“St Giles House has quite an evolving history,” says Lord Shaftesbury. “Country houses are always living organisms. The Victorian obsession was to make them bigger and better. Strange French château style pavilions were added to St Giles. They were poorly constructed and didn’t survive more than seven years. Whoever thought they were a good idea?” Nick is England’s coolest aristo. He also happens to own Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. His great grandfather who was Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast gifted the family’s Northern Irish seat, Belfast Castle, to the City Council in 1934. Today, Nick is dressed in a linen suit and trainers with his trademark sweptback hair touching his shirt collar. He also happens to be responsible for one of the most iconic – not a term to use lightly – country house rooms of the 21st century. More of the Great Dining Room later.
“Growing up nearby I used to cycle past St Giles and think what a strange place it was – from another era.” A series of very unexpected events resulted in Nick inheriting the derelict house and its 2,220 hectare estate just south of Cranborne Chase, Dorset, in 2005. The first phase of restoration of the house was to “create a cosy family space akin to our Earls Court flat life at that time”. Nick and his wife Dinah along with their three children moved into this “cocoon” occupying a few rooms. He remembers, “We needed to live and feel and breathe the building.”
Despite lying empty for 50 years, “It was an incredible house just full of stuff. Our challenge was navigating our way through what was worth salvaging and what wasn’t. We found some beautiful unique pieces we wanted to showcase. Otherwise, the interior is a combination of beautiful architectural decoration and relatively modern pieces. My wife loves to be bold and not use more mellow colours!” He adds, “At the time, a lot of people asked how do you go from being a DJ to running an estate? But running a venue was something I could do – I could bring people in.”
And so the second phase of restoration began. “I told the builders not to leave. The public rooms have been kept sparse to allow them to be used for events. The architecture is so beautiful and you are drawn to that. There are very few curtains on the ground floor – you don’t need them. The thing that makes it magical is you’re going into a space that has been used by generations of people. In some ways this is imprinted on the structure. Patination is an important part of the atmosphere.” A particularly innovative approach was taken for the Great Dining Room.
“This room was really badly hit by dry rot,” explains Nick. “My father was forced to rip out much of the panelling. And so it was a room in pieces really. But we had six family portraits, features in their own right, and a wonderful overmantel. During restoration you lose character if you put everything back. Here was a space that you couldn’t create – it was what it was. We wanted to allow people to interact with its current condition, a new dimension. There is no one time period that necessarily trumps another. Patina gives it that movement and feeling of character which is very hard to create.” The 12th Earl of Shaftesbury concludes, “It’s been a wonderful journey of exploration, a really big adventure. If we get this right, we will have turned around the estate for several generations. Sometimes I feel like the stars have aligned on this project!”
First there was London’s hottest hotelier. Then there was Ireland’s most charitable chairman. Hot on their high heels comes the polymathic Anne Davey Orr. For once, Lavender’s Blue are lost for words. Maybe that’s what happens when we interview the suave former editor and publisher of the UK and Ireland’s longest running architectural publication. The Violet Hour, an unmissable annual event, this time round is one mega quote. Easy!
Anne was born in Downpatrick and spent her early childhood in Killyleagh, County Down, a town dominated by a fairytale castle built in 1180 and strategically located overlooking Strangford Lough to defend the town against the Vikings. It was adapted in the 1850s by the architect Sir Charles Lanyon. The castle has a colourful history which includes murder, a contested inheritance and a Judgement of Solomon. It’s now inhabited by the Rowan Hamilton family and is marketed as a self catering destination. Anne remembers going with her mother to the castle’s market garden to buy vegetables.
Educated at the St Louis Grammar School, Kilkeel, County Down where she boarded for seven years while her family moved to County Louth, her fondest memory is of her teacher Sister Mary Gertrude who also mentored the famous singing trio The Priests. Anne completed a Craft Diploma at Belfast College of Art and a Diploma in Art at Edinburgh College of Art, now Heriot Watt University, where she specialised in sculpture. She was awarded a Postgraduate Scholarship and two Travelling Scholarships, one to France where she studied the work of Rodin, and one to Italy where she studied Marino Marini. During her postgraduate year she had a studio in Inverleith Place Lane, Edinburgh, and was surprised one evening to have a visit from a short dark man to enquire about her studio. It had been his he said. Only later did she find out she’d had a visit from the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi. His mosaic at Tottenham Court Road Underground Station was partly removed to make way for Crossrail. The parts removed have found a new home in Edinburgh University
While at Edinburgh she was elected President of the Sculpture and of the Drama Society whose former President was the playwright John Antrobus. She wrote and produced two plays one of which is now in the archive of the Traverse Theatre in the city. Anne’s interest in theatre stems from her association with the legendary Mary O’Malley, founder of the Lyric Players Theatre Belfast, as a scene painter. In later years Anne was elected to chair the theatre’s board, setting in motion a review of its governance.
