The tradition that began last year of unveiling a major new artwork continues with huge aplomb. “Performance is an immaterial form of art,” explains the Serbian painter turned performance artist Marina Abramović. She’s 72. “At this point of my life, facing mortality, I decided to capture my performance in a more permanent material than just film and photography. I chose alabaster based on its history and properties – luminosity, transparency… They have a hauntingly physical presence but, as you move around the pieces, they decompose into intricately carved ‘landscapes of alabaster’.” Presented by Factum Arte in collaboration with Lisson Gallery, Marina’s Five Stages of Maya Dance fuse performance, light and sculpture through a mist of condensation. The party continues into the night on Sloane Square. Such unleashed chutzpah!
There’s just about as much pomp and glory as England can stomp up. Which is a lot. Such unfurled magnificence! Beefeaters and Military Knights of Windsor stand to attention. The Irish Guards’ mascot – an Irish wolfhound of course – steals the processional show. The Royals are a veritable bloom of ostrich plumes, black velvet robes and insignia glistening in the shafts of sunlight. Trumpets sound: a Zadokic zenith: The Queen arrives last at 3pm on the dot looking resplendent with her perfectly powdered face and clustered diamond earrings. Prince William looks solemn. Prince Charles and Camilla are all smiles. So is a very regal Princess Alexandra. She looks just like her namesake grandmother. Her Royal Highness is Patron of Masterpiece. Atop a spinning world, embracing this crazy pulsing era, it’s Perrier-Jouët-o’clock once again.
Dr Roderick O’Donnell, author and Country Life contributor, considers Ashbrooke House in County Fermanagh to be “a very successful Regency country house”. Kimmitt Dean notes that “this seems to have formed part of a lucrative commission for the architect, there being many buildings of similar form in the vicinity…” Such a shame the late Sir Charles Brett didn’t come west of the River Bann in his riveting series on the buildings of Ulster. It would have been interesting to hear what Charlie thought of Ashbrooke. Would he have classified it as middling or large? The front elevation stationed above a grass bank is simply divine. Aha, a haha. Five bay bliss. Formality | solidity | proportionality | materiality.
“A five bay, two storey front with big windows and a projecting solid porch with Tuscan columns. Above, a tripartite sash window. Shallow hipped roof, like the big house, but here supported on an eaves cornice with projecting stone mutules. The house has only one regular front, with a long wing behind. A plaque, in the stable yard behind, has the legend, ‘Built by Sir Henry Brooke Baronet, for the use of his tenants in the year 1830’.”
The 3rd Viscount and Viscountess Brookeborough have restored and revived and rejuvenated and reinvigorated and refurnished Colebrooke. “The house was cement rendered in the early 19th century,” notes the Viscount, Lord Lieutenant of Fermanagh and Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen. An 1891 photograph shows the south elevation in that state: the polygonal conservatory has since gone; the sunken garden was yet to come. An unpeeling revealed the rugged reddish sandstone underneath. Vast (seriously large – if anything, William Farrell got scale) reception rooms with Victorian wallpaper (and umpteen bedrooms) make it the ideal setting for shooting parties. Two paned sash windows frame uninterrupted views across the parkland.
In the family plot in Colebrooke Church of Ireland graveyard (a cornerstone dates the church 1765), one tombstone reads, ‘Here lies the body of Brigadier General Henry Francis Brooke eldest son of the late George Frederick Brooke of Ashbrooke and of the Lady Arabella Brooke born 13th August 1836 killed in action 15th August 1880 aged 44. He fell while commanding the sortie against the village of Dehkhoja during the siege of Kandahar, south Afghanistan, in the noble endeavour to save the life of a wounded brother officer Captain Cruikshank R.E. Greater love hath no man that this. That a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15.13.’
Amanda, a talented ceramicist who has exhibited at the Royal Ulster Academy, has turned her artistic hand(s) to decorating Ashbrooke House. It is available for parties or as a holiday let. All four reception rooms, eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and one kitchen (with Aga). The tack room and rabbit man’s cottage, outbuildings behind the main house, are now artists’ studios.
Hidden from the public for almost 200 years, now is the time for Ashbrooke House to be revealed. Literarily, not literally. Nestling in the 1,000 acre Colebrooke estate, it’s always going to be exclusive. The building is T shaped: a drawing room and dining room on either side of the entrance hall in front of an older lower wing. This arrangement allows for lots of light and airy dual aspect rooms. “I don’t like subdivided rooms so en suites are in former dressing rooms and other minor rooms,” explains Amanda. With typical 19th century disregard for convenience, the kitchen was originally located at the tip of the return. That is, as far as possible from the dining room. Not anymore. The new kitchen is next to the dining room and the old one is now a bright sitting room with exposed stone arches. Guests who can’t cook won’t cook never cook can rely on catering by French Village.
“The house had barely changed in 40 years,” she records. “But in restoring it we haven’t gone for the ‘interior designed’ look.” A more organic approach was taken: relaxed country house chic. With a few family heirlooms thrown in for good measure. A portrait of Eugene Gabriel Isabey dominates the drawing room; Reverend James Ingram guards the dining room. Architectural detailing is restrained in keeping with the exterior. The drawing room timber and marble fireplace was salvaged long ago from the ruinous Corcreevy House in Fivemiletown. Vintage fire extinguishers and milk churns marked ‘Colonel Chichester, Galgorm Castle, Ballymena’ are recycled as lampstands. There are one or two inherited colour schemes. The last Dowager’s choice of mustard walls in the dining room for instance. “That’s my late mother-in-law’s wallpaper,” smiles Amanda pointing to the trellis design zigzagging across the walls and ceiling of the blue bedroom. “Not the best for hangovers.”
Over dinner, distinguished Fermanagh architect Richard Pierce waxes lyrical about Ashbrooke: “The proportions are beautiful. The scale is beautiful. The setting is beautiful. You approach Colebrooke from above. You first see Ashbrooke from below. It’s very austere except for the porch. There’s a tremendous counterpoint between the centre and the rest. I like the fact it’s not showy. It’s quiet good taste but very good taste. What I feel about Ashbrooke is that it has a sense of neoclassicism you’d find in a St Petersburg dacha.” Amanda agrees, “There’s a purity to the design.”
“These houses aren’t museums,” Christopher believes. “They have always been sources of employment. They need to be run like businesses to survive.” He should know. He has turned Galgorm Castle outside Ballymena, another family property, into a thriving enterprise employing around 300 people. Gatelodges on the Colebrooke Park estate are holiday lets. Historically, the triumphal arch, still the main entrance to the estate, was a less successful venture. It was built for the arrival of Queen Victoria but at the last minute, she pulled a sickie. The Baroness was not amused.
It’s spring at Ashbrooke House. Dewy drumlins sprinkled with a dusting of daffodils and bluebells by day. And lambing by night: after dinner a midnight jaunt beckons across the estate to a barn full of Zwartbles sheep and lambs gambling amok. “Zwartbles sheep are very friendly and make great mothers,” observes Christopher. This Dutch breed has a distinctive blackish brown fleece and white forehead streak. Sure enough, in the wee small hours one gives birth to twin lambs. “It’s a far cry from Clapham Junction,” observes Amanda. She used to live near Lavender Hill.
