Thrill of the Chaste
An immaculate concept, a gorgeous late Georgian flowering. Townley Hall deep in the Boyne Valley came about in the closing years of the 18th century. Its architect Francis Johnston designed Rokeby Hall, 17 kilometres north of Townley Hall, a decade earlier in 1786. The former is a smaller version of the latter. Both are of a spare patrician architecture so appealing to the modern eye. Plain planes. Townley is an achingly svelte seven bay by seven bay 27.5 metre square block.
The architect conceals and reveals scale and massing as the viewer moves round the outside. This is a four storey house masquerading on three sides as a two storey building. Attic dormers lurk behind a solid parapet in a similar arrangement to the contemporaneous Castle Coole, County Fermanagh, except there the dormers peep through balustraded gaps in the parapet. Townley is Castle Coole taken to next level Grecian severity in a case of keeping up with the Lowry-Corrys. Francis’ brother Richard was the original architect for Castle Coole: he was replaced by the celebrity architect James Wyatt. There is another Fermanagh link: the client Blayney Townley Balfour married Lady Florence Cole in 1794. She was from Florence Court, a neighbouring estate of James Wyatt’s masterpiece.
Townley Hall is an essay in structural rationalism, a formal stone box grounded by rolling countryside. Recent semiformal planting softens the grey to green juxtaposition. Unencumbered by unnecessary architectural frippery, Francis employs taut lines. He let’s go – just a little – with the kitchen wing. A collection of curves carefully enriches the wing’s fenestration: recessed arches, roundheaded windows, segmental arched tripartite mezzanine windows, a bow window. It’s not just an august purity auguring minimalism that defines Townley. Workmanship and materiality are also top notch. The facing ashlar was quarried from nearby Sheephouse. It has lower absorbency than most limestone. Mortar is barely visible between the masonry. Metal rods reinforce the slimmest of glazing bars. A mid storey string cornice and Greek Doric eaves cornice relieve the expanse of wall.
A tetrastyle Doric portico leads into the entrance hall which has twin Doric chimneypieces – more restrained versions that those in Castle Coole. That’s a theme developing in this article. Rectangular plasterwork wall panels resemble vast empty picture frames. A coffered ceiling adds to the room’s crisp angularity. Straight ahead – silent drum roll – is the rotunda, a nine metre diameter glass domed cylinder forming the core of the house. A swagger of genius. A swoop of plasterwork swags and skulls. Irish design at its most suave. All the plasterwork whether naturalistic or geometric is of shallow relief. There are two coats of paint on the rotunda walls: the current 1920s creamy beige over the original stone grey. The ribbed dome casts a spidery web of shadows which leisurely climbs the staircase as the afternoon progresses.
An interlinking ceiling rose pattern in the drawing room is similar to the overhead plasterwork of the dining room in Castle Coole. Like all the main rooms around the rotunda it is 7.3 metres deep. This layout allows all the main rooms to have natural light while the rotunda is top lit. Rokeby Hall is similarly laid out and equally bright. It is an efficient arrangement removing the need for corridors. Andrea Palladio’s 1560s Villa Rotunda outside Vicenza is an obvious source of inspiration although the dome of Townley is hidden behind the attic floor rather than being on full display. Surprisingly Francis’ drawings illustrate the final rationality of layout and simplicity of design was achieved through an evolutionary process. For example, the more elaborate Ionic order (which James Wyatt used for the portico of Castle Coole) was replaced with the plainer Greek Doric for the portico. Francis was clearly a master of the Golden Ratio.
A set of early 1900s photographs (courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive: reproduced here for non commercial educational purposes) includes views of the interior. Furnishings were suitably classical and restrained. Chinese wallpaper in the south facing drawing room is a rare flush of extravagance. The boudoir and dressing room over the drawing room overlook the parkland. They are one of five family suites clustered around the first floor rotunda landing. On the floor above, the view from the servants’ dormitories is the backside of the parapet below a sliver of sky. The only unobstructed attic windows are in the west facing barrack room which looks down into the courtyard: guards needed to be on watch.
