Leef Met Je Kop Omhoog
We’re knocking it out of the park with Our Tribe. Here comes Missy ridin’ that train. Such a doll. Fancy illuminating Luminair? There’ll be a bit of sport on the cards with that offer. Multiplicity for the multihyphenates. Now we’re talking. Sometimes The Weekend really is plain sailing. We’re off to the boat races.
Soon, it will all seem so long ago.
Nether Regions
Way back in 2005 we visited a snow covered Amsterdam to report on the newly redeveloped Eastern Docklands for Ulster Architect. The following year historian Jaap Evert Abrahamse published Eastern Docklands District Amsterdam: Urbanism and Architecture. He summarises, “The transformation of the Eastern Harbour District in Amsterdam was completed in 2003. More than 8,000 dwellings have definitively taken over from hangars, transhipment installations, rails, contains and goods trains. All of the Netherlands’ top architects have built here, as well as a large number of renowned foreigners.” So a revisit is long overdue. Particularly on a breezily sunny day.
Just about every city with a river running through it seeks to capitalise on its docklands with varying degrees of success. Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Cork, Dublin and Düsseldorf have all jumped on the bandwagon. Planning students of the late Nineties were treated to lectures and tours on the topic. The Netherlands, the country that gave us Van Dyke and Van Gogh and Van Rijn, now gives us fine art of another kind: housing.
Oostelijk Havengebied, the regenerated Eastern Docklands of Amsterdam, is built on four slim former island wharves. A €10 ride from Centraal Station, each island, or rather peninsula, is planned as a neighbourhood relying on an urban design strategy to provide a sense of local identity. Density averages 100 dwellings per hectare. If that all sounds like, well, first year undergrad palaver, go see the results. This is town planning progressing beyond glossy booklets and pushy press launches.
First, there’s KSNM Island. The initials stand for the Royal Dutch Steamship Company, the previous occupier of the site. It now accommodates 1,250 dwellings. Rows of harbour scale apartment blocks straddle the quaysides. Cars are confined to an arterial route which dissects the central strip of parkland. The plan is a result of collaboration between Amsterdam City Council planners and architect Jo Coenen.
Next comes Java Island, a former industrial area. It’s mixed use now: 1,350 dwellings and 500 square metres of commercial floorspace. Architect Sjoerd Soeter’s plan is like a photo negative of KSNM. Quayside roads encircle a cliff face of nine storey blocks that soars above pedestrian friendly courtyards.
Borneo Sporenburg is the third island. It’s really a pair of interconnected peninsulae linked by call girl red pedestrian bridges designed by Adriaan Geuze. A former railway shunting area, it has been engulfed by a sea of 2,500 three storey houses and apartments interrupted by three high rise blocks. Again, the public sector collaborated with private consultants, this time Rudy Uytenhaak and Adriaan Geuze and his firm West 8. The smaller units are designed by hip architects like Bjarne Mastenbrock, Christian Rapp, Dick van Gameren and Heren 5.
Hoop, Liefde en Fortun is one of the three high rise pieces of architectural eye candy. Designed by Rudy Uytenhaak, it’s a cascading ski slope of a building, clad on the north side with a gargantuan hole punched Norwegian marble screen produced in cooperation with the artist Willem Oorebeek. This multipurpose block is named after three windmills that once occupied the site: Hope, Love and fortune.
Anglo Swedish architect Ralph Erskine who died earlier this year could easily have had Borneo Sporenburg in mind when he wrote, “Architecture, like the shaft of an axe, must beautifully and precisely symbolise its own good reasons for its necessary existence. Insight and sincerity will tell you which reasons are good.”
Amsterdam has the funkiest street names of any European capital. You don’t have to spend the afternoon in a brown café either to appreciate them. Try Kattenburgerstraat, Regulierdwarstraat and Voorplein Spaarneziekenhuis for a start. Borneo Sporenburg continues the trippy tradition. Scheepstimmermanstraat is the name of the main drag. Lined with domestic temples to Mondrian modernity, it’s become something of a household name in planning circles.
Architect Sebastian Kaal from Dick van Gameren informs us, “West 8’s masterplan called for three storey terraced units. This usually results in a streetscape dominated by parked cars. Here the section has been reversed to create an internal street with garages. Patios have been slung on top of the garages so that even the north facing houses can enjoy the sun.”
