Tag: irish georgian society london

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Oakfields + Drum Manor Cookstown Tyrone

Lambeg

“Ruins in Ireland have always been political in light of the country’s history,” lectured University College Dublin Professor Fiona O’Kane to the Irish Georgian Society London some years ago. “In contrast, they possess an insouciance in English paintings. Ruins can be framing devices to real landscape. But the perception of how Ireland is drawn carries a long shadow. There’s a constant iterative of land.” Nowhere frames a real landscape better than the stone tracery of Drum Manor on the edge of Cookstown, deep in Ulster’s West of the Bann territory.

The Stewart aristo dynasty (family name confusingly Stuart) owned estates across County Tyrone for centuries. Originally called Oaklands, the house was built in 1829 for Major William Stewart Richardson-Brady. Architect unknown. His daughter and heiress Augusta married distant relative Henry James Stuart-Richardson, who later would become 5th Earl Castle Stewart. In 1869. the newly married couple set about remodelling and extending the house into a large rectangular mostly two storey block.

Their architect was William Hastings who designed numerous commercial and residential buildings in Belfast, notably McCausland’s (once a warehouse, now a hotel). There’s a robustness to the architect’s oeuvre, while flexing his design muscle between Italianate, Gothic and – as at Oakfields – Tudor, covering all the revivals beloved of Victorians. Constructed of regular coursed sandstone ashlar, it must have looked as permanent as the Sperrin Mountains when first completed. Oakfields was mostly demolished a century later. The last in the line of the Archibald Closes (linked through marriage to the Stewarts) sold the estate to the Forest Service in 1980.

The south front, aproned by an ornate balustraded sandstone terrace, overlooked a deep valley. The Earl Castle Stewarts’ remodelling was clearly identifiable by its Tudor dressings, especially the row of gables and mini gables popping up above the crenellated parapet supported on machicolations. The Richardson-Bradys’ original house was left unadorned as a plain wing. A four storey square tower (with a five storey octagonal corner turret) attached to the north facing entrance front rose above the main block like the fictional remains of a keep. William Hastings designed two extant gatelodges in an even more castellated style.

A couple of long forgotten newly discovered faded photographs show Oakfields in all its glory. One is of the lake in the valley with the house as a backdrop. Two people are on a canoe beside an ornamental island in the lake: a hatted gentleman is perched on the tip of the canoe while a hatted person (too blurred to be gender identifiable) is holding the oars. Could it be Henry and Augusta? Or Henry and a servant? The other one is a view of the entrance front and boxy bay windowed east front. This photograph clearly shows the two paned sash windows mostly used – a concession to the modernity of its day. A more authentic Tudor style double height traceried window to the right of the porch must have lit the staircase.

Another new discovery is a set of detailed plans for unexecuted works all titled Drum Manor, signed Castlestuart and John McDowell, and dated 1876. The elusive John McDowell was an excellent draughtsman judging by these black ink and coloured pencil drawings. Design for East Elevation illustrates a one and a half storey loosely Scottish Baronial block. Scribbled pencil writing over the drawing states “Coursed ashlar” and “Rubble masonry to frieze”.

The other plans relate to Coach House Range, Farm Offices and Minor Farm Offices – one, one and a half, and two storey stone buildings. An accompanying ground floor plan shows two abutting square courtyards. Scribbled pencil writing states: “Existing walls and buildings coloured in sepia. New erections coloured in pink.” North Elevation of Minor Farm Offices is of a single storey vernacular block with doors and openings labelled Dogs, Pigs, Hens, Laying House and Hens. South Elevation of Minor Farm Offices is labelled Wood, Coal, Tools, Carpenter, Carts and Bull. Sketch of East Front of Farm Offices illustrates a formal neoclassical symmetrical block with a centrally placed tall belltower surmounted by a peculiarly over scaled weathervane, almost a storey in height.

