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St Ernan’s House + Island Donegal

A Memory of A Memory

A shimmer of morning light rushes across the motionless water and in a flash illuminates the house in a golden glow. The dash and hue of nature dictate the hurried glory of sunrise. Is this Ireland’s most beautifully situated house? Where are the contenders? Little wonder it has sent countless photographers into ecstasy, numerous architectural historians into a frenzy, and even inspired a novel. County Donegal: that’s the location. Donegal Town: that’s the nearest cèilidh. St Ernan’s House on St Ernan’s Island: that’s the never forever home.

First the literary giants who paved the way. Mark Bence-Jones gives it his best shot in A Guide to Irish Country Houses, 1978, “A house on an island in the estuary of the River Eske, built early 19th century by John Hamilton of Brownhall; then passed by John Hamilton’s daughter Annabella, wife of A H Foster. Subsequently owned by Henry Stubbs, who largely rebuilt the house, so that it became late Victorian in character, with gables and ornate bargeboards; but with a pillared porch, which was probably a surviving early 19th century feature. In the present century, it was the seat of the Honourable Matthew Fitzmaurice-Deane-Morgan, afterwards 6th Lord Muskerry.”

And then there’s Professor Alistair Rowan who spoke so eloquently and movingly at the much loved Dorinda Lady Dunleath’s Memorial Service in 2022. He writes in his Guide to Northwest Ulster, 1971, “This was the island retreat of John Hamilton of Brown Hall (1800 to 1884), the author of Sixty Years Experience as an Irish Landlord. Mr Hamilton took a romantic fancy to the island, laid out a pretty garden on it, with a wall round the shore, and built a two storey Regency style cottage there between 1824 and 1826. It is five windows long with a continuous verandah running the length of its front across canted bays at either end. The setting is indeed glorious, but the romantic whim of a young and newly married proprietor proved inconvenient. For most of each day the island was cut off either by the tide or, worse, by impassable shallows of mud. The construction of a causeway, despaired of by professional engineers, was achieved by Hamilton with free labour from the surrounding country.”

The most complete history is The Story of St Ernan’s, an undated booklet compiled by George Seaver and based mainly on John Hamilton’s Memoirs as well as “memories of some old folk communicated verbally to the compiler”. It opens with references to the eponymous saint, an acolyte of the better known St Columbanus. In circa 640, St Columbanus was buried in a monastic settlement to the south of Donegal Town. Red Hugh O’Donnell would build a Franciscan Abbey in the same area in 1474. “It may well have been the Friars there who gave the name of St Ernan to the island,” George reckons.

He writes, “The house owes its existence to a moment of impulse on the part of a wealthy young landowner of ancient Scottish lineage named John Hamilton, proprietor of Brown Hall in the neighbouring parish of Ballintra.” John was born in Dublin in 1800 and orphaned age seven, he and his siblings were brought up by their grandmother Lady Longford of Pakenham Hall in County Westmeath (now known as Tullynally Castle) and their relatives in Dublin. He married Mary Rose of Dublin in 1823 and they took up residence at the family estate of Brown Hall before selling their share to John’s brother. Around that time, John took a novel approach to solving a local argument: “There was a dispute between two of his tenants who had grazing rights for sheep on St Ernan’s Island, and he rode over from Brown Hall to settle it. It was, he wrote, a beautiful day in September; the tide was in, the sun was shining, the view was delightful. ‘I settled the dispute by taking the island for myself.’” Two years later, the happy couple moved into a newly built cottage on the island.

There was a practical issue as Professor Alistair Rowan observed. Accessibility. At low tide one could wade across to the island; at high tide one could row; at half tide, neither. “A rapid current flowed through the channel from south to north,” George records. “John Hamilton resolved to block it up entirely and thus deflect the current from its course to form a new channel through a sandbank that lay between St Ernan’s and Rooney’s Island to the south of it. Employing up to 100 men at a time he started building a dam reinforced with large round stones across the channel from both ends at once.” Equal opportunities were at work although it would be even more surprising if indeed it was free labour as Alistair claims. “One morning, hardly had a strong party of Orangemen from a Yeomanry Corps arrived from a village six miles away, than another party of equal force who were Roman Catholic Ribbonmen appeared from a mountain property even farther distant in an opposite direction.” The combined workforce got to it and completed the causeway over six weeks during a hot and dry summer.

“The completion of the causeway enabled him to transform the house on the island from a cottage to a substantial mansion with stables and coach house, a barn and various sheds, which grew with the years,” George notes. “The immense quantity of stone for their construction came from the Drumkeelin quarries above Mountcharles. These abound in a hard durable sandstone of a tawny mottled blue, laid in horizontal strata of convenient thickness easily sawn into the required size and shape like slabs of cake.” The rubble used to mortar the freestone was a soft limestone found on the shore close to where the gatelodge was later built, mixed with sand and ox blood. Horse drawn carts of building materials trundled across the causeway as the beauty of the house took shape.

He continues, “It is certain that the back door, heavily buttressed and with an early 19th century fanlight above it was the original front door; and the present front door, with two flights of steps below it leading down to an open space for cars, was a much later addition. Indeed, the entire south front of the house including the morning room and large drawing room and bedrooms and attic above them are also comparatively modern. The ‘garden close’ of 1826 became in course of time a high walled space of flowers embowered with various trees and some rare shrubs (from Ardnamona), interwoven with a maze of wood walks which led to a large stone bench at the end of the Island. It is still there and still known as Abraham’s Seat (the Reverend Abraham Hamilton was once John’s guardian uncle) and it commands a view of one of the most significant seascapes in Ireland.”

John Hamilton became a Christian in 1827. “What was traditional religion now became personal, and to the end of his life a vivid and earnest faith showed itself by a self denial, a thoughtfulness for the good of others and a sense of justice, combined with a liberality of mind and a freedom of enquiry not easily confined within the then popular systems or religious beliefs. He was in fact ecumenically minded generations before the idea had occurred to churchmen, because the Christian faith was for him personal discipleship rather than a system of ecclesiastical or doctrinal shibboleths.” John launched a Sunday school and Bible class in a schoolhouse he built on the edge of his estate, attracting 1,200 attendees. John donated to both Church of Ireland and Catholic church building. “In 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, he was active in suppressing, more than once at personal risk, demonstrations of belligerent Orangemen.”

John continued to put his faith into practice at the most traumatic time in Ireland’s history. According to George, “His exertions for the welfare of his tenantry during the terrible years of the Potato Famine were such that not one became an inmate of the union workhouse or died of starvation, and the only death that occurred on his property was attributable to other causes. It must have been during these years that as a measure of finding employment he encircled the entire island with a ‘famine wall’ 10 foot high, and extended the same operation to the opposite shore.”

Father John Doherty was the Parish Priest of Donegal Town and, despite his general opposition to the landlord system, told the Derry Journal in October 1880, “In all Ireland there never was, nor is there, a more considerate and humane landlord than the good and kind hearted proprietor of St Ernan’s. I know the pulse of his tenants well, and I know of my own knowledge that they honour him, respect him, and love him for personal kindness and friendliness towards them, and for his sympathy in all their worldly fortunes and mishaps. They regard him more in the light of a friend and benefactor, like his Master ‘going and doing good’, than as a landlord.” John Hamilton would die four years later.

His daughter with her husband Arthur Hamilton Foster inherited St Ernan’s. The property was sold after Arabella’s death in 1905 to Henry Stubbs (suggesting the Victorianisation mentioned by Mark Bence-Jones would have more likely been carried out by the Fosters). It was next bought by the Muskerry family and passed to Alma Elimina Blanche West in 1954. George Seaver notes, “Having a home of her own in Wokingham and a sufficiency of worldly goods, she wanted neither to occupy nor lease it.” Instead, Alma donated St Ernan’s to the Representative Body of the Church of Ireland and until 1983 it was used as a retirement home for clergy families before becoming a hotel.

Gillian Berwick includes St Ernan’s in Splendid Food from Irish Country Houses, 1990, “St Ernan’s House (now Ernan Park) on the 8.5 acre St Ernan’s Island near Donegal Town is close to some of the most beautiful scenery in this scenic county. Its creator sited his house on the low point of the island to protect it from the wild Atlantic winter gales. He built protective walls so that he could cultivate trees, and laid out attractive walks around his little domain. The restored interior of this manor house is strikingly beautiful with antiquity, colour and pattern inspiringly blended. As befits such a house, service is personal and charming. The views along the Atlantic Coast are of miniature white farmhouses and tiny sheep dotting the distant hills like a stage setting. It is an image of Ireland that people dream about. The gracious dining room glows with warmth. The cuisine is well nigh perfect. To stay at Ernan Park is to live a little.”

