Beyond the Green Baize Door

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During an interview given in March last year, Dame Helen Ghosh, director general of Britain’s National Trust caused widespread umbrage by announcing the organisation intended to simplify displays of artwork in its properties. Visitors, she declared, were put off because there is ‘so much stuff’ in some of the historic houses owned by the NT. ‘We just make people work fantastically hard,’ said Dame Helen, ‘and we can make them work much less hard.’ Understandably this approach, implying the trust’s members were incapable of appreciating works of art or of understanding the context in which they are shown, met with disapproval in many quarters. Dame Helen’s comments suggested the trust’s intention was not to encourage instruction (because that might require people to ‘work fantastically hard’) but to accept incomprehension. It indicated entertainment would be given precedence over education, without understanding that some visitors, possibly the majority, actually want to learn more, want to come away from a visit with greater knowledge and understanding. Of course it is true the majority of visitors to historic properties are unlikely to have first-hand experience of living in such an environment. Nor will their forbears have done so. Hence the evolution of country house displays, which initially concentrated on showing only the main reception rooms, those spaces in which the best furniture and paintings were on view. More recently, and in part thanks to television series like Downton Abbey, the opportunity to explore what took place on the other side of the green baize door has become increasingly popular. Life at the top and the bottom of a house, the rooms used and occupied by servants, can be less immediately aesthetically pleasing but they hold other attractions, not least an opportunity to discover how a building operated. In its heyday, the country house was like a complex machine in which all the parts worked together to ensure smooth delivery of service to the owners. Only by looking at the rooms in which this work took place can one fully understand how a great house functioned successfully. This explains why they merit investigation. However, there is another reason why these areas can sometimes be worth exploring.

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Kilfane, County Kilkenny has been discussed here before (see When Nature Imitates Art, November 11th 2013), specifically in relation to a picturesque garden developed on the estate in the 1790s. The land here had originally belonged to the Cantwells, prior to the family being banished to Connaught in the 17th century. It then passed into the ownership of Colonel John Bushe who was granted Kilfane in 1670, and his descendants remained on the estate for most of the following century. In the late 1700s, John Power married Harriet Bushe whose brother Henry Amias Bushe then lived at Kilfane. Power was the son of a County Tipperary landowner who had served with the British army in India where he had been aide-de-camp to Clive during the Battle of Plassey. Eventually he took a lease in perpetuity on Kilfane from his brother-in-law, and carried out many improvements on the estate. It would appear at least one explanation for his settling in County Kilkenny was a keen interest in hunting: in 1797 he established the Kilkenny Hunt Club. The first of its kind in Ireland, the club would meet in the evenings in Kilkenny City at what had hitherto been called Rice’s Hotel (James Rice having been house steward to Captain Power) but soon became known as the Club House, as it is to this day.
An existing house at Kilfane seems to have been remodeled by the Powers around 1798. A couple of years later, William Tighe wrote ‘To Kilfane, Mr Power has added a new front and other improvements, which render it not only an excellent house, but a good specimen of architecture.’ As then completed, the main block was of five bays and three storeys over basement with a single bay, one storey projecting porch on the ground floor, and three-bay single storey flanking wings. The building was comprehensively enlarged around 1855-6 by local builder/architects Patrick O’Toole and Joseph Wright who added three-bay two storey recessed blocks behind the wings and gave the porch bays on either side. Kilfane may have undergone further alterations in the late 19th/early 20th centuries but little else appears to have been done to the building prior to 1971 when Kilfane was sold by the Powers. It has recently come on the market again, providing the opportunity for a recent visit to the house.