At least the damson’d gardens and rolling parkland under the shade of the ruins remain and are open to the public. A silent drum beats again. Balustrades and buttresses and battlements – those honey coloured ramparts – protecting nothing and housing nobody. Transoms and mullions holding air. Crocketed pinnacles pointing heavenward. Pearl necklaced capitals. Metre high green carpet pile. That solitary damsel’d tower. And yet Drum Manor has fared slightly better than another County Tyrone country house. The only built form that remains on the estate of Pomeroy House is a derelict portion of the stable block outbuilding. An adjacent hardstanding provides a ghostly outline of the house’s footprint encircled by forestry. The demise of a demesne. A little investment and the ground floor skeletal remains of Drum Manor would make a great walled garden.

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Architects Architecture People

St Eugene’s Church Glenock + Pubble Graveyard Newtownstewart Tyrone

Forever Building the House of the Lord

“Salve!” greets Father Roland Henry Colhoun. “You’re helping build the house of the Lord.” Following an enthusiastically driven campaign, the Priest is the well deserving recipient of grants from the Irish Georgian Society London and the National Churches Trust, London. Yet his Parish of Ardstraw East lies west of the Bann, County Tyrone, that landlocked rural county, next stop Donegal, a place often overlooked. But not so when you’re such a spirited soul as Father Colhoun.

Earlier that day there would be a visit to Pubble Graveyard. It’s a bluebell and buttercup filled haven 1.25 kilometres west of St Eugene’s Glenock, full of buzzing buzzards and racing hares and the bystanding curious. A stone walled enclosure once part of a Franciscan friary, one of its remaining crumbling gravestones reads: “Erected in memory of Margory of Lower Callon who parted this life 23 March 1873 aged 70 year.” Then there is John McLaughlin’s gravestone: he died aged 91 in 1888. Or Mary Morris who illegibly allegedly died goodness knows what age in 1885. All this history is secreted and nestled below the heavy brown heather of Mary Gray and Bessie Bell hills.

John Gebbie records in his 1968 Ardstraw (Newtownstewart): Historical Survey of a Parish, 1600 to 1900, “In this parish were three 15th century monasteries of the Third Order of Franciscans according to a 1603 Inquisition, ‘Corock, Puble [sic], and Garvagh Kerin. Each had three parts of a quarter of land (120 acres) attached of annual value 1/7 Irish money. But they had just recently been dispossessed and lay ruinous, as they do today.’” Father Colhoun explains, “Pubble is the English transliteration of the Irish word ‘pobal’ meaning ‘people, population, community or parish’. In Irish, one of the most common names for a church is ‘teach an phobail’ meaning the house of the community. The reason the townland of Pubble has its name is that the graveyard originally had a church.”

He confirms there were at least four Franciscan monasteries in west Tyrone: Pubble Graveyard, Newtownstewart; Corrick Graveyard, Plumbridge; Scarvagherin Graveyard, Castlederg; and Omagh Friary in Drumragh parish with lands at Shergrim. “I haven’t located the last one – not yet!” adding, “Pubble and the others in this location lasted around 150 years, from the mid 1400s until the early 1600s. As recently as yesterday, I heard of an archaeologist who says that an aerial drone photograph of an ancient graveyard, if taken during a very dry spell of weather, will reveal the outline of old monastic buildings because the foundations or stumps of walls are below the modern day level of the ground.”

“Our parish has one of the oldest post Reformation churches still in use for Catholic worship in Ireland,” continues this most erudite of priests. “There has been a Catholic church on this site at Glenock since 1785.” Typically for a Catholic church, St Eugene’s lies beyond the nearest town of Newtownstewart, on a country road opposite Holm Field. The Priest regularly takes fundraising historic tours of the area. “After the 1829 Catholic Emancipation the bells of St Eugene’s would be the first to ring in the Catholic diocese since penal times.” But is the current church fit for today’s purpose? “Absolutely,” he smiles, “and no matter where you sit, you can always see me!”