Each plot is 30 to 50 percent void. Juliet balconies, car lifts, courtyards and roof gardens … they’re all here. Plots are a standard 16 metres deep, 4.2 to six metres wide and a maximum height of 9.5 metres. A delectable Dutch trend – that of impossibly high ground floor ceiling heights – is adhered to. Even the leggy Dutch moving around in their living quarters framed by double height windows look like The Borrowers.
Dick van Gameren has punctuated the corner of Scheepstimmermanstraat and Stuurmankade with nothing short of a translucent on white visual exclamation mark. Drawing on simple geometrical forms in a far from doctrinaire manner, coloured glass modules suspended mid air increase the cubic capacity of the apartments without encroaching on the footprint.
Innovative design is matched by avant garde materials. Take Kavel 37 on Scheepstimmermanstraat, designed by Heren 5. It lifts the Dutch townhouse to a whole new level, taking the concept of an Amsterdam vernacular and blowing it out of the water. “The rusted steel façade is in harmony with the surroundings of brick and the former harbour identity,” explains architect Jan Klomp. “Transparency and bringing the daylight inside is typical for Dutch canalside houses and also for Heren 5.” Glass floors in the upper apartment allow daylight to flow down to the ground floor and illuminate the entrance from above.
We spoke to Aaron Betsky, the recently appointed Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, about his views on Borneo Sporenburg. The former Architecture and Design Curator of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, Aaron is one of the big players in contemporary design discourse. His CV – architect, author, critic, curator and lecturer – has guaranteed him that position.
“As Director of the NAI, I oversee and coordinate the many different aspects of this active centre for architecture,” he says. “It’s the second largest architecture museum in the world and is the archive of all Dutch architecture post 1800.” Meanwhile, Aaron’s literary output includes: The Best Buildings by Young Architects in the Netherlands, Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles, Why Dutch Design is So Good, Zaha Hadid The Complete Buildings and Projects. The list goes on, 40 Amazon.co.uk hits to be precise.
Born in Montana USA, but raised in the Netherlands, Aaron reckons, “There’s no one correct way to approach docklands regeneration. Given the situation in the Eastern Docklands, this was a very inventive and productive planning strategy.” He believes, “West 8 have tried to make the new look familiar and the familiar new which is exactly what architecture should do. Many of the compositions, materials and proportions are based on traditional Amsterdam housing types, but they have opened up, recombined, slid apart and otherwise messed with them, to allow completely new constellations of living to appear.”
“The building at the end of island by Dick van Gameren,” Aaron confirms is his favourite. “I especially like the way the whole is decomposed into the open spaces of the River Ij. But it’s the variety, rather than one particular building, that is the great contribution of Borneo Sporenburg to the city of Amsterdam. The point is that all the buildings play with Dutch variations and discover new spaces within very tight economic and physical straitjackets.”
Is it perfect? Not quite. “I would have made the streets of Borneo Sporenburg less strong. As built, they tend to become wind tunnels that overemphasise the traditional 19th century slum layout that is the point West 8, I believe, were trying to make.” Finally, we ask Aaron if he would like to live in Borneo Sporenburg. “Absolutely!” he exclaims. “Especially if I could afford a house designed by Masterbroek or Van Gameren. What about Jan? “Oh yes, I’d like to live there. Along the watersides would be great.”
In 2023, Scheepstimmermanstraat continues to be the standout street in the Eastern Docklands. It is aging gracefully: the private amenity spaces of the 60 freehold adjoining sites are well used and planted. A couple descend from their canalside living quarters in the middle of the terrace into a speedboat for an afternoon’s riding the waves of the River Ij.
Signs to Mark Sacred Times
“Yonder is Lough Foyle, debouching into the ocean,” John Weir gloriously thrills in The Ulster Awakening, 1859. St Colmcille’s Day is an appropriate day to visit Moville on the western shore of Lough Foyle, County Donegal. A coastal walk connects Moville to Greencastle, the next village to the north. It starts out as a winding path which graduates into crossing sandy coves then climbing over walls and finally clambering through gorse. On one side the lough, on the other, splendid villas, several owned at one time by prominent figures. A white painted well marks the spot where St Colmcille stopped for water before leaving Ireland for Scotland. Modernist seating pavilions, painted white of course, punctuate the path at regular intervals. Lights in the vaults of the sky.