Hotel recipes in Gillian’s book include Stuffed Aubergine, Baked John Dory with Fennel Sauce and Strawberry Cheesecake with Irish Whiskey. Sounds like the components of a great three course dinner! An accompanying sketch by the Dublin based late architect Jeremy Williams shows the interior of the bay window with its coffered semi dome. The guide states there were 11 bedrooms: bed and breakfast was priced from 28 to 39.50 Irish Punts. Five course dinner, 17.50 Punts. The proprietors were Brian and Carmel O’Dowd and the hotel was open from Easter to the end of October each year. The hotel closed in 2010 and the building and island returned to use as a private residence and demesne.

St Ernan’s Blues is the intriguingly named 2016 novel principally set on the island. It is part of a mystery series by Magherafelt County Derry born London based Paul Charles featuring Inspector Starrett. “A lone building on a small island off Ireland’s Donegal coast, St Ernan’s is politely known as a ‘retirement home’ for priests. The exiled residents are guilty of such serious offences as entrepreneurship, criticising the Church, or getting too friendly with the flock. But things take a turn when Father Matthew McKaye is found dead in the kitchen. Has one of these isolated outcasts committed murder?” Although never used to house errant priests, the clergy connection is historically accurate albeit relating to ‘the other sort’ to use a colloquialism.

“Situated right at the mouth of the River Eske in Donegal Bay, Donegal Town or Fort of the Foreigners, was the town that gave its name to the county,” explains Paul. He describes how tricky it is to find St Ernan’s Island despite its position close to the town, before eulogising on the local natural beauty. “The thing about autumnal mornings in Donegal is that the sun, as it lights up every corner of the rich tapestry of fields; hills; mountains; trees; rugged hedges; blue heavenly skies; faint white clouds and all creatures great and small, does tend to show off our Creator’s magic in all its spiritual glory.” And on wintry mornings as well.

An entry in Ireland’s Blue Book of Charming Country Houses and Restaurants, 1996, states: “Quietly situated on a wooded tidal island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, St Ernan’s offers the perfect respite from the hectic pace of everyday life. There is a unique warmth and sense of serenity at St Ernan’s. It recaptures the charm of the past – quietude in a relaxing friendly atmosphere. The house, built in 1826 by John Hamilton, a nephew of the Duke of Wellington, has 12 bedrooms, each with a private bath or shower, telephone and television. Most have stunning views of the sea and countryside. The dining room is one of country elegance where the cuisine is based on fresh local produce. From this perfectly situated house the countryside may be explored. There are several excellent golf courses nearby. Horse riding, fishing and bicycle hire are also available locally. St Ernan’s offers the perfect escape from the pressures of modern life to the finest traditions of Irish country house hospitality.” As well as recording an additional bedroom, the Blue Book includes increased rates. Bed and breakfast ranged from 55 to 52 Punts. Dinner was 26 Punts.

The house is as deep as it’s wide: the north, east and south fronts are arranged around a west facing courtyard. Until recently it was painted pink, except for the window surround quoins and verandah columns which were picked out in white. An early 20th century photograph shows the ground floor either painted a dark colour or unrendered. The current pale cream colour scheme works well, changing tone as often as the unpredictable Donegal weather. The two storey east front is the most visible elevation from the mainland. A full width slimly columned verandah stretches across the whole of the ground floor and beyond, terminating in angled walls providing further shelter. The three middle bays of both floors have typical Georgian sashes. The outer bays of the ground floor have three sided chamfered projections: the righthand one has typical Georgian sashes; the lefthand one has very narrow sashed openings. This narrowing is the only element of asymmetry on the otherwise perfectly balanced elevation. The outer bays of the first floor have paired sash windows divided by a mullion.

In contrast to the late Georgian or Regency appearance of the east front, the two storey plus attic south front looks more Victorian. Gabled projections with frilly bargeboards stand tall on either side of an asymmetrical two bay setback. The lefthand projection has two paned sash windows; the righthand projection has quoined corners and Georgian sash windows to the first floor and attic above a large Doric pilastered and corniced bowed extension with five two paned windows. A conservatory projects from the central setback under two paired sash windows divided by mullions. The two storey six bay with attic and visible basement north front is plainer and looks the most Georgian due to a proliferation of multipaned sash windows, except for the two storey extension with its larger pane sash windows. It has just one gable to the left of the slate pitched roof. The west front comprises the courtyard with irregular gabled late 19th century extensions.

Rubblestone walls line the 190 metre long causeway linking the island to the small peninsula of Muckros. The 3.4 hectare roughly oval shaped island, now densely wooded, stretches to just over 300 metres at its widest point. At the far end of Muckros, close to the main road between Donegal and Ballyshannon, stands the gatelodge to St Ernan’s House. Kimmitt Dean (mostly) admires it in Gatelodges of Ulster, 1994, “Circa 1845. A pretty little lodge delightfully situated defending the entrance to a ‘furlong of causeway built by his grateful tenantry’ for John Hamilton, to save him from Atlantic tides on his approach to a retreat which he built in 1825. He had become disenchanted with Brown Hall which he had inherited on his father’s death in 1811 [which contradicts George Seaver’s account of John being orphaned age seven]. A one and a half two up two down Picturesque cottage with ornamental serrated bargeboard to gables. One elevation aligned obtusely with the entrance gates, a single storey canted bay window looks on. In uncoursed square masonry now painted over, a flat roofed rear return and entrance hall recently added are hardly compatible.” The gatelodge is closest in style to the south front of the big house. County Donegal: wild. Donegal Town: wild night out. St Ernan’s: wildness tamed.

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The McCauslands + Drenagh Limavady Londonderry

Jericho’s Retina

“The house looks lovely in the sun: we want you to come and visit us! The gardens are open seven days a week and you can do lots of walks. There are walks from five minutes to 45 minutes. We have a Walled Garden, an Italian Garden, an Arboretum and lots of fun stuff. It’s poignant for me because having almost lost everything I now want to make a legacy for my children. Sometimes it is overwhelming because when I look at other gardens that are successful and how well they do it, I look at the number of staff they have and I think – it’s just Daniel and me! That’s it at the moment. When you’re in the house and you see all these 12 generations of McCauslands looking down at you, you can’t help but feel they’re watching you. The café and shop are the first building work on the estate in a century.” So says owner Conolly McCausland.

Welcome to Drenagh, one of the three Sir Charles Lanyon designed statement country houses of Ulster. The other two are Ballywalter Park in County Down and Dundarave in County Antrim. In 2014 two of the three were for sale. Dundarave and its 485 hectare estate were sold through Savills to an investor company for around £10 million. Drenagh and its 400 hectare estate went on the market through Simon O’Brien for the same price. It was the end of a centuries’ long era for the McCausland family: the main lender Leeds Clydesdale Bank had withdrawn its support for Drenagh and the associated farm. But the following year, Conolly raised £5 million with the sale of land which more than covered the reported bank debts of £3.2 million. Drenagh was taken off the market.

The Honourable Dorinda Lady Dunleath and Sir Charles Brett and their cohorts spent much of the second half of the 20th century Listing the heritage of Ulster. Walter Girvan compiled the unusually titled North Derry (the accepted norm is Derry City in County Londonderry) List in 1972 to 1974. It’s quite the entry and worth quoting in its entirety for fullness. So here goes. “Drenagh House stands in a commanding position in the centre of well wooded parkland to the east of Limavady. The family home of the McCauslands, it was originally called Fruithill; as at Dundarave near Bushmills, it seems to have assumed a new name with its final rebuilding in the late 1830s. Its predecessor appeared to date from the 1730s; the Ordnance Survey comments that it was ‘an old fashioned looking house, which looks extremely well when seen partly through the trees by which it is surrounded’. It probably was similar to Streeve House and, in spite of extensions, was already by the 1820s thought to be too small, so John Hargrave was asked to produce drawings for an entirely new house. Elevations and plans survive and show a chaste neo Greek design, which bears a resemblance to Seaforde House, County Down. Hargrave was not given the job and there the matter rested until Charles Lanyon arrived in County Antrim as County Surveyor in 1836. The present building appears to be Lanyon’s very first commission for a country seat of major proportions, and it is interesting to watch his progress from the relatively restrained neoclassicism of Drenagh, through the greater flamboyance of Laurel Hill in Coleraine of 1843, to the sumptuous Italianate of Dundarave in 1847. In retrospect, the superb assurance of Dundarave is lacking in the earlier building, although there are typical Lanyon touches.”

Born in Cork in the 1780s, John Hargrave’s office was on Talbot Street in Dublin. He was especially active in the northwest. One of Omagh in County Tyrone’s most prominent landmarks, the Courthouse, is by his hand. One of Omagh’s most obscure buildings is another of his designs, the Prison Governor’s House. He brings the former’s strong string courses and the latter’s polygonal geometry to his design for Drenagh. The house that never was has a long five bay two storey “Elevation of Principal Front” with tripartite windows at either end of the ground floor. The entrance door is also treated in tripartite form with flanking sidelights. Clerestory windows below the cornice light an attic floor. At first it’s hard to reconcile this front with “Elevation towards the Rear” as the latter is narrower, higher with an exposed raised basement, and treated differently with a canted bay window either side of the central three bays. Column and pilaster free, John proves himself to be master of astylar architecture.