“Until the 1960s churches like St Eugene’s were built to face east. The Ascension of the risen Lord was in the east and He will come again from the east,” says Father Roland. “Around 550 AD, St Eugene established his religious foundation in Ardstraw, which is the origin of this parish. As monastic Abbot, Eugene became Bishop of Ardstraw! His name, which means ‘born under the sacred yew tree’, was added to the church at Glenock in the 19th century, many years after its inception. At present, our project of restoration is the renewal of the church windows. There were never stained glass windows in this building. The windows were replaced and repaired down the years, according to deterioration and need. In 1978 the four windows on the sanctuary wall were replaced. In summer 2021, experts spent two days excavating the boxing casing on every window and Queen’s University plans to carry out carbon testing on many of the wooden structures in the building.” Authentic restoration is paramount to Father Roland. “The octagonal baptismal font in front of the altar dates from as recently as 2016,” he explains. “It had been commissioned by my predecessor to replace the old font which disintegrated beyond repair some years before his tenure. Also in 2016, I designed the octagons and crosses in terrazzo flooring to provide an elegant surround to the font and funereal area. Accordingly, the font stands opposite the resting area for coffins. Alpha and omega: on both occasions you are carried into the church.”

At a glance, Dr Roderick O’Donnell, architectural historian, Pugin expert, Country Life contributor and a Vice President of the National Churches Trust, comments, “This St Eugene’s is a typical Roman Catholic development: an early rectangle which grows wings to become a T plan. The 1834 belfry was enhanced by a timber spirelet of 1904. Note the roundhead and Gothick windows of two storey in height. It’s galleried inside and is an important survival of such a church plan.” More in-depth investigation to come.

“Look at the quatrefoil and circular windows,” assesses Rory. “There was clearly a 19th century façade campaign, a highly conscious decision to Gothicise this vernacular building. The adoption of Gothic is making a statement about history, an historicist reference. This simple Irish and Scottish T plan is compatible with the reformed Catholic liturgy. St Eugene’s is an architectural conundrum: the stairs up from the porch suggest that is the earlier part of the building. The ambitious Georgian sashes are an important survival. Then there’s the slate roofed Victorian porch. It’s all charmingly vernacular. Inside, the original altar rails have been relocated to the upper balcony. I think the original towering timber reredos has been cut down. It was probably a majestic piece of interior architecture. But the current crucifix makes a striking statement. The marble and stone altar is much later 19th century.”

Dr O’Donnell summarises, “To find these elaborate galleries in a country situation is quite rare. They are good pre Victorian joinery, of much better quality than those found in churches in the west of Ireland. The fabric suggests the galleries are the oldest internal fittings in the church. Edward Toye added the spire and I believe he probably reroofed the church. Did he Gothickise some of the windows too?” That Catholic architect was improbably the protégé of Apprentice Boy John Guy Ferguson and together they were responsible for some of Derry City’s finest Victorian and Edwardian buildings.

Edward Toye designed the tower of St Eugene’s Catholic Cathedral Derry as well as what is now The Playhouse Theatre and the bank that would become Shipquay Hotel. The latter two are palazzos-on-Foyle, exhibiting eclecticism typical of that era. He also designed a plethora of local churches including St Patrick’s Church Gortin, just nine kilometres east of St Eugene’s Church. Like St Eugene’s, the Catholic church in Gortin is not in the village centre: it is surrounded by fields at the end of Chapel Lane 0.3 kilometres off Main Street. An external plaque confirms the age of St Patrick’s, “Foundation stone of this church was blessed by Most Reverend J K O’Doherty Lord Bishop of Derry on Sunday 9 October 1898.”