The Ark House: Noachian named, the first residence to admire is right on the water’s edge overlooking the stone pier which extends into the quay opening into Lough Foyle. Like all the period houses to follow it is rendered and painted white with a dark slate roof. Three bay three storey with attics, this house looks like it could be an end of terrace rather than standalone. It was built by a Captain John Ramsay who bought an old brig, the original ark, and dragged it up onto this site, converting it into a dwelling in the 1820s. He later broke up this brig and used the timbers in the construction of the current building.
Ravenscliff: dating from the 1830s, it was once a hotel. The main house is a multi gabled one and a half storey mildly Tudoresque affair. A long unusually crenellated single storey wall extending out to one side encloses a garden that originally contained exotic plants. Like the following houses, Ravenscliff is separated from the coastal walk by generous lawns fringed by woods.
Gorgowan House: similar in scale and date to the main block of its neighbour Ravenscliff, it was designed by an English architect James Malton. A projecting gable containing a semilunar window rests on two columns and the chamfered bay windows on either side of the entrance door. Two 19th century residents include Reverend Charles Galway, Rector of the Church of Ireland in neighbouring Greencastle, and later, Captain Ernest Cochrane of the Royal Navy.
Carnagrave House: built as a fishing lodge in the 18th century, it was extended in three stages. A bulbous conservatory protrudes out from between a pair of chamfered bay windows. Carnagrave House and grounds are currently undergoing an extensive and expensive restoration. This estate in miniature is the grandest of all the houses and will soon be even grander.
Lafferty’s Lane: this links the coastal walk up to the main road between Moville and Greencastle. It is lined with several discreet 20th century bungalows in wooded grounds. One of the bungalows was the home of politician John Hume. The Nobel Peace Prize winner regularly entertained the good and the great at his beachside home. There is a sandy cove at the shore end of Lafferty’s Lane.
Glenburnie House: a Scottish sounding name for a Scottish looking residence. A baronial turret rises above the double fronted beach elevation of this 1830s house. It was once owned by the Marquess of Donegall. These days it can only be glimpsed through a cast iron gate propped up in the deep vegetation separating the private garden from the public access.
Ballybrack Lodge: this was another Marquess of Donegall property. He lived up to his name at least in ownership terms. It is of lower architectural pretension that the preceding villas, displaying something of the air of a farmhouse with a red painted entrance door. Ballybrack Lodge is set further back from the coastline than some of the other houses, overlooking a long stretch of garden and backing onto dense woodland.
Friel’s: this was the seaside retreat of one of Ireland’s greatest playwrights. Brian Friel was born outside Omagh but in his life and work became synonymous with Donegal. He was friendly with that other literary Irish colossus, Seamus Heaney, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Plenty of chamfered bay windows capture views of the sea or as Seamus Heaney would call it, “The Flaggy Shore”.
Portchapel: a decent sized house masquerading as a dinky cottage. Single bays flanking a large gabled porch protrude with mini gables into the low eaves level. Single storey wings to the side and rear expand the accommodation of the main two storey block. A previous resident was Dr Thomas Terence Baird, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland 1968 to 1973.
Brooklyn House: built in 1830 by the great grandfather of Donegal’s celebrated 20th century architect Liam McCormick. The house has passed down the family line. Liam McCormick may have designed modernist masterpieces but he was happy to reside on holidays at this substantial Victorian villa. Like Friel’s, chamfered bay windows maximise the unbroken sea views. It is located on the edge of Greencastle.
Anne Davey Orr, Publisher and Editor of Ulster Architect, Ireland’s longest running and most read architecture magazine, invited architects Sir Hugh Casson, Michael Scott and Liam McCormick to judge the Building of the Year launch in 1985. Later judges of the awards would include architect Max Glendinning and architectural critic Martin Pawley. Magazine alumni include the journalist Leo McKinstry, the writer Sir Charles Brett and the columnist Stuart Blakley.
