It had tall windows, crossed with thin glazing bars, facing to the south.’ Above are a couple of photographs from that period, the first showing her working in the garden with Belleville behind, the second of Molly with her daughters Sally and Virginia as small children. However for various reasons, not least monetary, by 1952 she was obliged to move and hence settled into a much smaller property at Ardmore. This was the same year Treasure Hunt her last novel under the name M.J. Farrell appeared; it would be almost three decades before a new book written by her was published. In 1961 Dazzling Prospect, her final play co-authored with John Perry, received such poor reviews from London critics that she gave up writing altogether.
Instead she concentrated on her children, and on her house in Ardmore. Sally has written that gardening grounded her mother, ‘It was very important to her. She loved plants and digging. It assuaged the depressive moods of her artist’s temperament. Its imagery pervades her work and is part of a wider, intense response to the natural world of the Irish landscape…’ The garden Molly Keane created at Ardmore is still there, now tended by Virginia, and so too is the kitchen where, Sally believes, she spent some of her happiest times. ‘She delighted in domesticity and was brilliant at it. For a long period, she stopped writing, and I think she replaced it by cooking. She cooked with the precision and care she spent on words, balancing sweet and sour, and creating subtle unique flavours.’
The story of Molly Keane’s rediscovery is well-known. In 1981 at the age of 77 and under her own name she published Good Behaviour which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and led to all her earlier books being reprinted and their author receiving the credit she was due. Molly Keane went on to write two further, equally acclaimed novels, Time after Time and Loving and Giving. She always liked to write in her own bed, seen above; the lower of the two photographs (a film still courtesy of RoseAnn and Catherine Foley) shows her working away in self-same bed with her dog Hero (she called him ‘My Hero) tucked under an arm.
The special charm of Dysart is that it remains imbued with Molly Keane’s spirit; aside from her novels nowhere else will you be better able to experience the character of this clever, witty, plucky woman. Virginia is very much her mother’s daughter and forever finding ways to encourage greater use of the house, as a writers’ retreat, a centre for creative writing and a venue for one-off events, such as those presented by her own husband, film historian Kevin Brownlow. You can find out more about all these occasions on http://www.mollykeanewritersretreats.com. I will close with some lines written by the Cappoquin-born poet Thomas McCarthy who knew Molly Keane well and is a terrific supporter of Virginia’s endeavours: ‘When you lift the gate and walk down the steps into Molly Keane’s house in Ardmore you know you are coming down into a creative lair, into an eagle’s nest, into a writer’s heaven. I descend into a pillow of voices, an atmosphere that is thick with the scent of white roses, with the memories of some of the loveliest days of my youth. There is old Brigadier FitzGerald before me, happy to have another lost novel of Molly’s in his hand, impatient for Molly’s signature, impatient to get down to a right good gossip about the residents of the Blackwater valley; there is Hurd Hatfield, always hovering, ready to be charming or morose (depending upon whether a visitor remembers who he is), there is Hero, yapping, sniffling in Molly’s arms. But when you enter this house it is not just the place of personal memory: it is the house as a writer’s working space, the house as workshop where the work gets done. Here is a place to come to in County Waterford if you want to attend to the writer’s task.’
Radiating Portland stone lozenges cover the floor of the staircase hall at Townley Hall, County Louth. Dating from the late 1790s, the house is architect Francis Johnston’s masterpiece, one of the purest examples of neo-classicism in Ireland.
This also marks the hundredth piece from the Irish Aesthete since the site made its debut last September. And so readers, you are cordially invited to offer feedback: what subjects most interest you; about what would you like to read more; are there buildings or subjects you wish to see featured? As ever, comments of the literate and temperate variety are welcomed.
I shall be writing further about matchless Townley Hall in a few weeks’ hence.
The entrance to a bedroom on the first floor gallery of Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath. Probably dating from c.1740, the oak door frame is notable for exaggerated height and narrowness. Its geometric formality and that of the adjacent wainscotting provide a decisive contrast to the exuberant rococo plasterwork above the frame, a feature repeated throughout the two-storey hall and stairs to create an enchantingly theatrical interior.
