Tag: curraghmore county waterford

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Castle Stewart Papers + Irish Country Houses + Glebe Houses

Plantation Shudders

The Public Records Office Northern Ireland is an Aladdin’s Cave for those of an architectural heritage bent. It’s in a coolly contemporary commercial building conveniently close to Titanic Hotel in Belfast’s Laganside. Super helpful staff deliver bundles of archive material to designated desks. The Castle Stewart Papers form a significant collection. They comprise about 6,000 documents dating from 1587 to 1960 mainly relating to the County Tyrone estates of the Earls Castle Stuart, their genealogy, their military service, and the building and rebuilding of their houses. The Stewarts were originally a Scottish clan: the surname is derived from the role of steward.

An orthographic issue needs explaining. The family name of the Earls Castle Stewart is Stuart. Their other titles are the Barony of Castle Stewart, the Viscountcy of Castle Stewart and the Viscountcy of Stuart. Confused yet? The petition which the 1st Earl Castle Stewart, then Andrew Thomas Stuart, addressed to the Irish House of Lords in 1768 in substantiation of his claim to the Barony of Castle Stewart sheds light on family history from 1619:

“James I, by his letter of 1619 to the Lord Deputy and Chancellor of Ireland, authorised them to create Andrew Stewart, Lord Stewart, Baron of Castlestewart in the county of Tyrone, to hold the said honour to him and the heirs male of his body. Andrew, the 1st Lord, left issue Andrew, John, and Robert. No Parliament having sat from the year 1615 to the year 1634, Andrew, the 1st Lord, never voted in Parliament, but constantly enjoyed the title. He was succeeded by Sir Andrew, his eldest son and heir, and many entries in the Journals of the Lords in the year 1634 prove his enjoyment of the dignity, in consequence of letters patent issued agreeable to the letter of King James.”

“This Lord died in or about the year 1639, leaving issue Andrew, Robert and Josias, and was succeeded by Andrew, his eldest son and heir. This Lord married one of the daughters of Sir Arthur Blundell, by whom he had issue one child only, a daughter named Mary, who married Henry Howard, afterwards 5th Earl of Suffolk, and this lady carried away almost the whole family estate. Andrew, the 3rd Lord, died without issue male, and Robert his brother being dead without issue, he was succeeded in the honour by Josias, his youngest brother. Josias died in or about the year 1662, without issue, and was succeeded in the honour by John, his uncle.”

“John, the 5th Lord Castlestewart, died without issue in 1685, and after his death, the descendants of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Stewart were the rightful successors to the barony of Castlestewart, [which remained dormant and unclaimed until 1774]. Lieutenant Colonel Robert was the brother of John, the 5th Lord, and consequently a son of the 1st Lord. Robert Stewart of Irry, died 1686, son and heir to Colonel Robert, married Ann Moore, daughter of William Moore of Garvey in the County of Tyrone. To him succeeded Andrew Stewart [1672-1715], his eldest son and heir, then an infant, and to him Robert Stewart [1700-1742], whose son and heir the petitioner is.” Andrew Thomas Stuart was successful in his claim to the Barony of Castle Stewart in 1774.

Amongst the many papers is an exclusive find. Opening the green covered book Photographs of Armagh and Tyrone Scenery by John McGie reveals faded photographs mainly of country houses. It’s undated; the archivists estimate the book to date from between 1868 and 1874. Dame Rosalind Savill, la grande Directrice of The Wallace Collection in London, once commented how she disliked the phrase “hidden gems” but that’s what springs to mind looking at these photographs and, in some cases, lost gems. Stewart seats featured include Ballygawley Park and Stuart Hall. Other country houses photographed also had Plantation of Ulster connections such as Aughentain Castle, Augher Castle, Cecil Lodge, Roxborough Castle and Tynan Abbey.