Anne then moved to BBC Belfast to work in design and production. She initiated and directed a series called Where Are They Now? which revitalised interest in the careers of personalities that had been forgotten. Anne designed a series of schools programmes written by Seamus Heaney for the producer David Hammond. For a number of years Anne covered visual arts and theatre in Northern Ireland for The Guardian and Irish Times.
Anne took a sabbatical when her children Leon and Mary-Ann were born and moved to County Kilkenny with her husband the architect Harry Orr. There, she revived her art practice setting up Legan Castle Design Studio. She won an Irish Arts Council Travel Award to study traditional mosaic making in Ravenna’s Accademia di Belle Arti and exhibited during Kilkenny Arts Week. Her exhibition about The Troubles, titled Images of War, transferred to The Glencree Centre for Reconciliation in Wicklow through the sponsorship of the journalist Kay Hingerty and the encouragement of the late Jack White, Head of Programmes at RTE, who opened the exhibition.
When Plan magazine needed a Northern Correspondent, Anne was approached. That association led to the publication of a brochure for the Festival of Architecture in Belfast for the Royal Society of Ulster Architects which subsequently evolved into the Ulster Architect magazine of which Anne was the founding editor. In the 1980s she purchased the magazine and set up a company to ensure that it would continue in publication. As publisher and editor of an architectural magazine she covered all the main building projects in the UK and Ireland with an eye to the visual arts and heritage projects. She personally interviewed high profile people including Max Clendinning, Edward Cullinan and Richard Rogers as well as covering stories throughout the UK and in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Holland, Italy and Norway. Her company was selected to take part in an entrepreneurial programme between University of Ulster and Boston College. Anne spent six months in the media department of a large advertising agency, Hill Holiday Connors Cosmopolous.
She completed an international publishing course at Stanford University, California, and is one of the founding editors of the art magazine Circa. Anne also published and edited the cross community Irish magazine Causeway as well as Scottish Arts Monthly. Anne also contributed to Building Design, Creative Camera and World Architecture. Somehow, sometime in between for six years she sat on the Historic Buildings Council, chaired the Visual Arts Committee of the Arts Council and chaired the Board of the Lyric Theatre. Other extramural activities included a nine year stint on the Regional Committee of the National Trust. She was a member of the judging panel for the Diljit Rana Bursary at the Department of Architecture, Queen’s University, where she tutored sixth year students on the presentation and marketing of their work. In 2004 Ulster Architect was taken over by a Dublin based company which Anne estimated had the resources to take the publication fully into the digital age. She stayed with the company during the handover period and then determined to return to what she had originally set out to do: paint.
What made her switch from painting to study sculpture, first in Belfast and then in Edinburgh – a move Anne made partially influenced by the stories brought back by her friend the painter J B Vallely – she doesn’t recall. Her period at Edinburgh College of Art was marked by considerable success. It was enhanced further when she was awarded a Royal Scottish Academy Best Student Award, a Postgraduate Scholarship and met her external examiner, the sculptor F E McWilliam. One of Ireland’s best galleries just outside Banbridge is named after him. In 2007 she completed a part time foundation course at the Southern Regional College in Newry which led to a 10 week Foundation Course at Slade School of Art in London, specialising in painting. From there she completed a BA Hons in painting at the University of Ulster gaining a First.
My Favourite London Hotel… Because I live in London I don’t often stay in hotels in the city but I did stay in the Tower Hotel at Tower Bridge when my daughter was married in London. It’s in a spectacular location with magnificent views of the bridge and the River Thames. Quite a few years ago I found The Manhattan Hotel in Covent Garden almost by accident. Named after Lord Louis Mountbatten, in the opulently relaxed colonial interior, you could almost transport yourself to India as it was when he was the last Viceroy. It’s now part of the Edwardian Hotels group so has probably changed somewhat since then.
My Favourite London Restaurant… I always take advice from my brother Damien and his wife Imelda when they come to London. They are both great foodies who keep me on my toes gastronomically. They lived in London before moving to France about 20 years ago but still visit regularly. So I don’t really have a favourite but I have had really good experiences with them at Brasserie Zédel in Piccadilly which is a slice of medium priced Paris in London, and Vinoteca, Beak Street, Soho. Great atmosphere in both and good value.
My Favourite Local Restaurant… My favourite food is Middle Eastern so I like Beyrouths in Streatham Hill which serves simple Lebanese food, great mint tea and delicious homemade lemonade. For French food I found three courses recently at Côte Brasserie on Battersea Rise faultless. The subdued interior in muted green is cleverly lit to soften the glow over the clientele and again good value.
My Favourite Weekend Destination… It used to be Ragdale Hall Health Hydro and Thermal Spa in Melton Mowbray where I took my family one year for a total chillout divorced from the commercialism of Christmas. Now I think it is Kelly’s Hotel in Wexford, Ireland. Architecture as such has bypassed it in that it has grown like topsy over the years due to its popularity, particularly with families. Situated right on the beach on the Wexford coast, it has one of the best private art collections in Ireland, a selection from it hanging on the hotel’s walls: Hockney, Picasso, Miró, and good contemporary Irish art as well. Sculpture defines the surrounding gardens and the collection is catalogued in a book which can be purchased at reception. The labels of their own very good wine collection and the menus for their creative and wonderful food are designed by the artist Bill Corzier.