Later conversations will be had. “On Irish Georgian Society London Trustee Stuart Blakley’s question about the pattern of windows on the differing elevations,” Conservation Architect Peter Gallagher will respond, “The glazing bars within the replacement windows will follow the existing patterns, responding to the round headed masonry openings and the pointed arches respectively, repeating what Stuart refers to as the ‘fanlight’ umbrella shaped glazing bars in the first and, in the latter, the pointed Gothick shaped arch with Gothick style ‘trellis’ bars.” In the meantime, there will be an early Sunday morning dew soaked photoshoot from Holm Field. Despite its museum-like aura, resembling one of the buildings transported to the Ulster American Folk Park outside Omagh, St Eugene’s is very much a working church. As Father Roland Henry Colhoun might quote, “Omnibus bene tibi erit.”

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Irish Georgian Society London + Forman + Field

St Patrick’s Celebration

It’s never held on the actual day to avoid clashes with myriad other invites. So this year once again the night after St Patrick’s Day the Irish Georgian Society celebrated in style with well delivered talks over well delivered dinner. Best known for seafood, Forman + Field came up trumps with the evening meal. Proving how diversified the company has become, the vegetarian option was Peter’s Yard crispbreads with field mushroom and tarragon pâté; vegetarian shepherd’s pie with courgette and pea salad; and apricot tarte tatin. Artisanal; traditional; delightful. As the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would say, “Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!”

Lance Forman explained, “Forman + Field is a family business. We scour the British Isles for small scale producers and farmers who share our passion for doing things properly, with integrity and respect for natural ingredients. We’ve been around for almost 120 years so we know how to cure and smoke. We’re the original salmon smokers and the only smokehouse left from the generation that invented smoked salmon as a culinary luxury. Yes, here in London, not in Scotland or Scandinavia.”

Irish Georgian Society London Trustee Robert Jennings gave a lecture on the Society’s 2019 events. The first event discussed was a walking tour of the “reassuringly the same” Jermyn Street, St James’s. “Shops like Floris have been here for centuries,” he remarked. “Arriving in 1885, Turnbull and Asser is quite a newcomer. Made to measure shirts there start at £275. Next door, Paxton and Whitfield fromagerie is Irish Georgian Society heaven!” The annual 20 Ghost Club Tour (to the west of Ireland in 2019), combining vintage architecture with vintage cars and vintage wine, included a visit to a tin tabernacle. “We don’t just do grand houses.” There were of course still plenty of grand houses on the agenda including Lissadell in County Sligo. “It’s either bleak or pure depending on your point of view.”

Donough Cahill, Executive Director of the Irish Georgian Society, spoke next about education, scholarship, buildings at risk and conservation projects. He expressed dismay at the closure of the Georgian House Museum on Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Street. “Will Dublin be the only Georgian city without its own Georgian house museum? Bath and Edinburgh both have their own.” A success story was the campaign to halt the demolition of the 18th century former Kildare Street Hotel. Irish Georgian Society London Chairman John Barber, Deputy Lieutenant of the London Borough of Newham, concluded the evening. He declared, “We’re all going to have another great year!” As the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge might say, “Bíodh bliain iontach agaibh gach duine!”

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Art Fashion Luxury Restaurants

Rosewood Hotel London + Retro Art Afternoon Tea

Up On Reflection

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Courtyard © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