The Irish Architectural Archive on Merrion Square has another great wealth of material. In contrast to the modern spaces of the Public Records Office Northern Ireland, drawings and documents are laid out in an 18th century double reception room with elaborate plasterwork ceilings. In among various folders are a coloured illustration of Reverend Beresford’s proposed glebe house, a photograph of Moynalty Glebe House and a photograph of Lismullen House, reproduced here for non commercial educational purposes.

Ballygawley Park is a landmark ruin on the Belfast to Omagh A5 road. The formal façade with its Ionic columned breakfront is a romantic distraction to drivers motoring up the hill from Ballygawley roundabout. Remnants of the entrance pillars, railings and gatelodge continue to crumble year on year. The severely elegant neo Grecian mansion was built in the 1820s to the design of John Hargrave. The photograph is of the side elevation which overlooked a sunken garden complete with pond. The Stewarts never returned to the house when it was seemingly accidentally burnt in the 1920s. A not uneventful decade for Irish country houses.

Stuart Hall was the vast country house built on the outskirts of Stewartstown by the abovementioned Andrew Thomas Stuart no doubt to celebrate his social rise from Viscount to Earl. A two storey dropping to three storey Georgian block was attached to a Plantation tower. In Victorian times the building was dressed up with a castellated parapet added to the Georgian block and mullioned windows inserted in the tower. There are two photographs of the house in the book: one of the mainly two storey entrance front and one of the mostly three storey side elevation. Stuart Hall was an architectural victim of The Troubles: it was destroyed by the IRA in 1972.

Usually spelt with an E at the end, the photograph of Aughentain Castle (as it is labelled) shows the house in all its Italianate glory. Why settle for one campanile when you can have two? Haystacks stand between trees on the sloping lawn. This sprawling mansion was demolished in 1955 by then owner Colonel John Hamilton-Stubber who replaced it with a Continental classical style house. The current Aughentaine Castle, while smaller than its predecessor, is still a substantial and stylish building.

Augher Castle on the outskirts of the village of the same name and, like Ballygawley Park, is a showstopper for motorists, visible beyond a lake. Unlike Ballygawley Park, it is in excellent condition. The photograph shows the two storey entrance front range which is attached to a three storey lakeside toy keep. Dating from the 17th century, the castle is now mainly a Victorian rebuild. The people posing next to the exterior are probably fin du siècle dernier owners John and Elizabeth Carmichael-Ferrall and their son.

Many of the Big Houses of Ireland were plain boxy houses. Elizabeth Bowen’s family home in County Cork is a famous example. Cecil Manor, a neighbouring estate to Augher Castle, is another house with strong perpendiculars. Parapet free, hipped roofs rest on a distinctive dentilled cornice. It was designed by the architect William Farrell who had a flourishing country house and church designing practice in the first half of the 19th century. The photograph shows the magnificent backdrop of Knockmany Mountain. It was demolished in the 1930s.

Last but very much not least is the incredibly dotty Roxborough Castle, a Château Chambord by the Bann. The scale is as barmy as the design. Located outside Moy in County Armagh, it was the seat of the Earls of Charlemont. The original 18th century house can be seen in the Georgian glazed recessed portion of the entrance front. Architects William Murray then William Barre transmogrified the house into an enormous hotel like building with chunky four storey towers topped by steeple gradient roofs. The IRA burned Roxborough Castle in 1922, not a good year or indeed decade when it comes to architectural conservation.

Tynan Abbey was situated 18 kilometres south of Roxborough Castle. It was a large Gothic country house belonging to the Stronge family. Church like architecture included a spire rising over one end of the long garden front. The photograph shows a formal terrace dotted with yew trees – which have long been associated with graveyards. In one of the most infamous cases of The Troubles, Sir Norman Stronge and his son James were shot dead in their library by the IRA in 1981 and the house set ablaze. Tynan Abbey stood as a ruin until 1998 when it was demolished in its entirety. The site is now a featureless field devoid of architectural marvels.