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Trying to understand the architectural development of Kilfane is challenging because, as is so often the case, little information survives. We do not know who, if anyone, was the Powers’ architect at the end of the 18th century, nor the appearance or layout of the house to which, according to William Tighe, was added ‘a new front and other improvements.’ Internally few clues are immediately offered. The entrance hall is wide and low, with screens of columns featuring composite capitals. Access from here is gained to the drawing and dining rooms, both with considerably higher ceilings (they each occupy a one-storey wing) and ample, full-length windows: the same characteristics are found in the former library behind the drawing room. These three spaces clearly date from the end of the 18th century, whereas the entrance hall could be earlier (and given its shape might originally have been a number of rooms subsequently knocked into one). Thereafter things grow more confusing, not least in the staircase hall which is wood panelled in a style that looks distinctly Edwardian. The first floor doorcases into the main bedrooms add to the muddle, being heavily carved in a manner suggesting German or Austrian origins. The mid-19th century alterations made to the building provide a fresh challenge, with flights of stairs on either side of the central block rising to more bedrooms.
Greater clarity, and a better understanding of the house’s original form, may be discovered in the top and bottom floors, those spaces formerly devoted to servants. Because less subject to the whims of changing taste, these areas are more inclined to retain their earliest decoration and such looks to be the case at Kilfane. Here the second floor features a series of rooms, now in poor structural condition, with the same deep window embrasures, shutters and skirting installed at the end of the 18th century. The whole storey is centred around a landing lit by a funnel-shaped cupola: according to legend, the devil was once caught playing (and cheating at) cards in the house and fled through here into the night. The basement is equally informative as again the basic layout appears to have remained relatively unaltered. Hence the sequence of rooms is much as it would have been when the Powers first embarked on developing the property, the old kitchen still in place, together with the wine cellar, storage spaces, pantries and so forth. A large section of the basement occupies only the area taken up by the main block of the house, excluding the wings, suggesting this was what first stood on the site prior to the Powers’ intervention. A further examination of the house is merited to see what else might be learned here about its evolution. In this instance, the absence of ‘stuff’ on the top and bottom floors offers an opportunity for elucidation. This may not be what Dame Helen Ghosh had in mind when she gave her interview, but sometimes the most useful information about a house can be discovered beyond the green baize door.

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When Nature Imitates Art

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It is said that above his drawing board, the great French landscape architect André Le Nôtre hung a sign on which was written ‘To improve nature and reveal true beauty, at the lowest possible cost.’ Today we would consider the Le Nôtre style of gardening so to interfere with nature that its true beauty is impossible to discern and at very considerable cost: the jardin à la française, exemplified by those created by Le Nôtre for Louis XIV at Versailles, is a thing of wondrous artifice.
While the taste for such gardens reigned across Europe for at least a century, as always a reaction against them emerged, inspired at least in part by philosophical speculation on the character of man’s interaction with nature. Thus in 1757, Edmund Burke published his treatise on aesthetics, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful which sought to explain our emotional and aesthetic responses to natural phenomenon such as mountain ranges. As proposed by Burke and his followers the sublime induces extreme passion, most notably terror. This differs from the simultaneously powerful but gentler feelings induced by another aesthetic experience which was first analysed in the 18th century and would have a profound effect on taste in gardening: that of the picturesque.
As the word implies, the picturesque is associated with painting (it derives from the Italian term ‘pittoresco’ meaning ‘in the manner of a painter’). It was thus used by a key figure in the evolution of the concept William Gilpin who in his 1768 Essay on Prints defined picturesque as being ‘expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which is agreeable in a picture.’ Essentially the picturesque as proposed by Gilpin and others offers an aesthetic experience between the extremes of the sublime (which induces an emotion akin to terror) and the beautiful which relies on symmetry and a calm-inducing order. The inspiration for landscapes that might be classified as picturesque came from artists of the previous century, most notably Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Poussin. In Ireland one of the most perfect expressions of this kind of landscape design can be found at Kilfane, County Kilkenny where theories of the picturesque were put into practice with enchanting results.

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The Cantwells were Lords of Kilfane until the 17th century when they were banished to Connaught. Then their lands passed into the hands of Colonel John Bushe who was granted Kilfane in 1670 and whose descendants remained there for the following century. In the late 1700s, a certain John Power came to live in the country at Ballynahinch and soon after married Harriet Bushe whose brother Henry Amias Bushe then lived at Kilfane. Eventually John Power took a lease in perpetuity on the property from his brother-in-law, and carried out many improvements on the estate, as we shall see.
John Power, known as Captain Power after he held that position in the local yeomanry during the 1798 Rebellion (he would be created a baronet in 1836) was the son of a County Tipperary landowner who had served with the British army in India where he had been aide-de-camp to Clive during the Battle of Plassey. It would appear at least one explanation for his move to County Kilkenny was because of his interest in hunting: he constructed kennels at Ballynahinch for his pack of hounds and in 1797 established the Kilkenny Hunt Club. It was said at the time that the land in this part of Ireland was so unenclosed that Captain could follow his hounds all the way to the bridge at Waterford without jumping a single fence. The first of its kind in Ireland, the Kilkenny Hunt Club would meet in the evenings in Kilkenny City at what had hitherto been called Rice’s Hotel (James Rice having been house steward to Captain Power) but soon became known as the Club House, as it is to this day
The Club House was also much frequented by participants and supporters of the amateur theatricals organised by members of local families, not least Captain Power’s brother Richard who was an ardent thespian. So ardent indeed that he was the driving force behind the founding in 1802 of a theatre in Kilkenny called The Athenaeum which thereafter hosted annual seasons of plays until 1819, in all of which Richard Power took a leading role.