My Favourite Holiday Destination… I have great memories of holidaying in Gozo, the neighbouring island to Malta in the Mediterranean. A stay at the wonderful Ta’ Cenc Hotel would be a real treat. A trip to La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Venice, one of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera near Nice, would be an alternative. Famed for its association with glitterati, Catherine Deneuve, Courtney Love and Meryl Streep have rented rooms there. It is a 16th century stone house which boasts a private collection of paintings by Braque, Matisse, Miró and Picasso. The artists paid for their lodgings by donating works. The town of Saint-Paul de Venice winds around the hilltop crammed with artists’ studios and little boutiques all under the brooding eye of Rodin’s Le Penseur at the top. Close by is The Foundation Maeght with its Miró Garden and superb galleries.
My Favourite Country House… While I am drawn to return to the Villa Saraceno, one of the mansions designed by Andrea Palladio near Vincenza in the Veneto in northeast Italy which inspires a deceptive sense of grandiose living, the less grandstanding Rathmullan House in County Donegal wins me over largely because of its location on a seemingly endless beach – blue flag and with spectacular views of the Fanad Peninsula. It was built in the 1760s and is a typical Georgian house of the period used as a bathing house by the Bishop of Derry. One of Ireland’s leading architects, Liam McCormick, designed a new pavilion extension in 1969 and the hotel has been extended several times since then. In spite of that it still feels like visiting someone’s home because many of the original features of the house have been retained and the staff are wonderfully friendly.
My Favourite Building… I have written about many buildings over the years for various publications so I have a number of favourites including Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, and the buildings of the architect who most influenced him, Louis Henry Sullivan – an almost forgotten figure – known as the father of the skyscraper which he saw as very specific to America. Although seldom credited with it, he coined the phrase ‘form follows function’. Louis’ Transportation Building for the Chicago World Fair of 1893 is a wonderful expression of architecture on the cusp of change and the National Farmer’s Bank of Owatonna in Minnesota of 1908 has been described as the most beautiful bank in the world. Tragically his life ended in poverty and alcoholism. My favourite building by a living architect is Ted Cullinan’s Downland Gridshell, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum of 2002. It’s a wonderful organic expression of contemporary design using traditional techniques. Ted is founder of Cullinan Studio. I sat beside him at a dinner at Queen’s University when he talked about admiring the traditional blue barns he observed on his way in from the airport. A puzzled look fell over the surrounding faces. Was this part of our architectural heritage we had missed? Was it not a case someone asked of whatever paint fell off the back of a lorry at the time they were being painted. Like the time I was suggesting programme ideas to the BBC in Belfast. I’d noticed all houses on the Shankill Road were painted dark reds, browns and ochres but houses on the Falls Road seemed to favour more pastel colours such as light grey, pale blue and yellow. Was this evidence of a significant cultural difference we should be looking at? Someone asked me had I never noticed what colours the ships in Belfast docks were painted. Aha – no expression of social significance involved at all.
My Favourite Opera…Mozart’s Magic Flute. I have loved Mozart since my school days when I did a study of Symphony No 41, better known as the Jupiter – his last. On a visit to Italy after the Venice Opera House had been burned down, a French opera troop presented a very modernistic version of The Flute in a specially constructed temporary theatre in Venice. Travelling by motor launch to this very French off-the-wall interpretation heightened the whole experience making it unforgettable. La Fenici was reconstructed “as it was, where it was,” as he said, to the designs of architect Aldo Rossi before he died.
My Favourite Artist… I have two: Peter Doig because he imbues his landscape paintings with a sense of ‘presence’. There is a feeling of ‘the hour before the dawn’, of menace and the unknown with an uncategorisable technique. My second favourite is the East German artist Anselm Kiefer. I went to his retrospective at the Royal Academy last year and was almost speechless at the breadth of his work. Mostly I admire him for how he stepped up to German history with all its connotations and for his continued experimentation with various forms of expression and media.
My Favourite Scent…Jo Malone at the moment but I have been a follower of Estée Lauder for years mainly because my mother used her fragrances.
My Favourite Fashion Designer… I like classic clothes and good tailoring so I have a soft spot for Jean Muir. I also like the simplicity of Armani. When I am in Donegal I call on Magee to have a look at their tweeds. My mother gave me a magnificent tailored coat in a beautiful mix of Donegal tweed which, unfortunately, I need to lose a few kilos to wear.
My Favourite Charity… I support The National Brain Appeal and was delighted that a watercolour I donated to an exhibition at the Oxo Tower last year sold in aid of the charity.
My Favourite Pastime… Definitely reading and – running almost neck and neck – drawing.