The last image in John McGie’s book Photographs of Armagh and Tyrone Scenery is a view of a lake. An archivist has scribbled on the side “Camlough?” In the foreground are two well dressed gentlemen getting ready to row a small boat. In the background, is a high gabled single storey with attic lodge. A porch projects towards the lake. Pure tranquillity. Camlough Lake is a popular tourist attraction, a picturesque narrow strip of water 2.7 kilometres long and only less than half a kilometre at its widest point.

The Church of Ireland Board of First Fruits funded a glebe house at Fenagh, County Leitrim, in 1829. This two storey over raised basement stone building is of a type that pops up all over Ireland in the ultimate years of the Georgian period. The elevational drawing shows a mid storey landing roundheaded window: the executed arrangement regularises it into a ground floor window and first floor window matching the rest of the rectangular openings on the rear elevation. Fenagh Glebe House is three bays wide; these ecclesiastical dwellings are almost always three or four bays wide. Reverend George de la Poer Beresford, to give him his full name, was a relative of the owner of Curraghmore in County Waterford.

A mid 20th century photograph of Moynalty Glebe House in County Meath shows it to be in a poor state of repair. The entrance door of this well proportioned two storey over raised basement house is set in a chamfered bay window. Similar to Fenagh Glebe House, it has a tall grouped chimneystack, but is an earlier version of the Board of First Fruits clerical house model, dating from 1792. Moynalty Glebe House has been restored in recent years, the render painted a deep grey, and was sold in 2014 for €550,000. It cost £847 to build. The sale included the 275 square metre house, nine hectares of pasture, a gatelodge and a courtyard of stables and outbuildings.

Lismullen House (as it is spelt on the photograph labelling although more commonly Lismullin) in County Meath was the seat of the Dillon family. Presumably it is the Dillons who are playing archery in the faded photograph. The main block had a five bay three storey entrance front. Intriguingly, two storey Ionic pilasters just about visible on this front presumably once formed part of a tetrastyle portico. The IRA burnt Lismullen House along with its furniture and art in 1923. A Sir Joshua Reynolds painting was one of the few belongings the elderly Sir John Dillon and his family were able to rescue, cutting the canvas out of its frame. There is a metaphor lurking there about not seeing the whole picture.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design People

The Wellesleys + Stratfield Saye House Not Too Near Reading Hampshire

The Continuation of Humble Elegance

Henry James (1910), “You first discovered yourself in England, just as I first did myself.”

In the days before everything was organic, authentic and artisanal; when experience was lived by default; gaslighting involved illumination; ghosting had a supernatural connotation; deep dive involved water; extra referred to additionality; mankind included women; bad actors were thespians who weren’t good at their job; there was Caesar, Greek and Niçoise but no word salad; only trains were cancelled; and catfish was just an animal, hero projects were all about winning battles.

Let the poor eat carrot cake. Such a relief the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt didn’t get to “out Blenheim Blenheim” with his dream of a palace of ceremonial pomp and circumstance. The 1st Duke of Wellington had a rather better idea after for the estate he bought in 1817, two years after his Battle of Waterloo victory. Keep the old house and add on a couple of bedrooms above the orangery wings. So in the end Benjamin only got to see his design for a porch realised – albeit a rather smart Greek Doric one. Ever inventive, in 1831 the Duke added secondary glazing, central heating and WCs to the existing house (the latter naturally lit by tiny single pane casement windows like the type you get in 20th century Berlin flats). Stratfield Saye House is large by most people’s standards but it’s not ducal in style or scale. Fit for a baron and all the better for it. Tate Britain has Tracey Emin’s installation My Bed. Stratfield Saye has the Great Duke of Wellington’s Campaign Bed.

Mark Girouard comments in Historic Houses of Britain (1984), “One can see why Wellington developed an affection for Stratfield Saye. It is certainly not a stately home but it has a great deal of character and charm. It was originally a long, low, red brick house, built in about 1650 by Sir William Pitt, James I’s comptroller, and decorated with the so called Flemish gables (with curved sides and pedimented tops) which were in fashion at the time. Two matching stable blocks front the house and give it a forecourt and a pleasant air of formality.”