Why the McCauslands dropped John Hargrave’s proposal is lost in the mists of time. Sir Charles Lanyon’s executed main block is more regular in footprint, a deeper and narrower rectangle. It is a mirror image of John’s: the ancillary wing stretches to the left, not the right, of the main entrance door. The basement is not externally visible. Both designs have two canted bay windows on the elevation facing away from the entrance although the built version are much shallower.

Back to William Girvan, “The house, of two stories, is of finely dressed sandstone. As at Dundarave, each of the main facades is treated differently. The entrance front is five bays wide, the central bay recessed in the usual Lanyon way. While the lower windows are plain, the upper have shallow surrounds, curving into the string course which acts as a sill. The hipped roof is concealed behind a balustrade, and weight is given to the central bay for blocking out the balusters. A hexastyle portico of unfluted Ionic columns, surmounted by a balustrade, enclose the entrance door, which has a semicircular fanlight and sidelights, an idea reused at Laurel Hill and Dundarave. The double string course between storeys units each façade. The southwest front is more awkward – six bays long; the central two bays step forward and are framed by shallow giant pilasters; the surmounting pediment is not strong enough to dominate. The northwest front is managed better. Canted bay windows rise through the two storeys and frame a French window which has a mock segmental fanlight. A lower block of offices extends north eastwards.”

“The interior plan is similar to both Ballywalter Park and Dundarave. An entrance hall with a shallow dome set on Soanesque pendentives opens into a central hall from which all the reception rooms lead. More intimate in scale than its successors, it has a screen of richly decorated Corinthian columns. For ceiling and overdoor and ornaments Lanyon used classical mouldings. A shallow coloured glass dome lights the room. The effect is Roman in its weightiness. The stair, rising between one of the columned screens, divides at the half landing; it has particularly fine cast iron balusters, clad in ivy tendrils. The stairwell ceiling is richly moulded with a scalloped design, bordering an acanthus roundel. Each of the reception rooms is treated differently; the Drawing Room ceiling is the most splendid with an enriched gilded cornice, containing a device Lanyon used elsewhere in the house and at Bellarena – a continuous pipe, encircled by acanthus leaves; the rest is panelled, with a flower bedecked roundel. The Morning Room and Dining Room ceilings are simpler; a nice original Victorian wallpaper of tangled flowers still hangs in the Saloon. Each room has a lavish marble fireplace, all of different pattern and hue. The first floor bedroom passage has unusual and attractive plaster ribbed vaulting, rising from corbels; on the side opposite the stairwell, the pattern changes to a series of shallow domes.”

“The courtyard behind the house is entered by a shallow segmental archway; above is a pediment with clock inserted. The two storey stable courtyard lies beyond; a simple design of six wide coach arches, the centre two pedimented and stepping forward; the side wings, seven bays long have round headed fanlights over the doors. All is in dressed sandstone. Adjacent to it is a second court of rubblestone: this is probably the stable block of the older Fruithill.”

“The house is surrounded by lawns, enclosed by balustraded terraces. Beyond are well wooded shrubberies and a stately flight of steps leading to a massive balustraded vantage point, which looks over a dell, laid out formally with ponds; under it is a fountain exedra. The remains of the old house have been laid out as a walled garden. The northern gatelodge by Lanyon is an exceptionally refined three bay by three sandstone cottage with minuscule tetrastyle Ionic portico – a foretaste of the big house. It has a fine set of piers and gates. The southern lodge dates from 1830 and is a charming L shaped sandstone cottage with pretty paired Gothick lattice pane windows set in simple reveals. It is known as Logan’s Lodge.”

Taken for Granted, compiled by Alistair Coey and Richard Pierce in 1984 for a specialist audience, was described by its authors as “a celebration of 10 years of historic buildings conservation”. The entry for Drenagh confirms, “Charles Lanyon’s first large country house commission. Built in 1836 on the site of an earlier house dating from the 1730s. The house is neoclassical two storeys of finely detailed ashlar sandstone with three different main elevational treatments. A balustraded parapet conceals the roof. The interior is planned around a large central hall lit by a circular leaded light. Phase one: grant assistance of £263 given towards repairs to leadwork. Approximate cost of work: £640. Carried out in 1976. Contractor: Dickie and Hamilton, Coleraine. Phase two: grant assistance of £1,400 given towards repairs to chimneys, roofs, rainwater goods and stonework. Redecoration of remedial items. Approximate cost of work: £2,868. Carried out in 1978. Contractor: Dickie and Hamilton, Coleraine. Phase three: grant assistance of £250 given towards repairs to leadwork including clocktower. Approximate cost of work: £513. Carried out in 1980. Contractor: Dickie and Hamilton, Coleraine. Phase four: grant assistance of £680 given towards treatment of wood rot and subsequent reinstatement. Approximate cost of work: £1,363. Carried out in 1980. Phase five: grant assistance of £3,800 given towards repairs to leadwork. Treatment of extensive dry rot and repairs to internal plasterwork. Approximate cost of work: £7,615. Carried out in 1981. Contractor: William Douglas, Limavady. Timber treatment: Rentokil, Belfast.”

The footprint of the main block is deeper than in it is wide. Perpendicular to the five bay southeast facing entrance front, the southwest front is a generously spaced six bays. An even number is unusual: an odd number of bays allowing for a central feature is conventional in classical architecture. Sir Charles Lanyon came to own it though: Ballywalter Park has a six bay garden front (excluding the wings) and Dundarave has a six bay entrance front. The Entrance Hall of Drenagh leads into a central Corinthian columned Hall naturally illuminated by a circular rooflight. The triple flight staircase rises to one side of the Hall. The architect was a master of the flow: the main reception rooms – Billiard Room, Morning Room, Library, Drawing Room, Salon and Dining Room (going anticlockwise) – all open off the Hall.

On the first floor, a continuous bedroom corridor circulates around the void over the circular rooflight. Still going anticlockwise, Work Room, Blue Room, Balcony Room, South Room, Green Room, Rose Room, Orange Room, Monroe Room and Bow Room all have glorious views across the gardens and parkland. The footprint of the wing, which is formed around a courtyard and stretches towards the stable block, is as large as the footprint of the main block. The storey heights of the wing are much lower as befits its status. Drenagh is built on a grand scale: the Drawing Room measures 11 metres into the bay window by 6.6 metres wide. The Orange Room above it measures 6.7 metres by 6.6 metres. To put that in context, at 44.22 square metres the Orange Room is just shy of the recommended size of a one bed flat in the 2021 London Plan which is 50 square metres.

There are lots of other residential properties on the estate. Bothy Flat, Clock Flat, Laundry Flat and Upper Garden Flat are in the wing. Forester’s Cottage, Garden Cottage, Logan Cottage, Kitty’s Cottage, The Pheasantry, Shell Hill Cottage, Streeve Hill and Yard House are standalone buildings. Killane Lodge is a gatelodge: the main house in miniature. So the farmland continues to be farmed and the estate dwellings tenanted.

Conolly launched Drenagh as a wedding venue in 2012. A ceremony for up to 60 guests can be held in the house or a marquee in the Walled Garden for a maximum of 200 people. He says, “The romantic Moon Garden and the elegant Morning Room are inspirational places for couples to tie the knot. We can accommodate 16 overnight guests in the main house and 12 in the wing. Drenagh can also be rented and is proving popular, especially for American guests. Our housekeeper will look after arrangements.” Helicopter flights can be arranged to pick up guests arriving at City of Derry Airport and set them down on the lawn outside the house. Or a limousine can be despatched.

A lot has changed since 1991 when Conolly’s mother and stepfather took the first steps towards estate diversification by opening the house to large group tours and for bed and breakfast as part of the Hidden Ireland group. Back then the Italian Garden was a mass of bamboos. The remote northwest of Northern Ireland has some catching up to do with the touristy east coast. There are no National Trust country houses nearby. The nearest country house, Bellarena, which was partially remodelled by Sir Charles Lanyon, remains unopen to the public. Drenagh fills the cultural void, flies the heritage flag, and provides fabulous quiche in The Orangery café inside the Walled Garden.

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Lavender’s Blue + 1,000 Articles

Upward We Fly

The Tuamgraney born London based novelist Edna O’Brien once remarked, “There’s a very interesting thing about memory and exile. It is only when you leave someone or something that the full power if you like, the performance of it is in you, it’s inside you. So separation brings the emotions and ultimately a book. I think a book is the accumulation of emotions written in a particular, hopefully musical, way. It’s a beautiful feeling actually; it’s like the whole influx of something that is stronger than memory. Of course, it’s memory but you’re back in it, not writing it secondhand. Again, that counts for a certain derangement.”

It all started with Cliveden. In September 2012, we received an invitation to stay in the Berkshire hotel but as hard copy publications back then were disappearing faster than Veuve Cliquot at one of our soirées, we came up with the idea of publishing an article online. And so Lavender’s Blue was born. The name has triple derivation after our home (“Your house is so cinematic!” declares film director Stephan Pierre Mitchell), our location and the song by Marillion. Before long, every PR in London and further afield learned we always turn up, give good party, and even better copy. Although five parties in one day starting with an 11am Champagne reception for New York thinker John Mack in the Rosewood Hotel was pushing it even by our standards. Actually, it all really began in April 1995 with a column House of the Month in Ulster Architect magazine, edited and published by the bold and brave and brilliant Anne Davey Orr. But that’s a whole other story.