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It will be apparent from the above that the Powers were an exceptionally enterprising family, and this is further demonstrated by the creation at Kilfane of a romantic private garden embodying the picturesque ideals of the period. As is so often the case in Ireland, we do not know the precise date for the site’s creation or indeed who was responsible for its design (perhaps the Powers themselves, since the main house contained a famed library and they were likely to be familiar with the theories of Gilpin, along with those of other proponents of the picturesque such as Sir Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight). In any case, Kilfane possessed certain natural advantages: on the edge of the estate there existed an area of woodland where the land dropped away to reveal a rock face thirty feet high descending to an open vale dramatically strewn with boulders. Imbued with potential this spot was greatly enhanced by the Powers’ intervention, not least a waterfall which was fed by a mile-long canal specially created for the purpose.
At the base of the cliff, the water drops into a pool before winding its way across a wide grassy lawn and from thence flowing along a stream that tumbles hither and thither beneath a dense blanket of trees and that can be crossed by a number of mossy stone bridges. The effect is picturesque in the extreme, and was greatly enhanced within the natural amphitheatre at the base of the waterfall by the construction of a thatched cottage orné. The building was essential for the success of the enterprise, not just because it gave a focus to the scene, and a destination for visitors, but also because advocates of the picturesque argued that such landscapes needed a humanising focus in the same way as did the paintings which had inspired them. There had to be a central point to which the eye was drawn, in this instance a charming cottage which might be ‘discovered’ and explored.

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A description of the waterfall and glen at Kilfane in their original state has come down to us in a letter written in 1819 by the botanist and antiquarian Louisa Beaufort to Sophy Edgeworth (whose father Richard Lovell Edgeworth had married Louisa’s sister as his fourth wife) in which she reported, ‘Wednesday Mr. B, Pa Ma and I in the inside jaunting car and Richard on horseback all went to Kilfayne, Mr. Power’s, a very pretty place…All the beginning of the walk very ugly, latter part very pretty by a stream …rushing over large beds of rocks, the beeches high and well planted and the ground blue with harebells the cottage is prettyish, somewhat of a has-been but stands in a tiny lawn near the stream and opposite to a cataract which rushes down the opposite rock…’
So it continued to look for some time thereafter, but later generations of the Power family lost interest in maintaining the site, or perhaps did not have the funds to do so. Gradually the whole place fell into decay, the cottage becoming a ruin, the grassy lawn and surrounding paths overgrown, the woodlands surrendered to laurel and rhododendron (with consequent loss of more delicate ground cover) and the waterfall dried up as the canal was breached and broken. Such might have remained the case to the present but for the discovery and rescue of this delightful spot by its present owners who more than twenty years ago embarked on a complete restoration of the place. Thanks to their admirable diligence the grounds today look much as they did when first created over two centuries ago.
Reverting to Le Nôtre’s maxim – ‘To improve nature and reveal true beauty, at the lowest possible cost’ – one can see how applicable are those words to the glen and waterfall at Kilfane. Here is a landscape every bit as artificial as any designed by the Frenchman. In this instance, however, thanks to theories on the picturesque artifice has been concealed and nature encouraged to imitate art rather than the other way around.

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For more information on the Kilfane Glen and Waterfall, see: http://www.kilfane.com

For One Knight Only

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The 13th century church at Kilfane, County Kilkenny is now a fine ruin, notable for its adjacent castellated presbytery and also for being home to a stone effigy known as the Cantwell Fada. Carved from a single slab of limestone is a knight looking decidedly dapper in his suit of chain mail. One leg daintily crosses over the other not in demonstration of a mediaeval dance step but, it is believed, to indicate the knight’s participation in a crusade. His large shield bears the arms of the Cantwell family and it is therefore presumed the figure commemorates Thomas de Cantwell who died in 1319 and whose family, of Norman origin, were once Lords of Kilfane. Most likely the carving was the lid of a sarcophagus since lost. Over two metres high, it is the tallest such effigy in Ireland or Britain.

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I shall be writing more about Kilfane and its picturesque Glen and Waterfall in a few weeks’ time.