An elephant used to mow the lawn. The stables are now apartments, an archives office and a museum to the 1st Duke. There are a few false windows on the entrance front. The external walls were once painted buff and the window surrounds green. And so they remain. Clocks chime indoors. Apollo magazines sit on chests in the Entrance Hall. That room is the volume of a five bay three storey house. Well stocked drinks trolleys are in the corridors. Country Life magazines sit on chests in the Library. When you’ve finished browsing the back issues there are 3,000 books to read. The silk wallcovering dates from 1953. A jib door in the Study with its Chippendale desk and replica of the chair on which the 1st Duke died in Walmer Castle in Kent leads through to a private suite of a bedroom and spa bathroom.

The centrepiece of the museum is the 1st Duke’s catafalque made of bronze cast from melted down French cannon captured at Waterloo. It was designed and constructed in just 18 days by the wonderfully named Department of Practical Arts. The height of the car was limited to 5.2 metres to pass under Temple Bar on its procession through central London. It was drawn by twelve black dray horses leaving Horse Guards at 9.25am on 18 November 1852 and arriving in the yard of St Paul’s Cathedral at noon.

The Illustrated London News reported at the time, “The eight cavalry bands, too, being in motion along the Mall, contributed their notes of measured grief. The ‘trumpet’s silver sound’ still discoursed Handel’s music, and the ear found a new beauty in every accidental combination by which the breeze or the distance imparted novelty to the effect. The soldiers having filed off, the Kings-at-Arms, in their gorgeous tabards, marshalled the mourning coaches in their due order of precedence.”

The 8th Duke inserted a swimming pool into the Orangery off the Library. Logs are piled up in the chimneypieces of the main rooms: the Wellesley family might call in at any moment. The wine box in the Dining room holds 250 bottles. The 7th Duke designed the Gold Room carpet which was made in 1946. Once the Housekeeper’s Room, the Breakfast Room is filled with 60 place china including arsenic blue Meisen. In Mrs Arbuthnot’s Bedroom upstairs there are two corner cabinets. One is a wardrobe, the other a WC. There’s a freestanding roll top bath in the bedroom. Someone has been using Ren shampoo. And reading Nancy Lancaster: Her Life, Work, Her Art (1996) by Robert Becker. The Print Room was created by the current Duke and Duchess using Boydell prints found in the attics.

John Cornforth writes about the 7th Duke in The Inspiraton of the Past (1985), “Lord Gerald Wellesley, one of the most interesting figures of his generation, who explained in his Collected Works (1970) that he had always wanted to be an architect, but his parents had considered it a hazardous and uncertain career for a younger son who had his own way to make; and it was only after World War I that he was able to fulfil his ambition. By nature a scholar and possessing a finely tuned, fastidious taste, he became involved in many projects relating to the improvement of the arts of design, public taste and later preservation, particularly of country houses, and through his friendships and his houses he had an influence on a considerable number of people. Indeed Mrs Lancaster says that he and Lady Juliet Duff were the people in England who understood the arrangement of furniture and works of art best.”

John continues, “Lord Gerald Wellesley was drawn to the Regency period both for aesthetic reasons and for personal ones too, because it was the period of his ancestor, the Great Duke of Wellington, but as an architect he was concerned with the present and the future, and it is interesting to see in his work and in a great deal of what Christopher Hussey wrote in the late 1920s and early 1930s that they were concerned with the future of classicism.” Gerald designed the tall cupola crowning the roofscape of Stratfield Saye.

The dashing moustachioed brunette Henry Valerian Wellesley wasn’t as fortunate as his famous ancestor, dying in battle aged 31. Born Earl of Mornington in 1912, he was styled Marquess of Douro between 1934 and 1941 before spending the last two years of his short life as the 6th Duke of Wellington. He was killed in action in World War II and is buried in Salerno close to where he died. His uncle Lord Gerald Wellesley would succeed him as the 7th Duke of Wellington.