In 1971 when Anthony Powell published the tenth volume of his roman fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time he gave it the title Books Do Furnish a Room. Perhaps he was thinking of the library at Tullynally, County Westmeath? After all, Powell was married to Lady Violet Pakenham whose family has been based at Tullynally since the mid-17th century. This has to be one of the most enticing rooms in Ireland, not least because books provide the greater part of its furnishing. Discovering the weighted shelves at Tullynally is akin to attending a party and encountering lots of old friends while being introduced to just as many new ones. (It has to be said the success of this metaphor is assisted by the presence of a drinks table in one corner of the room).
Previously known as Pakenham Hall, Tullynally was deservedly deemed, ‘an early 19th century Gothic Palace,’ by John Betjeman when Britain’s future Poet Laureate stayed there in September 1939. As the late Mark Bence-Jones observed, ‘with its long, picturesque skyline of towers, turrets, battlements and gateways stretching among the trees of its rolling park, Tullynally covers a greater area than any other country house in Ireland’ and looks ‘not so much like a castle as a small fortified town; a Camelot of the Gothic Revival.’ But buried far beneath its romantic carapace of castellations and battlements lies a plain two-storied Georgian house that once served as home to the Pakenham family.
Thomas Pakenham believes the first alterations to the old building were made soon after the marriage of his forebear and namesake Thomas Pakenham to heiress Elizabeth Cuffe; most likely with her money a third storey was added to the house. That earlier Thomas was created Baron Longford in 1756 and almost twenty years later his widow became Countess of Longford in her own right. The second Baron Longford’s accounts record improvements carried out to the building around 1780, mostly raising ceiling heights and altering windows but perhaps more was done since the person responsible for this work was a ‘Mr Myers.’ He could be the Christopher Myers responsible for gothicising Moore Abbey, County Kildare some years earlier.
In any case it was the second Earl of Longford who initiated the real transformation of Tullynally from house to castle. Two of his brothers were professional soldiers and a portrait of one, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham hangs over the polished limestone chimneypiece in the library. He was killed at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and for purposes of preservation his body was returned to Ireland in a cask of rum; since he had been known to have a surly temper, one of his relatives laconically remarked, ‘The General has returned home in better spirits than he left.’
Despite his soldier brothers, and his brother-in-law being the first Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Longford seems to have preferred less militant pursuits and carried out extensive improvements on his Irish residence. Between 1801 and 1806 the pre-eminent Irish architect of the period, Francis Johnston worked at Tullynally, adding what one observer has since called ‘little more than a Gothic face-lift for the earlier house,’ notably two round towers projecting from the corners of the main block and battlements around the parapet. In 1817 Lord Longford married and no doubt it was the incentive of a new bride and soon-expanding family that encouraged him a few years later to embark on a second round of work at Tullynally, this time using Johnston’s former clerk, James Shiel. From 1839 to 1842 the third Earl, a bachelor, employed architect Sir Richard Morrison to embellish Tullynally further and to design two castellated wings linking the house with its stable courtyard; a final flourish was added by the fourth Earl in 1860 with the construction of a pinnacled tower at the northern end of the site.
Records show a ‘bookroom’ existed within the house from 1740 onwards, and the first inventory of books there was compiled in 1790, with a second made in the mid-19th century. Thomas once told me he could reconstruct the whole library as it was on either of those dates and compare them with its present holdings. The current contents of 6,000 volumes representing 2,000 titles have been meticulously catalogued across 14 different fields including author, name, subject, language and date of publication.
It comes as no surprise that Tullynally is such a bookish house since the Pakenhams are a dauntingly literary family. Earlier generations might have been renowned for their military prowess but the pen has now decisively vanquished the sword. Thomas’ uncle Edward, sixth Earl of Longford wrote many plays as well as several volumes of poetry. He and his wife Christine (also a playwright) were generous supporters of Dublin’s Gate Theatre from 1930 onwards and later founded the Longford Players. Following his death, he was succeeded by his brother Frank, well-known politician and human rights campaigner as well as author and his wife Elizabeth was an historian. Their children include authors Antonia Fraser and Rachel Billington as well as Thomas who is another distinguished historian but probably now more widely known for his books on trees. Thomas’ wife Valerie has written a number of excellent books and a few years ago their daughter Eliza wrote a history of the Pakenhams in the late 18th/early 19th century.