We’re leisurely making our way round the courtyard of Rosewood Hotel in Holborn, a mere canapé’s throw from Sir John Soane Museum. Our first visit was for dinner in Holborn Dining Room. Second visit, Champagne in Scarfes Bar. Our third visit is for afternoon tea in Mirror Room. These are the last photos you’ll ever see of the Retro Art Afternoon Tea. Fortunately, Rosewood London hasn’t gone the way of Bonhams or Typing Room Restaurants – history. Instead, this fifth edition afternoon tea is being superseded by the Van Gogh Afternoon Tea to coincide with an exhibition in Tate Britain.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Hallway © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Retro Art Afternoon Tea is just what the doctor ordered after our inaugural Irish Georgian Society London St Patrick’s Party lecture A Very Grand Tour held at The Medical Society of London, off Harley Street. The lecture might have stretched to 100 slides on 16 buildings in 40 minutes but prepping over dinner in Indian Accent, Albemarle Street’s part subterranean wholly Subcontinental haute cuisine restaurant, eased the intellectual burden. Even an eight hour Very Grand Detour lunch the day before in Hix Soho didn’t detract from a performance as polished as our reflections in Rosewood’s Mirror Room.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Bathroom © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Flower Arrangement © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Sandwiches © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Sweets © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An enigmatic vitrine, shortly to become an evolving diorama of dainty delights, is placed on our table. Pescatarian savouries upfront include salmon vol au vents with cream cheese and keta caviar, egg and watercress sandwiches, and the cucumber and cheese variety. In true Duchess of Bedford tradition, plain and raisin scones follow, accompanied by Corniche Cornish cream, lemon curd, and strawberry and elderflower jam. Queen Victoria Darjeeling blend is a 19th century interrupter. That’s before the afternoon tea leaps another century forwards, starting with retro sweets of Ferrero Rocher | Jaffa Cake | lemon flying saucer | rhubarb and custard. Finally, the vitrine is filled with a very 20th century interruption, a diorama of edible vintage sculptures.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Malika Favre Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

  • Malika Favre inspired pastry: lime and pineapple mousse, raspberry crémeux and sponge, raspberry glaze and chocolate. Malika is a French illustrator and graphic artist based in London. Her bold minimalist style bridges the gap between Pop Art and Op Art.
  • Andy Warhol inspired pastry: Morello cherry jelly, chocolate mousse, vanilla brûlée, flourless chocolate sponge, cherry ganache. Campbell’s Soup is one of Andy Warhol’s most celebrated works of art. Produced in 1962, it’s composed of 32 canvases each representing a can of Campbell’s Soup.
  • Retro Wall Art inspired pastry: vanilla tart case, almond crunchy praline, salted caramel mousse, chocolate crémeux, caramel glaze, chocolate popping candy. Wall Art took on a new meaning in Seventies and Eighties, embracing geometrics and flowers in bright colours.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Andy Warhol Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“As a Pastry Chef, I’m always curious and draw inspiration from things that surround me. London is a vibrant city with an incredibly energetic art scene. Rosewood London’s quirky interiors reflect the British capital’s history, culture and sensibilities,” explains Executive Pastry Chef Mark Perkins. “The interiors feature works of some of the world’s most renowned artists, with contemporary pieces complemented by more traditional art. My latest creations are inspired by retro art from the Sixties to the Eighties.” Next time, we’ll complete our Rosewood London courtyard journey with a leisurely visit to Sense Spa.

Rosewood Hotel Holborn London Retro Wall Inspired Pastry © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Country Houses Luxury

Sprivers House Tonbridge Kent + The Irish Georgian Society London

Rhymes with Rivers

Sprivers House Kent Entrance © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

At the Irish Georgian Society London: we do like our very private houses: the longer the laneway the better. Sprivers House in the Weald of Kent ticked both boxes and then some. We were the second visitors ever as guests of the owners who run a wedding business from the house. First box well ticked then. Ancient trees reach over the laneway so lavishly that our coach couldn’t fit down the drive. The Society discovered on foot how long the laneway is: very. Second box very well ticked then.

Sprivers House Kent Facade © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Local historian Andrew Wells has studied Sprivers House and its past owners: “Alexander Courthope encased the two storey hall house in pink Flemish bonded brick, adding hung tiles to the first floor of the gabled west front. He built the new east extension as the principle five bay elevation, one bay deep, with a pedimented doorcase with Doric pilasters, the three central bays more closely spaced with pedimented dormers in the hipped roof above, the middle one segmental.” This work is recorded by “AC 1756” on the keystone and imposts of the round headed stair window to the north. “AC 1746” on bricks above the stable house door prove it to be a decade earlier.