While most events are one-offs, from a vanishing crystal coach at Ascot to a vanishing guest on the Orient Express, others would become annual events. If the preview of Masterpiece (in Royal Hospital Chelsea grounds) was an early summer hit each year, the Boutique Hotel Awards (in Merchant Taylor’s Hall) would quickly become a midwinter highlight. Fortunately Masterpiece has been replaced by The Treasure House Fair and WOW!house and we’ve landed ourselves on their preview lists. We’re also proving a hit at the annual International Media Marketplace.

Behind the curtain. That’s our forte. And we don’t just mean peeping round the iron variety (think Gdańsk). We’re not only through the gates: we’re over the threshold. We gain access where others dare not tread. If it’s an Irish country house, we’ll stay with the owners and explore the cellars and attics – preferably when they’re tucked up in their fourposter (Temple House). We’ll pop into the kitchen to see what’s really going on whether in Le Bristol or Comme Chez Soi. We’ll talk to the lady of the manor and a millworker (Sion Mills). Sometimes it takes a village to raise an article: in Castletownshend the fun began over breakfast at The Castle continuing through public houses and private houses up Main Street before ending back in The Castle by dawn.

If “design” is the mauve thread that sews Lavender’s Blue together, “celebration of life” is our way of banishing anything mentally blue. Illuminated by art and architecture, fashion and the Divine, we’re mad for life, channelling that literary derangement. But if it ain’t good, it don’t appear. Simple. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some events are far too private to be published such as an impresario salon recital in one of London’s grandest houses surrounded by more Zoffanys than The National Gallery owns while sampling the owners’ South African wine cellar. Or a party in Corke Lodge, County Wicklow, with more diplomats per square metre than Kensington Palace Gardens being serenaded by the Whiffenpoofs on the folly gladed lawn.

Lavender’s Blue is all about places and people so we rarely do personal. You won’t read how we were catastrophically frogmarched out of The Lanesborough (too much catwalking) or categorically told to pipe down in Launceston Place (too much caterwauling). Or the full story of hijinks with the model Parees which one friend described as sounding like an escapade from an Armistead Maupin short story. Original writing and original photography – and occasionally original drawing (from a two minute sketch of Mountainstown House to a 10 hour floor plan of Derrymore House) – are our creative cornerstones. We never plagiarise except from ourselves: to quote from one of our most read articles, Beaulieu House, “Lavender’s Blue is the brilliant coated edition of universal facts, riveting mankind, bringing nice and pretty events.” We’ll coin the odd phrase too from “Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder” to “You can’t be this fabulous and not make a few enemies!”

What’s our literary style? Well we’re not paid up members of Plain English for starters. Lord Wolfe would blanche at such opening gambits as, “There’s nothing standard in The Standard” or “Mary Martin London fashion is more than an antinomic macédoine: it is a semiotic embrace of science and conviction made manifest in materiality, tactility and sartorial disruption”. There are a quarter of a million English words to choose from (compared to a mere 100,000 in French and a meagre 85,000 in Chinese) so why reach for simplicity when you can stretch the lexicon? We don’t like to namedrop but as Daphne Guinness shared with us about her lyrics at a party in Notting Hill, “There are some words I just really like the sound of!” A picture tells 1,000 words and sometimes we’ll deliver 1,000 words and 1,000 pictures. But how can you keep the shutter open when you’re cherishing Chatsworth or roaming round Rochester? We’re not just about obvious glitz and glamour. So we frequent Hôtel Meurice in Paris and Hôtel Meurice in Calais. We’ve explored Georgian Bath and Georgian Dover. Doubling down on clichés is avoided except in derision while downing Chapel Down south of the Kent Downs.

How long does an article take to prepare? Some flow with automatic writing on a commute or in bed or in the bath in almost unconscious reverie. Others take decades. Mourne Park House started with a memorable visit in 1992 (the boathouse collapsed and gracefully slid into the lake mid morning coffee) and continued with return visits up to 2021 (by then the house was badly burnt). Crevenagh House was photographed over two decades in every season from heavy snow to scorching sunshine. We visited Gunnersbury Park four times over a London heatwave to capture it morning, noon, evening, and after supper. We also vacationed at Murlough four times, Irish Sea hopping in search of elusive sunlight. Montevetro and Marlfield both first appeared in Ulster Architect before being resurrected on Lavender’s Blue. Marlfield is the work of genius architect Alfred Cochrane with later lodges by the talented Albert Noonan. And on that note, John O’Connell’s work (Montalto) and tours (Ranger’s House) have added an abundance of sparkle to Lavender’s Blue.

We’re always up for top drawer collaborations: polo in Buenos Aires; the Government in Montenegro; Audi in Istanbul; Boutique Hotels Club in Bruges; Guggenheim in Bilbao; Rare Champagne in Paris. Did we mention Paris? The friendliest city in the world! As long as you’re in the right set, of course. We know our French, spring, red and rings. Oh, and we’re easily dragooned to fashion shows stretching the bailiwick especially when it comes to fashion artist Mary Martin London. Vintage models (Goodwood, Carmen dell’Orefice and Pattie Boyd), modern models (Esther Blakley, Janice Blakley and Katie Ice – all beautiful, all gazelles), royalty (Queen Ronke and Catherine Princess of Wales) and pop star royalty (Heather Small) have all enjoyed Lavender’s Blue exposure. There are even occasional segues into filming (Newzroom Afrika and English Heritage) and the dreaded bashing of ivories (Rabbit).

The current culmination of Lavender’s Blue is an exquisitely printed hardback coffee table book of substance on the Holy Land. The first edition of SABBATH PLUS ONE was an instant sellout at Daunt Books Marylebone. It’s now on the coffee tables of all the best homes – including a certain Clarence House. Oh yes, King Charles III is really enjoying his copy. “Your most thoughtful gesture is greatly appreciated …” So it’s time for the second edition. Same high quality print with a reddish burgundy rather than navy blue hard back hand stitched fabric cover. We’re still gonna vaunt about Daunt. Only the finest. In all the best libraries now, not least earning its stripes at Abbey Leix House and Pitchford Hall. And lobbies: The American Colony Hotel and The Jaffa.

We do love our triple Michelin starred places (L’Ambroisie, Lasarte, Core). Champagne! Foam! Truffle! While most of the restaurants we have visited are still thriving, unknowingly at the time, Lavender’s Blue would become an archive for quite a few. Aquavit, Bank Westminster and Zander Bar, Duddell’s, Farmacy, Galvin at Windows in The Hilton Park Lane, The Gas Station (one of our regular rendezvous with fellow gourmand Becks), Hello Darling, Marcus Wareing’s Tredwell’s, 8 Mount Street, Nuala, Plateau, Rex Whistler at Tate Britain, San Lorenzo, Senkai, Tom Kemble at Bonham’s, and Typing Room all in London have disappeared. So have Scheltema in Brussels, Le Détroit in Calais, The Black Douglas in Deal, The Table in Broadstairs, l’Écrivain in Dublin, Cristal Room Baccarat in Paris, and Forage and Folk in Omagh.

Still, nothing tastes as good as skinny fries. It’s survival of the fattest! Impressive as it was, Embassy Gardens Marketing Suite was never built to last. Erarta Art Gallery, Fu Manchu nightclub (the real Annabel’s!) and The Green and Found gift shop are lost in the mists of time. We’d barely photographed Quinlan Terry’s 35 year old junior common room bungalow at Downing College before the wrecker’s ball entered the site. We’re already missing our perfumer neighbour Sniff.

Even sadder, we have become the repository for final curtain interviews. Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors magazine and Anna Wintour’s first boss, the 9th Marquess of Waterford and the musician Diana Rogers entertained us – and hopefully you – with their end of life witticisms. David George, a reader of our Diana in Savannah article wrote, “I was married to her for 10 years and we were together for more than two decades. When you look in the sky she is the brightest star that you will ever see! I love you sweet middle class princess! Rest in peace, all my love, David.” We featured artist Trevor Newton’s final solo show and fashion designer Thierry Mugler taking his au revoir bow at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris. Now historic photographs of model Misty Bailey appeared on Lavender’s Blue. Lindy Guinness, the last Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, shared thoughts at one of her last townhouse parties full of people one should know like the international tastemaker Charles Plante. Beresford Neill reminisced on early 20th century Tyrella. And of course, two memorial pieces to the much missed Dorinda, Lady Dunleath. The last book launch of Dame Rosalind Savill, the inspirational scholar of European decorative arts and visionary museum director of the Wallace Collection, is another moving memory now frozen in time.