Examples of all their works can be found in Tullynally’s library, the form if not the finish of which dates from the time of Francis Johnston’s intervention. He enlarged the room by stealing a bay from its immediate neighbour so the library now has three south-east facing windows and one facing south-west. It is worth considering what are the elements that make this room aesthetically so satisfying. Obviously its ample proportions help, as does the want of superfluous decoration: the gothic ornamentation found elsewhere is employed very sparingly here. The mellow oak bookshelves covering all four walls and rising from floor to cornice make the greatest impact, especially since most of them carry an amplitude of complementarily-toned leather bindings. Note how the sequence of ten shelves is graduated in height, with smaller volumes occupying the upper levels. The only other feature of note is a set of handsome busts running along the top shelf in one corner of the room. Predating the present library by more than half a century, they represent what were then deemed ancient and modern writers of note. While the library has shutters the absence of poles or even marks in the window embrasures to indicate supports suggests there have never been curtains here. Aside from some Turkey rugs, abundant and comfortable seating, a scattering of mahogany tables and enough lamps to provide light when evening falls, nothing more is required. The library at Tullynally indicates that books do not just furnish a room, they also make it beautiful.
Tullynally’s splendid gardens (and tearoom) are now open and well worth a visit especially since the weather has, at last, improved. For information, see: http://www.tullynallycastle.com
On this beautiful bank holiday weekend, morning sunlight in the entrance hall of Harristown House, County Kildare. The original building, of nine bays and three storeys over basement, is believed to have been designed by the 18th century Irish architect Whitmore Davis. He had a decidedly chequered career, seemingly often neglecting his responsibilities and in 1797 being declared bankrupt. The original owners of Harristown were a branch of the wealthy banking family of La Touche. In the 19th century it was here that Rose La Touche, the adolescent girl with whom John Ruskin fell in love, lived with her parents who were ardent evangelical Christians. In 1891 the house was gutted by fire and although subsequently rebuilt to the designs of James Franklin Fuller it is now one storey lower than was previously the case. The large east-facing entrance hall is a near-cube extended further back beyond a screen of Doric columns to provide access to darwing room and main staircase.
The first floor bedroom corridor of Birr Castle, County Offaly, essentially a simple classical passage overlaid with Gothic decoration such as the Perpendicular sprung ceiling which contrasts with the plain panelled doors. The other pleasure of this space comes from the way it has been decorated with a mixture of family portraits, mahogany furniture and blue & white china to form a harmonious whole.
Next week, on Tuesday 23rd April the contents of Fort William, County Waterford are due to be auctioned (see http://www.fonsiemealy.ie for more information). The sale will close a memorable period in many people’s lives; there have been few Irish houses in recent years more welcoming, more filled with joie de vivre than this.
Located a couple of miles west of Lismore and on a superb site above the Blackwater river, Fort William dates from the 1830s when it was erected to the designs of those prolific brothers James and George William Pain, both of whom worked as apprentice architects for John Nash in London before moving to Ireland. The Pains produced houses in whatever style was requested by their clients and at Fort William they came up with a benign form of Tudor Revival. Faced in local sandstone which has a wonderfully mottled appearance, the exterior is ornamented with an abundance of gables and pinnacles and angled chimneys but these are decorative flourishes on what is essentially a classical building, as can be seen by the regular sash windows.
Fort William was built for John Bowen Gumbleton whose family, originally from Kent, had settled in the area by the early 18th century. Their main residence – once called Castlerichard but later renamed Glencairn – lies a little further upriver. The property on that site was substantially transformed around 1814 by John Gumbleton’s father into fashionable High Gothic (complete with faux cloister) and this may be the explanation for Fort William’s appearance: in every sense a chronological continuation of the parent house.
Ever since being built, Fort William has regularly changed hands. On John Bowen Gumbleton’s death in 1858, the estate was inherited by his son 17-year old John Henry but he died at sea eight years later. Ownership of Fort William then passed to his two sisters but they lived elsewhere and so the house was rented to tenants. In 1910 the place was taken by Lt-Col. Richard Keane, whose older brother Sir John Keane of nearby Cappoquin I discussed a few weeks ago (Risen from the Ashes, 4th March). A note in the forthcoming auction catalogue notes that Richard Keane and his wife Alice ‘had two cars, one of which – replete with a cocktail cabinet – was commandeered by the IRA during the War of Independence and never returned.’ Furthermore during the subsequent Civil War the servants’ wing at Fort William was occupied by Free State troops; this may help to explain why Sir John Keane’s house was burnt out in 1923 by the opposition.