In early Victorian times Chelsea was transmogrifying from a village into an area of London. St Luke’s Anglican Church celebrated its bicentenary last year. It was the brainchild of the Reverend Gerald Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington’s brother, who held his office from 1805 to 1832. He conducted the marriage of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth in 1836. The 1st Duke married Kitty Pakenham of Tullynally Castle, County Westmeath who attracted good, bad and ugly critique. Kitty’s rooms were in the northeast corner of the first floor of Stratfield Saye; the Duke’s, in the southwest corner of the ground floor.

Playwright Lady Elizabeth Yorke observed, “Her appearance, unfortunately, does not correspond with one’s notion of an ambassadress or the wife of a hero, but she succeeds uncommonly well in her part.” Novelist Maria Edgeworth commented, “After comparison with crowds of other beaux spirits, fine ladies and fashionable scramblers for notoriety, her graceful simplicity rises in our opinion, and we feel it with more conviction of its superiority. Philosopher Germaine de Staël thought Kitty was “adorable”. The Great Duke’s closest female friend Harriet Arbuthnot, who sounds like she had a vested interest, said Kitty was “a fool” and he had “repeatedly tried to live in a friendly manner with her but it was impossible and it drove him to seek that comfort and happiness abroad that was denied him at home”.

Kitty was a prolific letter writer. In a letter to Elizabeth Hume, daughter of the 1st Duke’s doctor, dated 22 August 1824, she mentions various animals including a canary called Crispino and her husband’s famous horse Copenhagen: “It was at Broadstairs that I was first called Viscountess Wellington. It was on a Sunday for the Gazette came out on a Saturday night. I recollect holding the plate at church on that day in my new character, for a charity sermon. I have nothing more to say dearest girl except that little Crispino is quit ewell, so is the emew and as for Copenhagen he trots after me eating bread out of my hand and wagging his tail like a little dog. Are you very good? What are you reading?”

The Heritage of Great Britain and Ireland edited by Melanie Bradley-Shaw and Jacqui Hawthorn (1992) records, “On each side of the house lie the Pleasure Grounds with may rare and interesting trees with a particularly fine group of Wellingtonias, named in honour of the Great Duke in 1853. In the Ice House Paddock lies the grave of Copenhagen, buried with full military honours after living out his days in retirement at Stratfield Saye, frequently ridden by his master and a multitude of children. The spreading Turkey Oak which shelters his grave grew from an acorn planted by Mrs Apostles, the Duke’s housekeeper.”

A 550 metre straight avenue leads from the gatelodges to the forecourt in front of the northwest facing entrance front of the house. The southeast elevation looks across a vast lawn stretching down to the River Loddon which acts as a haha. A rustic wooded Roman Temple built in 1846 to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria is an eyecatcher in the North Pleasure Gardens. The South Pleasure Gardens stretch out in the direction of St Mary the Virgin Church and The Old Rectory. The Duke and Duchess-in-Waiting’s home, The Old Rectory is a highly attractive pale brick house with a late 18th century core. A lunette window over a Tuscan columned projection looks over formal gardens. The house was later twice extended so appears as three distinct phases of development. The Pheasantry Lodge is a larger than normal mid 19th century Italianate gatelodge marking the entrance to the St Mary’s and The Old Rectory. The Great Duke’s beautifully planted formal gardens are laid out on one side of the north avenue.

An Anglo Irish atmosphere somehow still permeates Stratfield Saye House – Curraghmore (County Waterford) meets Mount Stewart (County Down). The Wellington connection lives on in Ireland. Annadale Grammar School for boys opened in south Belfast in 1950. It was named after the childhood home of Anne, Countess of Mornington, mother of the Great Duke, which had once stood on the school site. The school adopted the Duke’s motto Virtus Fortunate Comes: Fortune Favours the Brave. The family connection became even more apparent when Annadale amalgamated with Carolan Grammar School for girls in 1990 and Wellington College was formed.

Henry James (1905), “These delicious old houses, in the long August days, in the south of England air, on the soil over which so much has passed and out of which so much has come, rose before me like a series of visions.”