Readers’ comments are always of interest. Standout messages include a painting request to Ballyfin; advice on the best photographic viewing point at Dungiven Castle; revealing a shared love of Mary Delany or the Mitfords; a discussion of the meaning of Rue Monsieur; Samarès Manor relatives trying to contact each other during a Jersey storm; and an unreported baby drowning in a mansion swimming pool in Sandwich Bay. Mount Congreve attracted interesting comments including from James Sweeney who wrote, “I worked in Mount Congreve Estate for many years as a Private Chef to the Congreves. It was a joy and a pleasure and has given me cherished memories. Mr Congreve was an amazing man and I owe him a great deal for his wisdom that he kindly let me benefit from.”

Ewelina from Beauty on the Cliff poetically scribed, “Waterford is my home since 17 years and Mount Congreve was always my soft point. The moment when you enter the place is simply magical. I’ve been inside the house recently, just before yesterday. I was inside of the Blue Wedgwood Room … well … only the pale blue walls and the beautiful but sadly empty china cabinets reminded me about past grandeur of this place. It’s really really heartbreaking to see the empty rooms, stripped from everything … even the curtains … the books all over the floor in the library … totally without the respect for Mr Congreve. I hope that Waterford City Council didn’t forget that was someone else’s home. As Mr Yeats said, ‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.’ Thank you so much for your review. Kindest regards from Waterford.” Sara Stainsby messaged, “Really interesting essay on Stapleford Park. My great grandparents worked there, my grandmother was born there and was married in the church. In the 70s I visited my great grandparents when they lived in a flat above the stables …” Birthday wishes (Portrait) and restoration concerns (Barden Towers) are always welcome. Even more welcome was a Champers accompanied poem hand delivered to the state dining room (Hartwell House).

There are direct messages too: “I came across your Lavender’s Blue series starting from Auchinleck then Crevenagh House and Tullan Strand. I can see from your McClelland connection that you have an interest in Northern Ireland including Donegal … I found that your articles on architecture address the most erudite, meticulous and expansive aspects of the subject so perhaps the work of James Taylor in late Georgian times will fall beneath the range of your interest in the style and proportions of symmetrical Palladian buildings.” We jumped straight in a car to Islington. Likewise when tipped off about Stockwell Park. A reader enjoyed our “wonderful commentary on various aspects of Ballyshannon … tis wonderful to share your thoughts about my hometown”. We’ll accept high praise from Ireland’s greatest host: “I just love your articles striking notes of deepest erudizione to soprano and coloratura gossip! I’m so glad you were the catalyst to my party and I can’t believe it went so well.”

Amazing Grace Point inspired a declaration of faith: “Lough Swilly and Fort Dunree is one of the most wonderful places in Ireland to visit, and especially to look out across the waters where so many great ships have sailed. But most of all – to ponder the words of Amazing Grace written there by John Newton. His miraculous conversion credited to his mother’s prayers. She never gave up, like my mother, who never gave up but prayed me into the Kingdom.” Messages come from above and down under: “I hope you don’t mind me emailing you but I happened to walk into a beautiful graveyard today in Picton, Australia, and happened to come across this one particular headstone. I was instantly intrigued as my grandparents were from Donegal in Ireland and I wanted to see if this was close? Anyway I just read about Mountjoy Square and when the area become established. I’m not sure but working out the dates I think this couple might have been some of the original inhabitants? I saw an article that you wrote and just wanted to share this with you – you may or may not appreciate it but I wanted to bring this couple home!” They’ve come home.

Artist and art restorer Denise Cook crosses the rare divide from comment provider to content provider sharing her expanse of knowledge from Pink Magnolias to the Rector of Stiffkey. So does Dr Roderick O’Donnell, world authority on all matters Pugin. Another reader turned writer, the ever erudite historian and patron of the arts Nicholas Sheaff, brought Gosford Castle completely (back) to life. “There is really too much to say,” to parrot Henry James in The Portrait of a Lady, 1881. Haud muto factum.

As Reverend Prebendary Andy Rider once quipped, “You do get around.” Amsterdam to Zürich, Brussels to Verona, Channel Island hopping, nowhere is safe from the Lavender’s Blue sagacity filled patrician treatment. As for our favourite place, that’s simple: Bunbeg Beach, especially at 10.30pm on a sun drenched midsummer night. Chronicling our times, we produce the material – and sometimes we are the material. But only when shot by the likes of top cinematographer Mina Hanbury-Tennyson-Choi and shoot the shoot supremo Simon Dutson. Striking a striking pose. Fading grandeur (the interior not the model).

“The whole earth is filled with awe at Your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, You call forth songs of joy,” Psalm 65. Lavender’s Blue is between the bookends of everything that was and is to come. It’s about dealing with things as they are, not as they should be. We’re all about orchestrating a fresh approach, synthesising Baroque stridency with Palladian refinement. Our oeuvre is a sumptuous sequence of artistic compositions. On the frontline, turning to face the light. Mary Oliver always gets it right: Instructions for Living a Life, 2010, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Thank you to all our readers. Thank you Council Bluffs. In the short now, to pluralise the words of the French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin, “We’d do it all again.”

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SABBATH PLUS ONE Louis Pasteur Street + The Jaffa Hotel Jaffa Tel Aviv

Love in a Hot Climate

“Now let my lord send his servants the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised, and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon that you need and will float them as rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.” II Chronicles 2:15 to 16

The sun stands still. Gazing across the Mediterranean shoreline (273 kilometres stretching north to Lebanon and tipping Egypt to the southwest), astonished by our own brilliance, mingling with the coastal elite, we are delighted how well the afternoon has turned out. “You will die! The Jaffa is gorgeous,” coos Parisienne Maud Rabanne, une dame cultivée. “Coucou! Have coffee on the roof terrace. It’s got the best view! The Jaffa is one of my favourite places. It’s fabuloso! C’est la vie! That’s what we say in Paris. We always mean it in a positive way. Montagne de baisirs. Remplie de joie d’amour et de bonheur. Tchin-tchin!” Cinq à sept. Coûte que coûte. Le paradis, c’est les autres.

Moshe Sakal describes a similar view in his novel The Diamond Setter (2018), “Tel Aviv sprawls out on the right, the rocks of Jaffa on the left, and straight ahead lies Andromeda’s Rock, a plain looking rock that juts out of the water with an Israeli flag billowing on its peak.” International architect John O’Connell hints, “Should you arrive at the hotel, go further up and down the hill, as the Roman Catholic church will be on your left, and nearly opposite it is a very fine and abandoned Ottoman building. A robust ensemble. Try to see the internal court, where I have failed to do so! Such supreme life and joy!” Ah, that will be the Old Saraya House taken over by clubbers, bats and thespians. Abandonment begone!

We’re enjoying a Mitfordesque moment (Love in a Cold Climate heated up from 1949) on that terrace: “So here we all are, my darling, having our lovely cake and eating it too, one’s great aim in life.” We’re feeling “very grand as well as very rich”. The pleasures of passing hours. It helps that this heroic hotel is emphatically designed by everybody’s favourite minimalist maestro, master of the monastic John Pawson, along with Israeli architect and conservationist Ramy Gill. Oracle of our own orbit, balancing on a notional pedestal, we don’t need a doctorate in aesthetics to appreciate John Pawson’s masterwork. John O’Connell is on a roll: “Mr P’s oeuvre is so restrained. Everything’s resolved.” It’s a breath of fresh air, or at least an intake of the coolest sea breeze imaginable. Soon we will be expounding riddles with the grand piano and dwelling on Gertrude Stein (Tender Buttons, 1914), “Cold climate. A season in yellow sold extra strings makes lying places.”

The 1870s Saint Louis V Hospital, built by French businessman François Guinet to the design of architectural practice Grebez and Ribellet and managed by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition, has been sharply reimagined under John Pawson’s crisply contained direction. Delamination of extant solid form – from the remnants of a 13th century Crusaders’ bastion in the lobby to the peeling paint of the dusky pink loggias – leads to a richly layered intertextual discursively informative spirited patina of the raw and the worked throughout the revelatory restoration and clever conversion and audacious augmentation and sensual solution. Faded lettering over the arched doorways lining the loggias reads: ‘Communaute’, ‘Tribune’, ‘Salle Ste Elizabeth 2me Don Blesses, ‘Salle Ste Clotilde 2me Don Fievreux’, ‘Salle Ste Marie Pensionnaires’, ‘Orphelinat’. As Hans Ulrich Obrist (Ways of Curating, 2014) would interject, “… conversations … are happening between various narratives”.

Beyond the lobby with its Ligne Roset corduroy sofas and Damien Hirst spin paintings and lacquered backgammon tables lies a courtyard garden of sacred and human geometry (an unflowered greenscape) linking the ancient with the old with the new with the futuristic. John Pawson venerates yet challenges the original architecture, creating an unfolding sequence of voids and vistas and virtuosic visions. There’s an endless tightly choreographed play between past and present, architecture and art: a nuanced paradox of togetherness and oneness. As Elizabeth Bowen contends in The Heat of the Day (1948), “To turn from everything to one face is to find oneself face to face with everything.” There lies the definite ascetism – to be freed from oneself. Not even an Israeli Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden, 1911) could summon up such discreet walled splendour. Corrugations of percolated sunshine ripple across the stone floor, climbing over chairs, falling over tables. Beyond the courtyard lies the Chapel Bar. The beyondness of many things. This world is our oyster and ours alone. It’s all it’s cracked up to be. Postcard home material. We’re checked in; we’ve checked out. Being here; doing it.

