Unbright Light
“Mountainstown House has been the subject of a number of vague and inaccurate accounts published over the last few decades. With the aid of newly discovered historical documents, it’s time to set the story straight,” declared the Issey Miyake paper trousered 24 year old Associate Editor of Ulster Architect with all the confidence of youth. The June 1998 article continues, “Bruce Campbell, Professor of Medieval Economic History at Queen’s University Belfast, compares Mountainstown to Eltham Lodge, an early Dutch style house in Kent. It has similar giant pilasters supporting a pediment which breaks into the hipped roof. Eltham Lodge in turn is a loose facsimile of the Mauritshuis in The Hague.” And so with the wisdom of Alberto corduroyed middle age, the definitive story draws to a conclusion.
It’s a doll’s house on steroids. So pretty. John O’Connell, RIAI accredited Conservation Practice Grade I architect and founder of John J O’Connell Architects established in 1978 in Dublin, calls Mountainstown House, “A Baroque box due to the use of the giant order. And this recalls not only Castle Durrow, County Laois, but refers back to the work of hero Michelangelo who used this device for the first time at The Capitoline in Rome. The presence of the dormer windows is rare, as often they were not used and decayed. It is also an essay in ‘duality resolved’, although there may have been remodelling when the house was fluently extended in the early 19th century. The design and the adornment of urns to the entrance door is very confident. The date looks to be 1740, and I would say, not by Richard Castle.” Around the windows the house makes a solid frame.
In his 1988 Guide to Irish Country Houses, Mark Bence-Jones provides this summary, “An early 18th century house of two storeys over a high plinth, with a charming air of bucolic Baroque. The six bay front is adorned with giant Ionic pilasters, two supporting the pediment and one at either side; but they have neither architrave nor frieze. The Venetian entrance doorways is enriched with Ionic pilasters, urns on the entablatures, a keystone with a finial which breaks through the string course above; in front of it is a grand if somewhat rustic perron with a central balustrade and ironwork railings to the flights of steps. In the centre of the four bay side elevation – where the windows in the lower storey have been replaced by two Wyatt windows – is a little floating pediment; ‘mini pediment’ is perhaps the only word for it. This side of the house is prolonged by a three sided projection, with timber mullioned windows in 17th century style. There is a dormered attic in the high roof, which is also lit by a lunette window in the main pediment.”
The great recorder of country houses seems to have missed that the four bay side elevation is actually replicated on the far side of the projection. That’s because the original 18th century house was doubled in size a century later. This makes the side elevation twice as long as the entrance front. Up to eaves level the side elevation, or really it should be called the garden front due to its prominence, is symmetrical. The later four bays have a lower gentler sloped roof and no mini pediment. Vintage photographs show most of the ground floor windows had plate glass sashes, the height of Victorian modernity.
Mountainstown House gets a mention in Maurice Craig’s 1976 Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size, “This is a somewhat naïve but charming building, its giant Ionic order lacking an architrave and frieze. The doorcase and steps, however, are well designed and accomplished in execution, both in carved stone and wrought iron.” These various descriptions would suggest that it is the design of a master builder rather than any of the well known architects operating in Ireland at that time.
Desmond Fitzgerald, The Knight of Glin, wrote the introduction to the Christie’s 1988 auction of contents catalogue. “The entrance front of Mountainstown is a charmingly naïve composition with a giant order of four Ionic pilasters supporting a central pediment and the roof. It lacks an architrave and frieze as Mark Bence-Jones observes. The lack of these architectural members is not untypical of Irish handling. For instance, Irish tables of the 18th century frequently have their tops unceremoniously dumped on their heavily carved aprons without architrave, frieze or even a cornice. Mountainstown’s cornice is well defined and breaks on either side of the pediment. A mini pediment with semicircular lunette echoing the one on the entrance front decorates the southern side façade.” He agrees with John O’Connell on a date of around 1740 for the original block. It’s worth noting the pilasters are unfluted.
The last Knight of Glin continues, “The house was built by the Gibbons family. The interior of the 1740 section of the house has a fine staircase with turned Doric banisters and walls decorated with plaster panels. This leads upstairs to a handsome landing also decorated with plaster panels, tabernacle frames and an enriched cornice. By the end of the 18th century the Gibbins family was still there as ‘Gibbons Esq’ appears on the roadmap of the district in The Post Chaise Companion of 1778. Tradition has it that the Pollock family had leased Mountainstown for many years in the 18th century, but it was not until about 1796 that the property was finally sold by the daughter of Samuel Gibbons, the last of his line, to John Pollock.”