In 1957 the family sold the house and 350 hectare estate to Trinity College Dublin for use as an agricultural school. Since 1977, Townley and its immediate 60 hectares has been a residential study centre owned by the School of Philosophy and Economic Science. A single level extension (visible as one storey on the north front) was recently completed over the kitchen wing plus a double height access link to the original house. The two main conservation schools of thought are to either design an extension that blends in with the host building or one that contrasts with it. The current Irish notion strongly favours the latter. Oh the architectural profession’s fear of that ultimate sin: pastiche! That’s despite every other modern glass building being derived from Philip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut and its 70 year old ilk. RKD Architects of Newmarket Dublin secured planning permission for an extension that consisted of similar massing to that executed except the courtyard facing elevation was a dormered mansard. RKD proposed Georgian style sash windows throughout.
Treasa Langford of Dúchas Heritage Service commented on the application, “The finishing of the north wall is not specified; however, the construction is specified as exposed uncoursed rubblestone, which would appear to be inappropriate on a cut stone house such as Townley Hall. We would recommend a ruled and lined nap lime plaster finish without use of cement.” Her opinion is based on the view of sympathetically blending old and new. It could be counterargued that rubblestone would be suitably subservient to the cut stone of the grand main block, emphasising the ancillary nature of the wing.
A decade later, MVK Architects of Fitzwilliam Square Dublin’s design also secured planning permission and this time it was built out. Their approach is very different. The design concept is to add an identifiably contemporary layer to this historic property. Subordination and deference are common themes of both practices’ thinking. MVK’s has neither a mansard nor Georgian style glazing bars but the window openings are classically positioned and proportioned.
Michael Kavanagh of MVK Architects relates, “The choice of material was based on aesthetic as well as practical considerations. Natural zinc has a light grey colour – from historic photographs it appears the slate on the original roof had a similar light grey colour. The material is not intended to match the limestone colour but rather be complementary to it. Zinc is natural, hardwearing, long lasting and difficult to puncture. These characteristics make it ideal for long term weatherproofed cladding. It is stiffer than lead or copper and consequently allows for the crispness of detailing which is intended throughout.” This metal envelope is fixed on plywood decking across battens to form a ventilation zone. The zinc is fitted in strips of varying widths using a staggered but repeating rhythm which reflects the use of differently sized limestone blocks on the main house exterior.
The best example in Ireland of a Modernist addition to a neoclassical building is of course the Ulster Museum Belfast extension. Edinburgh architect James Cumming Wynnes won the 1913 competition for the original museum. The exterior displays fairly ornate Beaux Arts decoration. In 1964, London architect Francis Pym won a competition to extend the museum. His highly inventive design is at once contextual and disruptive. He draws out the neoclassical detailing such as cornices and string courses which then collide with abstract cubic concrete blocks expressing the layout of the galleries inside. Francis’ dramatic work is unsurpassed in its genre. Surprisingly, he worked in church conservation and his only other recorded built form is a gazebo somewhere in England.
This is an article of superlatives. The O’Connell Wing of Abbey Leix in County Laois is a study in how to do it right. Architect John O’Connell’s masterful 1990s reimagining of an unfinished 1860s wing by Thomas Henry Wyatt (an Anglo Irish distant next generation relation of James) is a lesson in improving what’s there already. Client Sir David Davies explains, “This extension was never built as planned but the remains of the Wyatt scheme – a low unadorned wall to the right of the main house was a disfiguring distraction, an issue O’Connell resolved by puncturing the walls with windows and adding architectural ornament.” John O’Connell was also responsible for the late 20th century restoration of Castle Coole. This is an article of connections.
Sympathetic contextual additions; visibly contemporary extensions; dramatic architectural interventions; subtly remodelled wings – they all have their place and supporters. English Poet Laureate and architectural historian Sir John Betjeman once stated, “I have seen many Irish houses, but I know none at once so dignified, so restrained and so original as Townley Hall in County Louth.” More than 230 years after it was finished, such is the strength of Francis Johnson’s design, capturing the spirit of a future age, it still possesses dignity, restraint and originality.