Sprivers House Kent Side View © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Sprivers House Kent Side Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Andrew is on a roll: “Internally the impact of the outer hall is the heraldry of the Courthope and related families contained in excellent rococo plaster cartouches, beneath an enriched modillion cornice continued throughout the Georgian house. The panelled inner hall contains a restored Chinese Chippendale staircase with a ramped handrail, beneath a gadrooned cornice and deeply coved guilloche bordered ceiling. The panelled drawing room and dining room have wooden chimneypieces with scrolled friezes.”

Sprivers House Kent Entrance Hall © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Robert Courthope flogged the house at Christies in 1946. It is now owned by the National Trust who rent it to the current occupiers. Sprivers House has barely changed in a couple of hundred years, passing unscathed through Victorian times. A 15th century moat reveals it to be a truly historic site. The 21st century luxury of our coach: after a very long walk down the laneway: transported us back to London and back to life.

Sprivers House Kent Drawing Room © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architects Architecture Art People Town Houses

Sir John Soane’s Museum Holborn London + Emily Allchurch

Collage of the Titans

After organising a hugely successful and academically driven Irish Georgian Society London work-in-progress tour of Pitzhanger Manor, Sir John Soane’s country home (due to reopen to the public next year), an invitation to breakfast at his townhouse  museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields proves providentially irresistible. Morning sunlight pierces the shadowy interiors, soaking the sarcophagi, the inimitable collection lit by shafts of coloured light through stained glass cupolas and lanterns and domes. Nowhere in the capital is there such a multilayering of art and ideas. As Bryan Ferry used to sing, “All styles served here…”

We’ve heard of the Soane style being heralded as the forerunner of modernism – think of his streamlined later work – but today’s proclamation is about his postmodernism aesthetic. Applying such plaudits, bestowing such honorifics to the ultimate disruptor, is but a fitting tribute. Dr Bruce Boucher, Director of Sir John’s Soane Museum, says, “In many ways Soane was postmodern. He’d no fear of adapting different styles. Even the double coding of this building as a house-museum and workplace is postmodern.” A diorama of China Wharf by the cleverest postmodernists, CZWG, takes pride of place in the first floor gallery space. The custard yellow egg in the custard yellow drawing room looks strangely familiar. Turns out it’s from Terry Farrell’s TV AM building.

There’s also an exhibition on the ground floor of what Bruce calls “remarkable digital collages”. It comprises three works by the artist Emily Allchurch. She trained as a sculptor and has an MA from the Royal College of Art. Emily was inspired by significant works by the artist Giovanni Piranesi and the architectural illustrator Joseph Gandy in the Museum’s collections. “The light boxes are windows into another world,” she explains. “My practice creates a dialogue between historic artworks and the present day, using hundreds of photographs and a seamless digital collage technique to recreate the original image in a contemporary idiom. I always take my own photographs. Visiting the buildings is part of the journey.”

Grand Tour: In Search of Soane (after Gandy) is a reworking of Soane’s built projects. Its companion piece Grand Tour II: Homage to Soane (after Gandy) is neoclassical architecture around Britain with “unbuilt” Soane additions. The roofscape of Calke Abbey is amusingly spruced up by three splendid domes. Such euphoric recall! Punchy. Like Joseph Gandy’s work, both these pieces were exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The third piece is Sic Transit Gloria Mundi (after Piranesi).”It’s a conversation about London and Rome,” Emily confirms, “a reminder that empires can collapse.” There’s a weight and confidence to her work. It displays great artistry. And super wit. A “Dead Slow” sign next to mausolea; “If you lived here you’d be home now!” graffiti beside Pitzhanger Manor.

Soon, it will be time for the Irish Georgian Society London to return to its roots. A party to celebrate half a century since the restoration of Castletown House in County Kildare, the Society’s first major success story, awaits.