One of the last articles Stuart Blakley wrote and photographed for Ulster Architect was on Carton LeVert House in Rathmullan, County Donegal. Published in February 2007, it included an interview with Tarla MacGabhann who runs the second generation practice with his brother Antoin. “I would call the house a reinterpretation of the vernacular cottage which has been formed, shaped and developed by the specifics of the site and climate.” Employing a language of skewed angles, non Euclidean geometries and shards, this building may be single storey but isn’t exactly a typical bungalow. Tarla’s five years experience working in the 1990s in the office of Daniel Libeskind working on the Berlin Jewish Museum clearly paid off. MacGabhann Architects also designed Brian Friel’s widow’s house Teach Annie in this county. They smoothly took on Liam McCormick’s mantle as Donegal’s best architectural practice.
Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa was one of the highlights of The Lyric Theatre Belfast programme when Anne Davey Orr was Chair. She explains, “The theatre company which originally produced Translations by Brian Friel was called the Field Day Theatre Company. It was founded by Friel and the actor Stephen Rae in 1980 specifically to produce Irish plays in an attempt to build a new theatre audience in the midst of the Troubles. Other people involved were Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane.”
Rudyard Kipling ponders in his poem The Sea and the Hills, 1903, “Who hath desired the sea? – the sight of salt water unbounded.” Clive Staples Lewis wrote in his 1955 diary about Donegal and “the monstrous, emerald, deafening waves”. A robin is perched on the sill of one of the coastal path pavilions. Signs and wonders. Wonders and signs. Signs and great wonders. Signs and symbols. Great signs from heaven. Wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below.
The Unbroken Circle
It’s one of the most photographed churches in Ireland. Dr Paul Larmour, who lectured in architecture at Queen’s University Belfast, is the latest to publish a review of Burt Church in County Donegal. His 2022 publication Architects of Ulster 1920s to 1970s features 21 architects – Liam McCormick is the best known one. Paul states, “McCormick was eventually converted to the Modernist cause during a college trip to Paris in 1937 to see the World’s Fair. There he was impressed by the various national pavilions in modern style, notably those representing Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia. The most rewarding experiences of his Parisian trip, as he later recalled, were a visit to Le Corbusier’s Pavilion Suisse at the Cité Universitaire and a visit to Beaudouin and Lods’ school at Suresnes.”
He adds, “The church of St Aengus at Burt in County Donegal (1964 to 1967) brought unprecedented fame to McCormick. Its circular plan was a new and original concept in Ireland at the time, and it stands as a landmark not only in its physical setting but also in the development of modern Irish church architecture.” The building is high enough on a hillside off the Derry City to Letterkenny road to allow traffic to disappear into a fold in the topography like a giant haha. The isolation of the church is appropriate: St Aengus was famous for his love of solitude.
The ancient round tower, that most enigmatic of Irish structures, had long provided inspiration to ecclesiastical architects. St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Church in Jordanstown, County Antrim, by William Henry Lynn (1876) is a prime example with its 22 metre tall round tower next to the entrance porch. Liam McCormick looked to another enigmatic Irish structure and one to hand – the ancient circular fort. Grianán of Aileach was just such a fort, located higher up the hill from what become the site of Burt Church. As in his other Donegal churches, the stained glass is by Helen Moloney and the sculptures by Oisin Kelly.
In the 2011 Annual of the County Donegal Historical Society 2011 Liam McLaughlin writes, “The Church of St Aengus at Burt (1965 to 1967) is among the earliest of the new churches built in Ireland in response to the changes in the Liturgy initiated by the Second Vatican Council. Beautifully situated on an elevated site selected by the architect, it has panoramic views of sweeping countryside, Lough Swilly and the Inishowen hills. It appears at once bold and assured, and very much at ease with the landscape. This is achieved by its form and materials: the colour and texture of its natural stone wall of Claudy schist, rounded and battered in sympathy with the character of the ancient fort, and the spired copper clad roof that appears to float over a band of clerestory glazing encircling the building.” The white interior resembles a cave – again appropriate for the hermetic leanings of St Aengus.
Many, many circular churches in Ireland would follow, some by Liam, some by lesser mortals. Liam McCormick was a pioneer of indigenous design.
Summer at Spring
Breaking the fourth wall, to use Housewives of New York franchise parlance, this article originally recorded the first visit to the restaurant eight years ago. The Park Lane ambassadress is now an Ascot lady of leisure, the Green Park restaurateur is taking Riyadh by sandstorm and the Beverly Hills realtor is still selling Sunset Boulevard dreams. This second visit focuses on an architecture and food photoshoot – and a decent excuse to enjoy Thursday lunch.