He confirms John Pollock was a successful solicitor in Dublin as well as an agent for the Duke of Devonshire and Marquess of Downshire. The Pollocks had been in the linen trade in Newry for three generations. They descend from John Pollock (the Christian name would continue!) who came from Scotland in 1732. The solicitor retained his townhouse on Mountjoy Square. He married Hannah Clarke, daughter of a London banker, and they added the south facing wing with its pentagonal drawing room and adjoining dining room (the latter the largest room in the house and at 9.7 metres wide by 6.7 metres deep the average size of a two bedroom apartment). The drawing room has an acanthus leaf frieze and geometric plasterwork ceiling. The dining room has a dentilled cornice and large ceiling rose of two concentric ovals containing entwined garlands plasterwork surrounding a central arrangement of acanthus leaves. A Kilkenny black marble chimneypiece faces the windowed wall.
Subsequent generations would excel at agriculture. A letter dated 16 August 1800 from John Pollock to Lieutenant Colonel Edward Littlehales reported on the poor harvest and the likelihood of food shortages. He ominously commented on partial potato crop failures compounded by shortage of bread corn. John expressed concern that the poor had fewer resources to fall back on such as the sale of livestock due to previous shortages in 1799. He approved of the stopping of distilleries.
In 2007 the Navan and District Historical Society summarised the line of succession: “John Pollock died in December 1826 leaving an only son Arthur, born 1785. He spent much of his early years travelling Europe. Arthur was High Sheriff of County Meath in 1809 and died in 1846. Arthur was succeeded by his son John Osborne George Pollock who was born in 1812. He was a Justice of the Peace and a Deputy Lieutenant of County Meath. He serves as High Sheriff in 1854. John died in 1871 and was succeeded by his sons John Naper George and Arthur Henry Taylor. John married Anna Josephine Barrington of Limerick. Dying in 1905, John was succeeded by his eldest son, also named John, born in 1896. Anna lived until 1947. John served in the North Irish Horse in World War I and died in 1966.” Mountainstown would pass on to his grandson Johnny.
Dr Anthony Malcomson sorted and listed the Pollock papers when he was Chief Executive of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. This shed new light on the evolution of the architecture. Family history indicates that the central block most likely dates from the late 1720s and was altered four decades later. So an estimate of 1740 lies in the middle of these two build periods! Anthony notes, “In 1727 Richard, the only son of Samuel Gibbons of ‘Knock, County Meath’, was married. Richard’s address is not referred to in the marriage settlement but by 1729 he was recorded as being ‘of Mountainstown’.”
He explains, “In 1727 Richard’s wife Anne, a daughter of Henry Richardson of Ballykinler in County Down, brought the fairly large dowry of £2,000. This money was likely invested in the building of the original Mountainstown. It is probable that the house had only one staircase – the stone stairs lit by the most northern bay of the façade which run from basement to attic.” These stairs would later be relegated for servants’ use. Their son Samuel seems to have reworked the house around 1760, creating the combined entrance and staircase hall which occupies the middle third of the footprint of the ground and first floors of the main block.
“The plasterwork of the hall and staircase appears to date from this remodelling,” observes Anthony, “not just stylistically but because the original house would probably have had wooden panelling. Marble fireplaces with brass dog grates were inserted in the library and small dining room at this time. Upon acquisition of the estate, the Pollocks enlarged and aggrandised the Gibbons’ house. Another major reworking took place from 1811 to 1813. Arthur Hill Cornwallis enlarged the wing to provide dressing rooms upstairs. Access to the bedrooms was provided by a staircase ascending from the half landing of the main staircase but not in continuation of the lower flight of stairs. The canted bay window as well as the Wyatt windows and Regency plasterwork in the dining room, drawing room and small dining room likely date from this time. This concluded the building history of Mountainstown, apart from the addition of the single storey billiard room wing to the right of the entrance front in approximately 1870.” The billiard room wing linked the lower single storey without basement diary to the main block.
Back when the house was in the hands of Johnny and Diana Pollock, over supper in the original basement kitchen Diana commented, “It wasn’t easy selling many of the contents. But you can always buy back furniture and paintings in the future. Once you sell land it’s – well it’s gone. We kept the pieces with the closest links to the house.” Auction highlights included an Irish George IV mahogany freestanding bookcase elevated by lyre supports; a Regency gilt and ebonised cabinet on a stand incorporating a Roman cabinet inlaid with amethyst and lapis lazuli; an oil painting by the English artist Thomas Walker Bretland, 1802 to 1874, of a groom and two chestnut hunters of the Meath Hunt; and an Irish Flight and Barr Worcester topographical garniture de cheminée circa 1810.