Richard Keane died in 1925 following the accidental discharge of his shotgun and seven years later the estate was sold to a local man who continued the established pattern of renting the house; among the tenants at this time was Adele Astaire, sister of Fred, who in 1932 had married Lord Charles Cavendish, younger son of the ninth Duke of Devonshire; for centuries the Devonshires have owned the neighbouring estate of Lismore Castle.
The ducal connections continue because after a brief Gumbleton interlude in 1946 Fort William was bought for £10,000 by the second Duke of Westminster. This was the famed Bend’Or, one-time lover of Chanel (among many others) who following the failure of his third marriage had fallen in love with Nancy Sullivan, daughter of Brigadier-General Edward Sullivan. An outstanding horsewoman she had grown up in Glanmire on the outskirts of Cork city. This may explain why the Duke acquired Fort William, although it is worth remembering that a daughter from his first marriage, Lady Ursula Grosvenor, together with her second husband Major Stephen Vernon lived at Fairyfield outside Kinsale, County Cork. Whatever the explanation, the Duke certainly spent some time in the house: the dining room panelling is said to have come from the interior of one of his yachts and he is also believed responsible for installing the French painted and gilded boiseries in the drawing room. Following his death in 1953 his widow (who only died in 2003) retained Fort William but spent the greater part of her time at Eaton Lodge, Cheshire where her stables held many fine racehorses, not least Arkle who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times in succession.
Fort William was sold again in 1969 to an American couple, Murray and Phyllis Mitchell. Following her death, it was bought by Ian Agnew, one-time Deputy Chairman of Lloyd’s. Ian acquired the place on a whim but he had strong Irish connections through his mother, Ruth Moore who had grown up at Mooresfort, County Tipperary. The Moores were an old Roman Catholic family. Ian’s great-grandfather, Arthur Moore was created a Papal Count in 1879; the previous year he had provided most of the funds necessary to establish the Cistercian monastery of Mount St Joseph outside Roscrea, County Tipperary. Curiously Glencairn, the estate immediately adjacent to Fort William is today occupied by Cistercian nuns.
Ian and I never spoke much of his forebears but among the most remarkable was his maternal grandmother, Lady Dorothie Feilding. A much decorated volunteer nurse and ambulance driver during the First World War, in September 1916 she became the first woman to be awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field. After she died in 1935 her husband Captain Charles Moore moved to England to become manager of the Royal Stud. Continuing those links, Ian’s father Sir Godfrey Agnew was for 21 years Clerk of the Privy Council.
A wonderful man with seemingly boundless gusto, Ian Agnew went to enormous trouble to restore and modernise Fort William while ensuring none of the patina it had accumulated was lost. (He also put in some time trying to teach me the finer nuances of fly fishing on the Blackwater, with less successful results.) The outcome was a house of tremendous comfort and warmth, very much a reflection of his personality and that of his beloved wife Sara. Sadly Ian died four years ago and since then Sara has been literally holding the fort, and continuing the tradition of abundant hospitality already established while her husband was alive. I could not begin to enumerate the charmed days I have spent at Fort William, but I have also managed to work there with equal delight: more than one piece for this blog has been written while sitting at the George III secretaire which can be seen in a corner of the morning room above.
I cherish all those memories because the time has now come for Sara regretfully to pass on the baton, hence next week’s sale. Without question she is going to be enormously missed by everyone in the area but one wishes the new owners as much delight in Fort William as was enjoyed by Ian and Sara – and their lucky houseguests. Below is a final image summing up Fort William in recent years: a passage leading to the ever-welcoming kitchen bathed in sunshine (something the house’s spirit has seemed to radiate even on days of rain). And there on the rug is Alfie who despite his recumbent pose for the camera has been ever a faithful and tireless companion on Fort William walks no matter how far the distance or how bad the weather.
All photographs by James Fennell (www.jamesfennell.com)