Marble Hill House + Marble Hill Beach + St John’s Church of Ireland Church Ballymore Lower Dunfanaghy Donegal

Paradise

There are stunning houses with stunning views and then there is Marble Hill House overlooking Marble Hill Beach. The Barclay family clearly had taste. A three bay two storey over basement façade, grey as marble and high on a hill, is early 19th century neoclassical perfection. The central first floor tripartite window is in numerical harmony with the shallow triple inset formed by the two Ionic columns on either side of the entrance door hooded by a pair of pilasters with Soaneian recessed rectangular and circular panels supporting an entablature under a pediment. Roundheaded recesses define the ground floor windows flanking the portico. The slant of the portico pediment runs parallel with the hipped roof. Overhanging eaves are supported on paired console brackets. A materials palette of shades of grey is calming: ashlar, cut stone, render, slate.

Marble Hill House has an L shape plan. The longest elevation, all four bays, faces the coach house and outbuildings, enclosing a south facing garden hidden from public view. The substantial mid 18th coach house is almost as large as the house. It’s formal architecture: a two storey symmetrical façade confidently handled. A pair of central double height carriage doors under a fanlight is set in a shallow pedimented breakfront. On either side are three bay portions each with self contained symmetry. Both portions have a central arched carriage access (now fully glazed) and two first floor circular windows like architectural games of noughts and crosses.

Due to the sharp decline of the land, the coach house becomes three storey to the six bay rear elevation. This south front has a French look with its projecting eaves course supporting a hipped roof, arch heads to the upper floor windows (except the middle two) and a metal walkway wrapping round the first floor leading to garden level heading north. A row of carriage doors under fanlights opens off the lower ground floor into a walled courtyard. The grey materials palette continues: coursed stone, render, slate. Built by the Babington family, the distinguished neoclassicism of the coach house suggests the accompanying house (demolished by the Barclays) was of considerable merit.

A late Victorian three bay single storey gatelodge completes the three centuries of built form in this bucolic landscape on one of the most northerly tips of Ireland. It may be symmetrical but the gatelodge has an Arts and Crafts rusticity thanks to cottagey casement windows, a canopied porch supported on timber posts on the south elevation and a Roshine slate roof. The roof and porch canopy rest on sprocketed eaves with exposed rafter ends. Locally quarried Roshine slate is usually seen in vernacular buildings of this era. A bow window protrudes from the west elevation.

In 1987, Doe Historical Committee published A Guide to Creeslough-Dunfanaghy, “In the year 1894 a young barrister from Dublin, Hugh Law, married Charlotte Anne Stuart, daughter of the Rector of Ballymore. Hugh was the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He bought Marble Hill House, a stately Georgian mansion that stands in idyllic surroundings overlooking Marble Hill. It was a happy marriage. Hugh, a man of independent means, did not have to practise his profession. Instead, he entered politics as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and was elected MP. Hugh was best known for his hospitality towards artists and men of letters … including William Orpen, Patrick Pearse and William Butler Yeats.” Marble Hill House, coach house and gatelodge are currently being restored and will be available to let for short stays. The band of trees blocking views of the strand have been removed.

It’s reckoned to be the finest Georgian church in Donegal. It certainly has the largest Venetian window in the County. St John’s Church of Ireland Church stands on a hill accessed off a bend in the road between Creeslough and Dunfanaghy nearly opposite the road down to Marble Hill Beach. Dating from 1752, the church is attributed to Michael Priestley of Derry City on stylistic grounds. The raised quoins and heavy rustication of the Gibbsian arch headed window surrounds are similar to the architect’s distinguished Lifford Courthouse built six years earlier. Doe Historical Committee records that the church was built for £300 gifted by the Board of First Fruits.

Grey roughcast rendered walls and a grey cut stone bellcote and a grey slate roof anchor the design in this rocky coastal terrain: Muckish Mountain is the dramatic backdrop. That Venetian window (all 92 panes of it) faces east across Marble Hill Beach towards Sheephaven Bay. A more normally sized Venetian window (with a modest 42 panes) lights the west elevation of the porch. The small vestry with latticed windows was added in around 1853 to the northeast. It was designed by Joseph Welland who was responsible as architect for the Board of First Fruits for several churches in northwest Ulster such as St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Church in Gortin, County Tyrone. Isabella Stewart, wife of the local Anglo Scots Irish landowner Alexander Stewart, demanded a tenants dodging privacy tunnel was burrowed from the church to her nearby residence, Ards House.

Inland Fisheries Ireland promotes 53 places in County Donegal for sea angling. In clockwise order from the south: Mullaghmore Head; Mullaghmore Harbour; Bunduff Strand; Mermaids Cove; Tullan Strand; Creevy Pier; Rossnowlagh Beach; St John’s Point; Black Rock Pier; Fintragh Strand; Shalwy Pier; Trabawn; Tralore; Teelin; Silver Strand; Glencolmcille; Loughros Point; Dawras Head; Portinoo Pier; Illanafad; Termon Point; Burtonport Pier; Cruit Point; Kincaslough Pier; Bunbeg Harbour; Magheraclogher Point; Bunaninver; Ballyness Pier; Dooros Point; New Lake Estuary; Ards Friary Pier; Downings Pier; Derrycasson; Pollmore; Tra-Na-Rossan Bay; Glashagh Strand; Fanad Head; Portsalon Pier; Rathmullan Pier; Buncrana Pier; Dunree Head; Lenan Pier; Pollan Bay; Doagh Isle; Trawbreaga Bay; Portronan Pier; Portmore Pier; Bunagee Pier; Culdaff Strand; Tremone Bay; Kinnagoe Bay; Moville Pier; and Carrickaroy. Marble Hill is closest to Portsalon Pier.