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The Garden House + The Big House Beaverbrook Surrey

Journeying Mercies

We’re off to Beaverbrook. Come hail (a lot) or shine (a little) an A Class Mercedes spinning through Surrey on the stormiest day of the year is just what the doctor ordered although possibly not the meteorologist. The gated sprawling estate – legendary hectares of rollingness – is divided into The Haves (see you at The Garden House) and The Haves Even More (we’ll be calling up to see you at The Big House). Ever versatile, we’ll do both. Especially since our guests have travelled 12 hours to make if for lunch.

So what’s the hotel really like? Well, take the terrace of Castle Leslie (County Monaghan), the parterre of Luton Hoo (Bedfordshire), the grotto of Curraghmore (County Waterford), the glasshouse of Walmer Castle (Kent), The Carriage Rooms of Montalto (County Down), the glamour of Corniche John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Marseille) and throw in a larger than life Kensington Palace Gardens villa (London) and you’ll get the picture.

The Garden House staff, led by the stylish restaurant manager from Battersea, are so gregarious that by the dill and beetroot amuse bouches we’re swapping film tips (Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is very watchable but what is Dame Judy’s mangled accent all about?). It’s easy to get into the tongue and groove of rural life. There are more pictures of prize cows on the Farrow and Ball’d walls than a mar’t auction catalogue. Outside the storm is brewing again but we’re in the old fashioned sitting room propped up by Christian Lundsteen cushions and Old Fashioned cocktails. All hatches are battened down… except for The Drinking Hole.

Can life get any better? Yes it can: lunch is being served in the dining room next door. Before long we’re devouring farmers’ helpings of crispy polenta squid with smoked garlic, basil and lime, followed by Dorset halloumi and heritage beetroot with radicchio, date and parsley. Everything, and we mean everything, is freshly wild and wildly fresh. Our well informed waiter tells us about the hotel’s Sir Winston Churchill connection and the Spitfire emblem and the eponymous Lord Beaverbrook but ever so distractingly the restaurant manager arrives with salted chocolate and blood orange petit fours masquerading as “posh Jaffa cakes”.

Forbes, the only other publication to join us a few years ago in Montenegro at the behest of the Government of the former Yugoslavian state, has beaten us to today’s destination. Its verdict? “Beaverbrook is arguably England’s most beautiful new hotel.” Last week’s Sunday Times is almost as glowing, “One of the UK’s top country house hotels.” Scrawled on a blackboard in the glasshouse is a flower recipe, “Wax flower, statis, limonium, gypsophila, spag. moss.” It’s a metaphor for Beaverbrook: classy, quirky and drawing on the best that nature has to offer.

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Architects Architecture Country Houses People

Pencarrow House + Garden Bodmin Cornwall

And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Italian Garden © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The setting of Pencarrow House – the south elevation overlooks a formally laid out garden around a fountain all in a vast green basin – is reminiscent of Curraghmore in County Waterford. It’s an unflowered rationalised greenscape. Coloured planting is reserved for the immediate surrounds of the house. The entrance front is such a classic three storey Palladian design (albeit a late rendition): two bays on either side of a central three bay pedimented breakfront. It found favour throughout the British Isles. Irish Georgian houses featuring this seven bay frontage include Abbey Leix, County Laois | Castle Ward, County Down | Leslie Hill, County Antrim | Stackallan House, County Meath.

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Parterres © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

An earlier house was mostly rebuilt by the 4th and 5th Baronets in the 1760s and 1770s. The architect of the elegantly symmetric south and east elevations was the illusive Robert Allanson of York. His low profile may be explained in part by him dying aged 38 in 1773. Pencarrow is his legacy. The charmingly asymmetric west (rough slate stone) and north (rougher stone rubble) elevations are clearly older – the Molesworths have been in Cornwall for 600 years or so. There’s lots of fenestration fun on the north elevation with Serliana, blind and false windows. An 1824 engraving of the (smooth stuccoed stone) south and east elevations shows no dentils on the cornice and no pediments over the windows. These were added in 1844 by the 8th Baronet using the Plymouth architect George Wightwick. The interiors date from these periods plus an Edwardian makeover in some quarters by the prolific Kent architect Ernest Newton.