Together the couple ploughed the funds raised from the 1988 auction into restoring the house. Georgian type glazing bars were inserted into the plate glass sashes. Steps were added from the drawing room down into the garden. “Eventually we would like to reinstate the glazing bars in the front door fanlight and sidelights,” remarked Johnny. Their Doberman and Springer Spaniel were fellow guests in the kitchen. “My sister Valerie Montgomery lives at Benvarden in County Antrim,” Diana said. “Another sister, the artist Ros Harvey, lives in Malin in County Donegal. Dorinda Percival, now Lady Dunleath, would join us for parties here. We would dance all night in the dining room!” He added, “The model village of Bessbrook in County Down was founded in 1759 by my ancestor the linen merchant John Pollock. It was named after his wife Elizabeth or ‘Bess’. Their son bought Mountainstown.” Johnny and Diana also let the estate as a film location.
“The film September was shot here in 1995. The house was full of actors!” related Diana. “Jacqueline Bisset, Mariel Hemingway, Virginia McKenna, Michael Fox …” Anna Cropper and Jenny Agutter too. “The director even temporarily refaced our wooden kitchen cupboards with cream coloured panels.” County Meath doubles as the Scottish Highlands in this drama. “London” looks suspiciously like Dun Laoghaire although the real Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair does show up. Leixlip Castle in County Kildare is the other architectural star of September. Finnstown Castle Hotel, County Dublin, appears as a country house hotel. Enniskerry in County Wicklow acts as the local village. The storyline is a Pandora’s box.
In 1997 a notebook of payments made to workmen involved in the finishing touches of the rebuilding was discovered. The jottings were made by Arthur Hill Cornwallis Pollock and date from 1813. “Mr Kinmouth clerk of works £10. Master carpenter £10. Carpenters £5. Plasterers £2 to £5. Stuccodores £2. Painters £2.” The list of plasterers includes a George Bossi, presumably a relative of Pietro Bossi, the Italian master of stucco and scagliola inlay marble chimneypieces.
Mountainstown House has 1,000 square metres of accommodation over four floors: the basement, ground floor, first floor and attic. That’s 10 times the size of an average three bedroom house in Ireland. The basement contains those vaulted ceiling country house necessities such as a shoot room, billiard room, wine cellar and gym. Four main rooms in the original block are accessed off the entrance hall: the library, small dining room, study and playroom. There are six principal bedrooms on the first floor including the master bedroom which mirrors the plan of the pentagonal drawing room below (the same width 6.7 metres and 1.8 metres shallower at 5.7 metres) and similarly has carpet trailing casement windows. The only transom and mullion windows in the house, they are probably similar to the original Dutch style fenestration of the early 18th century house which were soon replaced by 12 pane sash windows. Three further bedrooms around a central sitting room fill the attic floor. Six bathrooms are spread over the upper two floors. Like other Irish country houses such as Clandeboye in County Down, the main elevations of Mountainstown – east and south – are perpendicular to one another. The west and north elevations overlook the sprawling stable yard.
Mountainstown was passed down to John Arthur Rollo Pollock, Johnny and Diana’s elder son, in 2004. Arthur moved in with his wife Atalanta and their three children. They continued the neverending restoration work, installing a new Scavolini kitchen in the remodelled former billiard room wing and painting the staircase hall fawn. Johnny and Diana had inserted appropriate sash windows into this wing and the adjoining former dairy: the kitchen is the only room to be east-west dual aspect. Bathrooms were refitted and gardens rejuvenated.
It all became too great a financial burden. In 2015 they put in on the market with Savills for €4.15 million. The asking price was reduced to €2.75 million five years later before – like Glin Castle in County Limerick and Drenagh in County Londonderry – being taken off the market. Atalanta notes, “Samuel Gibbons who built the house – after he died an impression was taken of his face and it was embossed onto the ceiling in the hall. There’s a wild boar image which appears throughout the interior. The story is – and it may well be true – that the King of France was being charged by a wild board and Lieutenant Pollock killed it with an arrow. So he was given a crest – the family crest. Mountainstown has so much personality because you see this motif of a wild boar recurring all over the house.” The Pollock family crest is still displayed on the gilded pelmets over the library windows.