The set menu isn’t daylight robbery: three courses for £33. And it’s hyper seasonal having been just launched today never mind being pescatarian to perfection. Salt baked beetroot with crème fraîche and herbs. Grilled mackerel with slow cooked fennel and salsa rossa. Lemon verbena with rye shortbread and blackcurrant sauce. Lunch for under £100 (including obligatory Viognier and even a £5 donation to the Felix Project food charity)! We’re full again and so is Spring. There’s deflation for you. Rewinding back nearly a decade …
At a Lavender’s Blue dinner with a Park Lane ambassadress, a Green Park restaurateur and a Beverly Hills realtor, the conversation naturally turned to Lisa Vanderpump. But it was the combination of the interior and food – good taste and tastes good – that proved the hot topic in the cool surroundings of Spring. Even if Ruby Wax was within earshot of our table. Spring is the best of the six dining rooms in the people’s palace of London, Somerset House on The Strand. That’s why it’s full and we’re full on a Monday night.
Somerset House has a surprisingly coherent architecture considering Sir William Chambers’ 1770s masterpiece has been tinkered with ever since he laid the cornerstone. James Wyatt to Sir Robert Smirke to Sir Albert Richardson have all had a go at it. Five wings spread out from the Strand Block like a cyclopean crustacean (crab with nduja and yellow polenta £16 or grilled lobster with curry leaves, tomato and bhatura £34). Spring is in the New Wing. Newness is relative – it was designed by James Pennethorne in 1849. The restaurant is chef Skye Gyngell’s latest enterprise in London. Australian born Skye was previously head chef of Petersham Nurseries, the restaurant with a garden centre attached.
Horses for courses although we’d prefer not for main course (halibut with spinach, chilli and preserved lemon dressing £32) and course after course at Spring is not coarse of course but rather seasonal – and sensational. Crisp but not autumnal (fritto misto of prawns with lemon pinwheels and foraged herbs £16). Cold but not wintry (rhubarb and rye tart with crème fraîche £8). Pantaloon and stripy sweater clad waiters resemble – dare we say – Venetian robbers. Perhaps later they’ll find a gondola to steal away home down the Thames.
Mary and Music in May
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of County Donegal I 1833 to 1835 record, “Principal market town: the town of Bonyfoble or Moville is situated in the townland of Ballynelly. It has a market on a Thursday, chiefly for grain and potatoes, being otherwise but badly supplied. The market place is a square space walled in with lean-to open sheds on two sides and a thoroughfare opening on the road. The shops are small and bad and few of any sort. The town is nearly new and is becoming more important every year as a bathing place for the wealthier inhabitants of Derry, who resort to it during the summer months.” Moville continues to be popular as a seaside resort.
Father Eddie Gallagher, Parish Priest of St Pius X Church in the heart of the town, explains, “The tradition of dedicating the month of May to Mary came about in the 13th century. Some say it was created to replace various pagan cults. The actual reason is that this month is the time when spring is at the height of its beauty. Spring is also connected with nature renewing itself. In her way, Mary gave new life to the world when she gave birth to our saviour Jesus Christ.”
The church is an unusual building balancing its design between historicist and modernist. This landmark was the last work by the illustrious Derry City architect William O’Doherty. The severe windowless modernist monochromatic entrance front is clad in rock faced ashlar granite and randomly coursed rubblestone masonry with concrete quoins and a granite cross. The other elevations are finished in roughcast render. The large side elevation transom and mullion windows are loosely Elizabethan; the rear elevation sash windows are loosely Georgian. The dodecagonal copper clad timber lined roof lantern over the balcony seating is vaguely Victorian. A sycamore St Pius statue greets worshippers in the entrance lobby. Beyond, a Turkish delight rose and lemon hued floral arrangement in front of the altar matches the double height stained glass windows.
A few doors down from St Pius X Church is The Cosy Cottage which gets its name from a garden mural rather than the building itself. It’s a ground floor café with five guest rooms on the upper two floors of a three bay three storey gaily painted townhouse typical of the town. Owners Declan and Sadie Carey relate, “We first opened The Cosy Cottage as a café in 2003 and built up the business to add bed and breakfast and self catering accommodation just 10 years later. Friendly, welcoming, helpful and with everything from food and accommodation to adventure and exploration, that’s The Cost Cottage.” Old postcards show how little Moville has changed since Victorian times.