A private paradise. A secret world. A hidden kingdom. Cloistered espaliered sequestered formal glory. The very essence of unexampled exclusivity. If luxury could be bottled … heaven’s scent. A multiple epiphanic realisation of complete beauty. It was as if Elizabeth Bowen was in The Jaffa and not The House in Paris (1935), “Heaven – call it heaven; on the plane of potential not merely likely behaviour. Or call it art, with truth and imagination informing every word.” Marilynne Robinson (When I Was a Child I Read Books, 2012) insists, “Call it history, call it culture. We came from somewhere and we are tending somewhere, and the spectacle is glorious and portentous.”

Ah – the Chapel Bar – from litany and liturgy to luxury and libation, à la carte over elegy, mixology supplanting doxology, heterodoxy replacing orthodoxy, every hour is happy in this soaring sanctuary for sybarites. The only blues are the saturated cerulean hues of the ribbed vaulted ceiling. Beautiful in its loftiness, this bar is an explosion of sizzling rarity, of dazzlingly dilettantish individuality. There are no equals. There were no prequels. There’ll be no sequels. The perfect pitstop to slake your thirst, it’s like being at a house party if all your friends are knowingly sophisticated distractingly gorgeous models or similar ilk rocking new threads inspired by Inès de la Fressange’s (Parisian Chic Encore: A Style Guide, 2019) “haute couture and street style” – Doron Ashkenaz shirts and skin fade haircuts – dancing in eternal graceful circles. In Tel Aviv, kitchen and club are often confused so dancing on tables is de rigueur. A real era catcher: the New Roaring Twenties. Here they come The Beautiful Ones, The Fabulists, The Found Generation, Our Milieu. As befits our subject matter, we’re looking just a little bit sparkly ourselves: all dressed up in Elie Saab attire with somewhere to go; we shall go to the ball. What Roland Barthes (The Fashion System, 1963) calls “the euphoria of Fashion”. All of life has been a dress rehearsal for tonight. For a hot minute we’re running with the fastest set in town. To reference Nancy Mitford’s Don’t Tell Alfred (1963), it’s “high-falutin’, midnight stuff”.

The hotel is all “courtesy clouds” and “honeyed luxury” in a “rococo harmony” straight from The Diamond as Big as the Ritz (Frances Scott Fitzgerald, 1922). Average doesn’t exist in The Jaffa: it’s Lake Wobegon for real and we’ve got a majestic waterside view. Such is the alchemic segue! And who should know better than us? We’re qualified connoisseurs of fabulousness with diplomas in decadence, bachelors in brio and masters in magnificence. Very Bright Young Things. We’re taking the advice of Frédéric Dassas, Senior Curator of the Musée du Louvre Paris. During the Remembering Napoléon III Dinner at Camden Place in Kent he guided us: “Be part of the room; don’t just go through it.” The Chapel Bar is full of “people one should know” to channel Dorinda, Lady Dunleath. She would say, “It’s wild!” The glitter of this mirage. “Every generation has to keep the party going,” Her Ladyship always remarked in her Belgravia meets Ballywalter accent.

Morning figs and evening chocolates bookend a day’s room service. “Upstairs is crazy with dreams or love,” purrs Elizabeth Bowen (The House in Paris again). Guest suites breathe and stretch and sprawl across six uncrowded unhurried unparalleled bedroom floors, arabesque honeycomb filigreed screens flung open to the birds tweeting roosters crowing leaves rustling church bells peeling Saint Michael’s Greek Orthodox School pupils singing car horns honking cacophony. Deliciously diffused light seeps through the open window conjuring up a crimson carpet of crushed rubies. Devoid of demanding garniture or frivolous flotsam and jetsam, passing on the passementerie, the sole artwork in our bedroom is an orange tree captured by Israeli photographer Tal Shochat. Scholar Rebecca Walker educated us at the Remembering Napoléon III Dinner: “Eugénie, Empress of the French, had a fondness for knickknacks.” The unfussy décor of our bedroom would raise her imperial chagrin. A slanted mirror doubles as a reflection of perfection and a television. The perfumed aroma of jasmine and honeysuckle intensifies in the dying heat of a balmy summer day. And so to bed. Looking back, much later, like Frances Scott Fitzgerald’s character John we “remembered that first night as a daze of many colours, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows, and motions and faces”. Elizabeth Bowen’s line in To The North (1932) haunts us still: “this evening had an airy superurbanity”.

“… and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts.” Exodus 35:31 to 33

(Extract with alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).

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The Lenox-Conynghams + Springhill Moneymore Londonderry

Living Life on the Hyphen

Last of the line to live at Springhill was Mina Lenox-Conyngham. She was known as a great storyteller, even if occasionally recollections would vary, and recorded her memories for prosperity in her 1946 pot boiler An Old Ulster House and the People Who Lived In It. The delightful Springhill, now owned by The National Trust, never looked better than at dawn two springs ago. It is pure three dimensional reticent charm, falling somewhere between a grand farmhouse and a modest country house; like its last owner, living between two worlds and two words.

Stephen Gwynn provided the foreword: “Here is a book to rejoice anyone who desires to see light thrown on Irish history nonetheless revealing because it traces through nine generations the fortunes of a leading Ulster family and of a great Ulster house. The Conynghams, who became later Lenox-Conyngham, acquired land in County Derry and managed to hold it. As the years went on they were linked up with almost every prominent family in the Province and had their part in all the outstanding events.” The Lenox-Conyngham family came to Ulster from Ayrshire so really they were Scots-Irish rather than Anglo-Irish.

“Or again we have a full inventory of the plenishing – indoor and out – which furnished out Springhill in George III’s day,” ends Stephen. “In short here is a whole mine of information which tells us above all what sort of lives a representative Ulster family lived once Ulster became what we mean by Ulster – and lets us know also what kind of men and women it bred.”

Lyn Gallagher has written about the house a couple of times. In A Tour of the Properties of the National Trust in Northern Ireland, 1979, she notes, “‘To build a convenient house of lime and stone two storeys high’ was one of the obligations put upon ‘Good Will’ Conyngham when he married Miss Anne Upton in 1680, and it would seem that the charming house of Springhill dates from this period. To the rear of the house is the Bower Barn, one of the earliest buildings to be erected at Springhill, and the long narrow windows in the walls show it to have a purpose for which easy defence was not an insignificant factor. It is a house of enormous simple charm, and the warm atmosphere of old wood in the interiors is not dissipated by the fact that Springhill boasts one of the best authenticated ghosts in an Ulster home – seemingly a mother who lost seven children through smallpox still moves around here.” Dorinda, The Honourable Lady Dunleath, who spent many a childhood summer here, rolling her eyes, was more sceptical: “Aunt Mina had a good imagination!” Dorinda was not impressed when the bedroom she always stayed in at Springhill was designated “the haunted room” by The National Trust.

In Castle Coast and Cottage: The National Trust in Northern Ireland, published 13 years later, Lyn along with Dick Rogers writes, “It may be fanciful to say that a house is friendly and welcoming, but if any house fits that description, it’s Springhill, just outside Moneymore in County Londonderry. A straight avenue leads to the simple, open façade, flanked by two long, broad pavilions, with curved gables which look as if they are holding out arms of welcome. The house has an immediate charm on the affections of the visitor; it is something to do with its age – 300 years of one family’s occupation – and something to do with the scale and the charm of small details, like the arched gateway, with a curly iron gate, at the top of a flight of worn steps leading from the carpark into the wide enclosed forecourt, with immaculately raked gravel.”

They’ve more to offer: “Springhill is essentially an Ulster house. Architectural historians have commented on the slightly hesitant way in which the basically classical front is treated – with narrower, two paned windows in the centre, a typical 17th century Ulster feature – and have noted how the 18th century bow extensions give it more assurance. One commentator, Alistair Rowan, describes it as ‘one of the prettiest houses in Ulster, not grand or elaborate in its design, but with very the air of a French provincial manor house.’ Its lack of pretension is its hallmark, and the rear of the house is described as ‘a comfortable jumble of roofs, slate hung walls and chimneys … with a big round headed window on the staircase the most prominent feature.’” A vintage photograph shows the window frames painted fully black rather than just the outer frames black which created an even more distinctive appearance and greater contrast with the white walls. The photograph also shows the pavilion wings were left unpainted which emphasised their subsidiary role to the house.