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Lawn © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Iona Lady Molesworth-St Aubyn, 15th Baroness, lives at Pencarrow with her second son James and his wife Gillian. Her elder son, Sir William Molesworth-St Aubyn, 16th Baronet, lives at Tetcott Manor in Holsworthy, Devon, a minor – relatively (no pun) speaking – family seat. She says, “The family are hands on with the everyday running of the estate, and together with a great team we keep Pencarrow thriving in the 21st century. You approach Pencarrow House by an impressive mile long woodland drive, passing an ancient fortified encampment and through banks of vibrant rhododendrons, camellias and hydrangeas.”

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Walk © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Vista © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Terrace © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Urn © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Hedgerow © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Grotto © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall Ornament © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House and Garden Cornwall © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Cornwall Entrance Front © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Wadebridge Cornwall South Elevation and Entrance Front © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Cornwall South Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Wadebridge Cornwall South Elevation and Entrance Front © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Wadebridge Cornwall © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Cornwall South and West Elevations © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Cornwall South Elevation Seat © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Cornwall South Elevation Window © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pencarrow House Wademouth Cornwall West Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Lady Molesworth-St Aubyn records, “In 1959 my in-laws, Sir John, 14th Baronet, and his wife Celia Molesworth-St Aubyn moved to a nearby farmhouse and Pencarrow became empty for some 16 years. After much discussion about what to do with the house, including giving it to the National Trust, the only viable option left was to open it to visitors. A decision which, whilst challenging at times, we have never regretted. My husband Arscott left the army in 1969 and soon afterwards we started to make one part of the house habitable again; this included rewiring and replumbing. Due to the enormous cost, this took over five years, and the remainder of the house is, I am afraid, still an ongoing project.”

Pencarrow House Cornwall Family Wing © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

The gardens cover about 20 hectares of the 600 hectare estate. “The Italian Garden, Rock Garden and main drive were kept tidy, but the rest of the gardens had become an impenetrable jungle and the lake was barely visible,” her Ladyship remembers. “After many long months of clearing by my husband, friends, family and anyone willing to help, it was finally possible to walk all around the American Gardens and across to the Iron Age Fort. The Walled Garden and greenhouses, which during my father-in-law’s time were used to grow tomatoes and chrysanthemums, were turned over to self pick strawberries and raspberries. Nowadays this area has become an excellent location for wedding receptions and other functions.”

Pencarrow House Cornwall North Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

She thinks, “Pencarrow’s gardens are extensive and varied. They were designed and laid out by our radical statesman, Sir William Molesworth. He began in 1831 and continued during the intervals of his Parliamentary sessions until his early death in 1855. The green fingered Sir William started by converting the rather dull lawn in front of the house into the beautifully proportioned sunken Italian Garden centring around our fountain.”

Pencarrow House Cornwall Rear Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Family archivist David Donaldson adds, “Much of the layout of the gardens as we know them today still bear Sir William’s imprint and, thanks to the meticulous records to be found in his Garden Book (still preserved at Pencarrow) we know not only what he landscaped, but also what he planted and where he planted.” An 1832 engraving of the Italian Garden is very recognisable except for shrubs planted in the parterre. A 1908 photograph shows heavier shrubbery and trees in the parterre.

Pencarrow House Cornwall False Window © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

“The house opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1975,” completes Lady Molesworth-St Aubyn, “initially for only two days a week. However, very quickly it proved to be extremely popular and we are now open five days a week and have a shop in the stables. As you wander into the courtyard at the rear of the house you can see three 17th century cottages, one of which we have converted into the Peacock Café.” It’s aptly named: peacocks perch proudly (and nosily) on various first floor windowsills around the house. Banoffee and cream tea chocolate bars are top sellers in the shop.

Pencarrow House Cornwall East and North Elevation © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley