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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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Kitty Fisher’s Restaurant + Shepherd Market Mayfair London

Generations Come and Generations Go

Last autumn we somehow found ourselves invited to lunches in the private dining rooms of London restaurants on a weekly basis. Nice work, and all that. Six Park Place, Green Park, was all about white truffle and parmesan risotto in an Art Deco setting. Skipping the steak at Smith and Wollensky off The Strand we went for the seared hand dived scallops in the Martin Brudzinski designed basement dining room. Upping the grandeur, we’d gnocchi, ajo blanco, kale, feta crumble and sunflower seeds in the top storey dining room of The Ned under the plasterwork ceiling with its central MB for Midland Bank. The first floor private dining room of 34 was the setting of our The Not The What invitation to enjoy wild mushroom risotto, pecorino and summer truffle surrounded by Tracey Emin paintings. Not a beige buffet in sight.

The What House Awards are the biggest gongs in the housebuilding industry. So far, so mainstream. Much more fun are The Not The What parties contemporaneously thrown across Mayfair. After Champagne fuelled lunches everyone crashes The Red Room bar of The Grosvenor House Hotel. That’s before rounding off the night in Mount Street’s pub The Audley. Mayfair and its environs are not short of high end restaurants: Coya, Hide and Sexy Fish for starters, main course and pudding. In contrast to those three temples to Bacchus, the eateries of Shepherd Market are positively low key – and petite.

Oliver Bradbury records in The Lost Mansions of Mayfair, 2008, “Shepherd Market, named after Edward Shepherd, was laid out on the Curzon family owned waste ground north of Piccadilly and near Hyde Park Corner.” It’s a stretch to call somewhere a few dozen metres away from Green Park off the beaten track but Shepherd Market lends that impression. The short walk down White Horse Street along the side of Cambridge House (shrouded in scaffolding for years – when will the Reuben Brothers’ conversion of the In and Out Club to a hotel be finished?) opens into another world.

Narrow streets radiating off a square are lined with an array of international brasseries. In between are a few high end shops like Simon Carter menswear. Fancy Lebanese? Head to Al Hambra. Channelling Francophilia? There’s L’Artiste Muscle or Ferdi. Le Boudin Blanc closed in 2022. You can enjoy French cheese at Shepherd Market Wine House or pasta at Misto. Go Turkish at Fez Mangal. Iran Restaurant is what it says. Feeling adventurous? Try L’Autre, the capital’s only Polish Mexican. Or Middle Eastern food at our school night regular Sofra.

On the square itself is Kitty Fisher’s offering the best of British fare. Architect Chris Dyson provides some background, “Our practice’s first restaurant project was at 10 Shepherd Market for Penelope and Michael Milburn. The building is located in the northeastern corner of the market square, tucked away between Piccadilly and Curzon Street in Mayfair. In the early part of last century, Shepherd Market was a fashionable address. The writer Michael Arlen rented rooms opposite The Grapes pub, possibly this building, and used Shepherd Market as the setting for his bestselling 1924 novel The Green Hat, later made into a film starring Greta Garbo.”

“The building is essentially 18th century with a rebuilt mid 19th century brick façade.” Chris continues, “The fenestration dates from this partial rebuilding and is surrounded by alternating bands of yellow and red brick. The ground floor shopfront retains two carved stone corbels to either side. There are six floors in total. The basement extends under the pavement with two sizeable brick vaults.”

Typical of Shepherd Market restaurants, the ground floor is narrow fronted and deep in plan creating an intimate atmosphere. Precipitous stairs lead from the restaurant and bar down past the kitchen, fully on display through internal windows, to the rest of the restaurant. Cast iron ovens are retained in the basement thick walls. Cooking these days comes from a wood grill. Kitty Fisher’s was the toast of town when it opened in 2014 – one of its owners is the brother-in-law of then Prime Minister David Cameron who frequented it with his wife Samantha. The Nigella Lawson era of celebs has waned allowing this restaurant to settle into being a thriving slightly in-the-know establishment. On a Friday, especially today, the weekend before Christmas, the 75 covers are turned twice for lunch and twice for dinner. We’re perched on stools at the window in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks fashion.

This isn’t our first rodeo. Eight years ago, December 2016 to be precise, we dined on the same stools. We were surprised to get dinner without a reservation at the height of Kitty Fisher’s fame. Time to dig into the archives! Viognier Le Paradou 2015 (£30.00), dry with a hint of honeycomb. Whipped cod’s roe, bread and fennel butter (£7.50), Head Chef Tom Parry’s four fingered salute against mediocrity. A textural contrast of creaminess and crustiness. Taleggio, London honey, mustard and black truffle (£9.00), a bittersweet symphony of wood grill smokiness. There’s more. Burrata, beetroot and radicchio (£12.50), a colourful collage of purple and white. Cambridge burnt cream (£7.00) isn’t an undergrad’s baking error but a Cointreau and cinnamon crème brûlée smoothly nestling under a crackly golden lid. These plates are too good for sharing. We observed that currency signs had vanished from fashionable menus as swiftly as pounds disappeared from the wallets of the original Kitty Fisher’s gentlemen callers.

The sharing plates menu has been replaced with a more traditionally laid out version of three courses plus sides. Still currency free. Tom Fairbank is now Head Chef. We stick to Viognier, crisp with floral notes Pays d’Oc Moulin de Gassac 2023 (£34.00). Mountain Bay sardines, Oyster Leaf mayonnaise and pickled green tomatoes (£17), latitudinal extremities. Scottish girolles, lentils and walnut (£30), vegetarian wholesomeness. Chocolate ganache, salted caramel ice cream and honeycomb (£12), sweet and smoky. The boudoir like theme has stayed the same: brown and purple walls, red lampshades, jazz music.

So who was Kitty Fisher? England’s original It Girl, no less. “Without a doubt, Kitty received a good education. She was witty and always known as a good conversationalist,” suggests Joanne Major in Kitty Fisher The First Female Celebrity, 2022. This background – and her natural prettiness – helped her climb up the social ladder with surprising ease. Fame collied with infamy in Kitty’s case due to her high profile affairs and liaisons. “Gossip about her antics reached the drawing rooms, coffeehouses and taverns of every town in the land,” writes Joanne.

In the 18th century painters were the paparazzi. After Sir Joshua Reynolds finished his first likeness, Joanne concludes, “In no time at all, at least four engravers had copied the portrait and Kitty’s likeness was to be had at every print shop in the country.” She lived for a while in Carrington Street to the immediate south of Shepherd Market. Towards the end of her short yet brilliance existence, Kitty found true love and married John Norris MP, Captain of Deal Castle. She died of smallpox aged 26 while visiting Bath. Shepherd Market would continue to have a racy reputation for ladies of the night right up to the mid 20th century.

We’re still up for private dining room lunches but, like Paris, we’ll always have Kitty Fisher’s. And we’ll aim to be back before another eight years have gone.

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Architecture Art People

Ranger’s House + Park Blackheath London

Sloane

Blackheath Houses © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Pirouettes and marionettes and silhouettes. A silent metronome ticks to the galliards and sarabands of our lives. And so we arrive at a large villa or small mansion. Ranger’s House in, at, on, and opposite Blackheath. It was built around 1700 by Captain Francis Hosier, Vice Admiral of the Blue. Our destination, our desirous subject of the day, is a red brick two storey over raised basement block with later brown brick single storey over raised basement bow fronted wings. The southern wing is bowed at both extremities lending symmetry to the front elevation; the northern wing is missing a bow robbing the garden elevation of symmetry. 

The striking marrying of a house and a collection occurred at the beginning of the 21st century. Ranger’s House was missing artwork and furnishings. The Wernher Collection was homeless. English Heritage acted as matchmaker. The collection of Sir Julius Wernher once graced the interiors of Luton Hoo (his Bedfordshire country house) and Bath House (his London townhouse). The former is now a glitzy hotel; the latter, long demolished. Sir Julius (1850 to 1912) and his business partner Sir Alfred Beit (1853 to 1906) made their fortunes from gold and diamond mining in South Africa. The Beit Collection is housed in Sir Alfred’s former country house, Russborough in County Wicklow, and the National Gallery of Ireland.

Sir Julius’ will was the largest ever recorded at the time by the Inland Revenue. Sir Alfred was reckoned to be the richest man in the world of his time. The tycoons’ busts flank the entrance to the Geology Department of the Imperial College of Science and Technology in Kensington, founded in 1907 with a donation from Werner Beit + Co. There is another Irish connection. The late 5th Duchess of Abercorn, “Sasha” Alexandra Phillips, was the great granddaughter of Sir Julius Werner. Her sister Natalia is the Dowager Duchess of Westminster. Luton Hoo was sold in 1997 following the death of their brother Nicholas. Their mother Georgina Lady Kennard (née Wernher) was a close friend of the Queen.

Our tour of Ranger’s House with John O’Connell, who designed the interiors of the Wallace Collection, begins. “A portico can be expressed or suppressed, nothing else. The ultimate expression is a porte cochère. Here, it is suppressed as a temple front. We love the expressed aprons and rubbed brickwork!” Moving indoors, “The timber staircase would probably have been painted to resemble stone. Three balusters per thread is very noble. The panelled stairs below denote a basement of consequence.”

There are 700 items spread over two floors. “It is one of the best English Heritage collections with some knockout pieces,” John explains. “The Pink Drawing Room has most emphatic Inigo Jones Whitehall Palace style ceiling plasterwork. The interconnecting door to the Entrance Hall is missing its enrichments on top. The Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait, disposed to one side of a wall composition, should be moved and placed centrally. There would have been pier mirrors and tables between the three windows.”

The Grade I Conservation Practice Architect points to a desk: “This is a Jean-François Oeben wow piece! Mr Oeben was a great craftsman. He would have made the woodwork but the guild system wouldn’t have allowed him to make the metalwork. That would have been executed by another craftsman.” Pointing to an earlier more modest piece of furniture: “This work table illustrates the development of specific pieces of furniture for rooms, the search for comfort.”

“The Adriaen van Ostade is a typically allegorical 17th century Dutch painting. The gentleman playing cards suggests profligacy. The lady gazing out the window is showing disloyalty. And the 1617 Gabriël Metsu is wonderful, an absolute beauty, a very important painting. The broom is symbolic of spiritual cleansing. The lapdog represents loyalty.” Our tour continues through the reception rooms. “Such ravishing marble matching mantlepieces and hearthstones. That’s what you get at a certain moment,” admires John. Completing the tour upstairs: “The corridors remind us of Castle Howard.”