Lordship Lane
A lunchtime private tour one week, a drinks soirée the next. Restored, revived, renewed, Leighton House is Kensington’s largest one bedroom residence. It was built as a place for partying and painting; one of those activities continues apace. A cigar brown sitting room; a peacock blue staircase hall. Beauty is the absolute priority. Opulence evokes emotions. The original studio house was enlarged through four edits, all succumbing to the allure of aestheticism. A commercial architect, George Aitchison, was chosen to give the owner maximum design input. That owner, Frederic Leighton, following Victorian polite society tradition, operated At Home from 3pm to 5pm. Those hours have been widely extended these days.
Scarborough born Lord Leighton, Baron of Stretton, was a leading artist of his time. His portraits speak of love and connection. His landscapes speak of devotion to experience of the setting, portraying a palpable sense of play, often studying Mediterranean light. So very evocative. His sketches carry a sense of abandonment, a loose spontaneity. This solitary socialite undertook solo travel to Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Spain, Syria. Leighton House was in a group of celebrity artist owned studio houses known as The Holland Park Circle. The other names, save for architect William Burges, have faded into the mists of time. Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, Colin Hunter, Valentine Cameron Prinsep, Sir James Jebusa Shannon, Herbert Schmalz, Marcus Stone, the Thornycrofts, George Frederic Watts.
There’s a new edit. Kensington and Chelsea Council, who now own the house, have replaced the brick with punched windows undercroft of the Winter Studio with a fully glazed café spilling onto a garden terrace. It slots nicely between the cast iron columns supporting the Winter Studio, augmenting the transparency of this wing in comparison to the solidity of the Arab Hall at the far end of the building. Restored, revived, renewed – that’s the visitor experience too.
Lowe Country
The best place names in Ireland are derived from Gaelic. Swatragh is an anglicisation of Baile an tSuaitrigh meaning “townland of the billeted solder”. On the edge of the Sperrin Mountains, this village is a cluster of buildings lining the Carthill Road leading to Garvagh to the north and Maghera to the south. A little piece of (mid) Victorian architecture and a little piece of (very late) Georgian architecture greet motorists at either entrance to the village. One architect designed, one vernacular.
Killelagh Parish Church stands above a field at the southern entrance to Swatragh. This Church of Ireland building is well documented: architect Joseph Welland’s drawings dated February 1852 are archived in the Representative Church Body Library, Dublin. The black ink elevation drawings include such details as the chancel arch jamb. Joseph was born in Midleton, County Cork, in 1798. His father was agent to the 4th Viscount Midleton whose brother was Archbishop of Cashel. This connection introduced Joseph as an assistant John Bowden architect to the Board of First Fruits. Joseph would become his master’s successor. He designed over 100 new churches and took over finishing St Stephen’s on Mount Street Crescent, the ‘pepper pot church’, in Dublin, after his master had died.
In contrast to the Greek Revivalism of St Stephen’s, Killelagh Parish Church is gothic. The neat compact rough and cut stone architecture is all about high pitched gables, pointed arches, buttresses and a small square tower supporting an even smaller octagonal tower topped by a spirelet. A stone family gravestone opposite the entrance porch is inscribed: “Erected in memory of Robert Lowe who died 20 May 1872 aged 68 years. Also his wife Mary who died 5 May 1878 aged 75 years. Also their son Robert who died 10 February 1866 aged 30 years. Samuel Lowe who died 14 December 1892 aged 62 years.”
Friel’s Bar and Restaurant stands close to Carthill Road at the northern entrance to Swatragh. It is of a similar style to the townhouses of the County Down towns of Hillsborough and Moira. Basalt rough stone walls, red brick camber headed and quoined window surrounds, 12 pane sash windows, pitched natural slate roof … a familiar picturesque provincial composition. The entrance door with plain sidelights and an oblong fanlight is set in a white painted rendered arched recess. A symmetrical five bay single storey block appears as a floating villa partly balancing over a lower floor wedged into the sloping ground. Built in 1835, the coaching inn was later used for various purposes before being bought by John Friel in 1903. Dermot and Caitriona, the fifth generation of the Friel family, run the bar and restaurant.