“Fabulous finials!” exclaims Nick, a character in Alan Hollinghurst’s 1998 novel The Spell. He could have been talking about the roof decorations of the pavilion wings of Springhill. The finials encapsulate the dichotomous essence of the house: they are grand but are embellishing functional farm outbuildings. Author and former Architectural Editor of Country Life magazine, Jeremy Musson, told us when researching Springhill he learned that Mina Lenox-Conyngham had reversed her mother-in-law’s arrangement and swapped the more recent furniture on the main two floors with all the “old fashioned 17th century furniture” stored in the attic. “The family never threw anything out!” Jeremy records. The library collection of over 5,000 books (some with calfskin covers) on everything from theology to ornithology is one of the best of its kind in Ulster. On the raised ground floor, the contrast between the 17th century entrance hall, staircase hall, study and library with the 18th century drawing room and dining room is one of scale, grandeur and decoration. Dark panelling and lowish ceilings in the former; chunky cornicing and high ceilings in the latter. Jeremy’s piece on Springhill was published in “the recording angel of country houses” (his words) of Country Life in 1996.

We first visited Springhill 30 odd years ago, armed with a polaroid camera. That photographic record, which shall remain unpublished, was of mixed result. Our second visit, in 2010, this time armed with a Canon camera, was on a particularly unphotogenic day of pale grey skies. Thank goodness for the sun blessed spring of 2022. You can never have too much of a good thing, so our latest visit is on another sun struck day, this time in the autumn of 2023. A walk round the gardens; a browse in the second hand bookshop; a look at the costume museum; a tour of the house; coffee and cake in the converted stables. Life at Springhill is immeasurably good.

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Ballyfin Laois + Lavender’s Blue

Haven is a Place on Earth

After Ladytown and Gingertown and before Demesne and Borris in Ossory. Past the ‘Squirrels Crossing’ sign next to Deadman’s Inn. Guided by 1,000 flickering lights, all the stars and planets aligning, we finally arrive at Ballyfin. Dawn is gone and noon is soon. Slowly, majestically, breathtakingly, theatrically, on adverb overload those black and golden gates glide back to reveal another world. To quote Elizabeth Bowen in her 1955 novel A World of Love: “a new world – painted, expectant, empty, intense.” A world of everything. She called these estates “house islands” in her 1942 autobiography Bowen’s Court and Seven Winters. Ballyfin’s walled demesne is more like a “house principality” with hundreds of newly planted trees, dozens of revived vistas and tens of augmented avenues. Two butlers and a manageress stand to welcoming attention on the wide steps of the house. Symmetrically. Later she will whisper “it’s because you love heritage” which is possibly the best excuse ever for a quadruple room upgrade. We’ve luxed out! Our car, keys, suitcases, worries disappear. All we are left with is our anticipatory sense of awe and a louche lust for life. And complimentary glasses of Champers.

There are no equals. Parallels don’t exist. Period. It’s Poles apart. Ballyfin loads the super into superlative. It sticks the hyper up hyperbole. Puts the eggs in ecstasy. And then there are those golf buggies lined up above the haha. Aha, pure unadulterated genius! Pray tell, channelling our outer Tamara in a Green Bugatti, how else are we to explore the 250 hectare estate? Zestfully zipping round from tower folly (lake to left) to picnic chalet (lake to right) to stable yard (lake above) to walled garden (lake below) to boathouse (oops lake straight ahead, all 11 hectares of it), Ballyfin is a deliriously glorious and indulgent playground for rich and cultured adults. This world is our oyster and nobody else’s. We’ve checked in; we’ve checked out. Naturally, on cue ducks waddle ‘cross the lawn to the fountain. A duck is the hotel motif. Ballyfin really is a haven for wild animals and Wild Geese and wild guests. On that (latter, louder) note, why does nowhere ever advertise for “noisy rooms”?

In the 1820s, Sir Charles Henry Coote commissioned multigenerational practice Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison to design a new house on his recently acquired estate. “The ubiquitous Sir Richard Morrison,” as Mark Girouard calls him in Town and Country, 1992. “The son went by the rather wonderful name Vitruvius,” Randal# McDonnell, Earl of Antrim, tells us. Absolutely everybody and we mean everybody raves about the result. Frank Keohane, author of the latest addition to The Buildings of Ireland series, Cork City and County, 2020, believes, “… the interiors are furnished to a degree of perfection and luxury that perhaps only the Morrisons could achieve at this period.” The Irish Architectural Archive (Nick Sheaff et al) published in its 1989 thesis on the Morrisons: “The grandeur and variety of the whole conception and the richness and quality of the decoration are unparalleled in Irish county house architecture.” What Francis Scott Fitzgerald calls “honeyed luxury” in his 1992 novella, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

Esteemed architect John O’Connell advised on heritage and conservation matters relating to the restoration and rejuvenation of Ballyfin. He relates, “Vitruvius was incredibly inspired by everything he saw, although he was frail – he had weak lungs and died aged 44. Ballyfin vies with Baronscourt in County Tyrone but outstrips it. The Cootes saw Emo Court, the neighbouring estate to theirs, and wanted that. They allowed the Morrisons free rein. Ballyfin is the equivalent of the Czar’s Palace with knobs on, the Villa d’Este of Ireland!” Henry James calls the Villa d’Este one of the “operatic palaces” in The Wings of the Dove, 1902. John notes, “As does happen, the Cootes fell on hard times.” The next owners, the quadruple barrelled Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley family, sold Ballyfin to the Patrician Brothers and after a few decades as a college, a shining Knight and a Madam (to borrow the title of an Irish Knight’s spouse) came to the rescue of the fading pile: Chicago businessman Fred Krehbiel and his Irish born wife Kay. Sadly, Mr Krehbiel passed away in June 2021. They were accompanied by a crack team of specialists, all top of their game, to achieve the greatest ever revival of an Irish country house. The nine year rebuilding took several years longer than the original construction period. “Fred and Kay travelled all the time,” remembers John, “and brought to Ballyfin all of their experiences. They bought really good paintings and furniture for the house. There’s a pair of mirrors by Robert Adam in the Saloon. For them, this larger investment was about the apotheosis of the big 19th century house.”

Of course, John led the brilliant restoration of Fota in County Cork, another Morrison house. Ballyfin is hewn from local Clonaslee sandstone. We recall Oscar Wilde in his 1882 essay The House Beautiful: “The use of the natural hues of stone is one of the real signs of proper architecture.” The reconfigured 20th century wing, part hidden from the avenue by an enormous holm oak tree, is of reconstituted stone. The entrance front of the main block is dominated by a three bay giant Ionic order portico; the rear, by a four bay pedimented breakfront. No boring white window frames here: dark stained timber window frames offer a monochromatic sharpness to the exterior as precise as an architectural print. It was Dorinda, Lady Dunleath, who first alerted us to the aesthetic superiority of dark window frames, referencing the National Trust village of Kearney a few kilometres south of Ballywalter Park on the Ards Peninsula, County Down. Five blind windows perfect the symmetry of Ballyfin’s façade.

A bookcase in the Library is jammed full of awards. Relais and Châteaux Garden Trophy 2014. Relais and Châteaux Heritage Trophy 2017. AA Hotel of the Year 2019. Travel and Leisure World’s Best Hotel Awards 2017, 2018, 2019 and… surely 2021! There have been successful Irish country house hotels before, but when it comes to Ballyfin, there have been no prequels. We idly wander through the chain of reception rooms; in The Diamond as Big as Ballyfin “the upholstery consisted of 1,000 minute and exquisite tapestries of silk, woven with jewels and embroideries, and set upon a background of cloth of gold”. Oscar Wilde again, “And now books: an old library is one of the most beautifully coloured things imaginable; the old colours are toned down and they are so well bound, for whatever is beautiful is well made.” One stack of books, a snoresville of Parliamentary Debates, isn’t what it seems: the titles are merely book spines concealing a jib door into the Conservatory. Marlfield House in Gorey, County Wexford, finally has some competition; talented architect Alfred Cochrane’s glass act being the defining country house transparent moment of the 20th century. Some visual jokes are more recent like the suit of armour sporting Vilebrequin boxer shorts on a half landing.

The vastness of the estate swallows everyone up. Deep in the Irish midlands, we’re lost below the shadowy climbs of Slieve Bloom. John observes, “Jim Reynolds designed an incredibly well prepared landscape in the context of John Sutherland’s 19th century parkland.” This includes the extraordinary cascade flowing down the hill from John’s Claudian temple to the terrace in front of the garden elevation of the main block. “Claude Lorrain was a great 17th century French painter who created huge enigmatic landscapes embracing the whole of the Greek and Roman worlds,” John reckons. “The Claudian landscape became the ideal 18th century English landscape – spare, Protestant-like.” Only at pre dinner drinks will we meet the Irish, American and French occupants of the other 19 guest rooms. Thankfully everyone has rigidly stuck to Oscar Wilde’s maxim: “People should not mar beautiful surroundings by gloomy dress…”

The hotel years. What gives? Nothing. Not us. We’re staying put. Or rather going Coote Suite tout suite. Holed up in the Sir Charles Coote State Room thank you very much, which we’re reliably informed is the only ground floor suite in the main house (the Viceroy Room is 20th century). And boy, do we only do main house. It’s taken us quite a few generations to escape the servants’ wing and we’re certainly not voluntarily returning there anytime soon. Ballyfin mostly doesn’t do modern, phew. An ancient stone sphinx guards our bedroom window (not that we’re completely averse to night time visitors). We’re in the noisy room (us, not the environs). How many doors does a suite need? There’s the jib door below the flying staircase landing pushing through the wall thickness to the main bedroom door; curved doors to the cloakroom and bathroom lobby; then a cast iron door creaking into the bathroom. “This bedroom was Sir Charles’ office and the bathroom was his gun room,” explains John. “The arrangement was very strategically planned so that he could watch over the avenue and the yard.” The ceiling is a riot of much arching, apsing, cornicing, coffering, coving, dentilling, detailing, resetting and vaulting. A handwritten card from General Manager Peter White is propped on top of the Fornasetti set of drawers. The fourposter is a plotted knotted tented oriented plateau of impossible indelicacies! Elizabeth Bowen’s A World of Love is relevant, “The fourposter, of a frame immense, was overdraped with more of the damask stuff…” A huge marble bath with bronze lion head taps (Drummonds naturally, a reminder of home) overlooks the lower ground floor courtyard with its ever flowing fountain. Draped over the bath are the heaviest white towels and bathrobes imaginable.

Candlelit dinner is served in the Dining Room. Wow! Weyhey! Yeah! Suddenly, unexpectedly, the cascade beyond our window erupts and alights in a flow of waves and an impossibly surreal pyrotechnic display of Jamesian Catherine wheels. The John O’Connell Claudian Temple is ablaze! Nymphs and dervishes, thankfully no banshees or hobgoblins, flitter across the shadowy striped perfected lawn. A custom designed pescatarian tasting menu, sealed with fresh (mind your own) bees’ wax from the far side of the Kitchen Garden wall, guides us along the gastronomic voyage of a lifetime. There will be no sequels. In something akin to our 55 a day, breathe in: Chilled Apple Gazpacho (garden mint, apple compressed in lime); Lightly Cured Trout (garden turnips, lemon, hazelnut); Salad of Ballyfin Seasons; Cod Cooked in Rapeseed Oil (black olive, saffron, fennel); Roast Garden Swede (lentils, herb purée, black garlic); Cashel Blue (onion and sesame sable, Ballyfin honeycomb); Vanilla and Mascarpone Parfait (toasted macadamia, honey truffle). Breathe out.

Wild Geese Wine is a speciality of the Dining Room. Ballyfin abounds with informative historical snippets and the Wine List is no exception.  “Many émigrés achieved fame and distinction fighting in the armies of France and Spain, others as scholars in Irish colleges from Rome to Prague to Seville. Others, still, entered the wine trade in Bordeaux and established great châteaux many of which still bear their names.” John Gebbie summarises the Flight of the Earls, as the enforced emigration is called, in his 1968 Historical Survey of a Parish of Omagh, “The O’Neill lands of this and other parts had become forfeit to the English king, James I, by the flight of the O’Neill leader, Hugh, to Italy, 1607, with consequent abandonment of his estates. These lands, together with O’Donnell’s, were a matter of 800,000 acres. (The six escheated counties thus involved were: Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armagh).” Louie Cullen writes in The Irish Brandy Houses of 18th Century France, 2000, “Irishmen were prominent in the trade of Spain and France in the 18th century; Irish names still survive in streets, trading houses and châteaux… wine châteaux carry the names Lynch, Kirwan, MacCarthy and Boyd.”

The tune “What a Wonderful World” floats through the light air. A bowler hatted musician is in his element showing off his talent on the ivories in the adjoining Saloon. “Hallelujah” follows our favourite “Moon River” then comes the Downton Abbey theme. A “rococo harmony” straight from The Diamond as Big as the Ritz delights. “Music, plangent and unobtrusive…” To recycle Henry James’ character Densher’s phrase in The Wings of the Dove, how “delightfully rococo”. Each piece is imbued with novel meaning and nuanced memory. We’re up for him playing the Victorian hymn “I’ve Got a Mansion Just Over the Hilltop” although we’d like him to skip the line “I’m satisfied with just a cottage below”. Min Hogg, Founding Editor of The World of Interiors, once shared she was fascinated by properties “from palaces to pigsties”. We’ll settle for the former. Min did tell us Irish country houses held a special place in her heart; she was a member of the Irish Georgian Society. Long after our stay at Ballyfin, like Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s character John, we “remembered that first night as a daze of many colours, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows, and motions and faces”.

Head Chef Sam Moody runs the kitchen at Ballyfin; he cuts the mustard and knows his scallions: “The best meals start with the best ingredients and breakfast is no different. For 150 years or more the apple trees in our orchard have provided their fruit for the house. Apples are collected and pressed each autumn for you to drink throughout the year as Ballyfin’s famous apple juice. Some chickens are lucky enough to call Ballyfin Demesne home; you can stroll up to the top walled garden and collect a few eggs for breakfast and we will happily cook them. Honey is produced by our busy bees in the quiet northwest corner of the estate. Bernd Schuh looks after our bees and extracts the honey for you to enjoy.”

A breakfast menu snippet reads, “The popularity of blue and white china across the globe in the 1700s could not be ignored. America and Europe were flooded with imports from China that were incredibly popular. It was in 1784 that Josiah Spode I perfected the process of under glaze printing on earthenware with tissue paper transfers made from land engraved golden plates. Initially the designs were sympathetic reproductions of the Chinese porcelain that had been incredibly popular during the 1700s but soon Josiah launched original designs such as Willow, circa 1790, and Blue Tower, 1814. Our breakfast china has been selected for Ballyfin as a china typical of the period when the Cootes first welcomed guests to the house.”

The back stairs that once threaded together the service and polite rooms of the house now provide access to the basement bar and swimming pool in the rejigged 20th century wing. “The Ballroom above the swimming pool was the old refectory of the college,” relates John. “It is wide and long with a low ceiling so to foreshorten the space I have advised painting murals in the ceiling roses.” As Oscar Wilde taught, “About the ceiling: the ceiling is a great problem always – what to do with that great expanse of white plaster.” A snippet in a glass cabinet along one of the later wing corridors informs us, “This is part of the large collection of silver assembled by the Coote family over two centuries. The earliest piece here is a London coffee pot dated 1704 with the crest of the Earl of Mountrath. The latest is a cigarette box of 1907. The silver along with all the contents of the house left Ballyfin when the family departed in 1923. Since then much of the silver has been dispersed. Happily contents of this cabinet returned to Ballyfin in April 2014 when it was disposed of by Sir Christopher Coote. The oak iron bound silver chest in which the silver was stored is now in the Library.”

Another corridor snippet reads, “This piece of Bog Oak was found buried in a peat bog in County Offaly. Preserved from decay by the acidic and anaerobic bog conditions, it could be around 5,000 to 8,000 years old.” These remnants of history along the corridors are counterbalanced by more than a generous helping of modern art cool. Vying for attention are Irish and international paintings: ‘The Divination of Ugber’ by John Boyd (born 1957); ‘Lewis Mumford Says’ by American artist Blaise Drummond (born 1967); ‘Abstract Composition’ by Mainie Jellet (1897 to 1944); ‘Patient’ by Brian Maguire (born 1951); ‘Burning Building’ by Stephen McKenna (born 1939); ‘Bellacorick’ by British artist Hughie O’Donoghue (born 1953); and ‘Untitled’ by Ross Wilson (born 1957). We raise our filled flutes to Oscar Wilde’s observation that there is “nothing in life that art cannot raise and sanctify”.

And now for a vignette of Ballyfin style service. Barely have we gingerly opened our bedroom jib door than the butler comes running. It’s 7am on a Sunday morning. “Coffee?” Now that’s called mindreading. Especially when it means a full pot with plain and lemon shortbread served next to the specially lit fire in the Saloon. What Princess Michael wants, Princess Michael gets. We’re reminded of the composer Samuel Barber’s 1952 experience of Glenveagh Castle in County Donegal: “Joy of joys, peat fires are burning in every room… they call it turf… and burning it has an ineffable perfume, at least for me.” Forget spoons and mouths, we were born with silver trays on our knees. It does result in us being more stuffed that the Entrance Hall taxidermy for our 8am full omelette (salmon and whatsoever things are lovely) breakfast served once again in the Dining Room.

“Even the bill is beautiful at Ballyfin!” smiles the receptionist waving us off and it really is gorgeously presented and amplified by an embarrassment of party favours for the road. Let’s hope our bank manager concurs. The only peccadillo is this: every hotel from henceforth will be an anti-climax. For haven’s sake there absolutely are no equals. There were no prequels; there will never be any sequels. Right down to the three enigmatic cherry tomatoes. Ballyfin isn’t cheap but shrouds have no pockets. The 2020s are the new 1820s and Ballyfin is the only place to sizzle this season. It’s not just the fires that are roaring in these hallowed rooms.