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Gosford Castle Markethill Armagh + Thomas Hopper

Norman Gates

In 1970, the Honourable Desmond Guinness, Founder and first President of the Irish Georgian Society, participated in the television programme Whicker’s World. He told the presenter Alan Whicker that, “In England any dovecote by Robert Adam has been written up about 20 times in Country Life.” While the aforementioned magazine featured Gosford House in East Lothian in 1911, it does not appear to have ever included Gosford Castle outside Markethill in County Armagh. Gosford Castle has though appeared in several books on Irish architecture and rightly so.

Brian de Breffny’s Castles of Ireland, 1977, is a serious study of fortresses and fortified houses. He records, “When it was completed after 20 years, Gosford was claimed to be the largest country house in Ireland – a massive complex of circular towers, angular keep, bastions, towerlets and arches linked internally by rambling corridors. Pale granite quarried at Bessbrook in County Armagh was used for its construction. The Norman theme is pursued purposefully and executed with masterful originality.” Gosford Castle is no mean dwelling, but Coolattin and Humewood (both in County Wicklow) as well as Temple House (in County Sligo) would give it a long and strenuous run for its money as Ireland’s largest country house. Its restoration is approaching 20 years in the making.

Mark Girouard in his seminal 1979 work Historic Houses of Britain (before the avalanche of country house coffee table books truly spilled forth) mentions Gosford Castle when writing about Penrhyn Castle in Gwynedd, Wales, “Thomas Hopper had been fashionable ever since George IV – then still Prince Regent – had commissioned a Gothic conservatory from him in 1807 for Carlton House, London. Like most architects of his time, he was prepared to design buildings in almost any style. Hie had already designed one castle and altered another. His new Irish castle was Gosford in County Armagh. It had the distinction of being the first of the new castles to be Norman.”

“By the 1820s there were plenty of new castles but only one other new Norman one, and that in a part of Ireland which relatively few people visited. The reason why most people steered clear of Norman was straightforward. Norman was the oldest, most primitive and uncomfortable of the English styles (except of course Saxon, of which only a handful of churches, and no houses or castles, survived). It was hard enough to build something which looked sufficiently like a castle and was still reasonably comfortable without loading the dice against oneself by making it Norman too.”

The most recently published commentary on the castle comes from Kevin Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster, 2013. It is part of the series founded by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Alistair Rowan similar to that on England, Scotland and Wales. “Set on a ramparted platform in dense woods, Gosford is a great brawny pile. Large and unforgiving, its castellated form rises mirage like, a picturesque grouping of square and circular masses with carefully recessed surface layers and an impressive display of Romanesque detailing. Even in pale granite, the architecture appears grave, a brooding grandiloquent expression of an invented past that represents the most assured instance of a revived Norman style in these islands.”

“It was probably Hopper’s role as arbitrator in a dispute between Nash and Lord O’Neill at Shane’s Castle in Antrim in 1816 that won him the commission here, brought to Lord Gosford’s notice perhaps by his agent William Blacker, who had also acted for O’Neill. It is difficult to gauge the role of the Earl in the actual choice of design, but there is nothing to suggest that he was the innovator. The Romanesque style was never to become popular, the general view holding that the forms of its apertures are inapplicable to our habits. Hopper’s unique feeling for Romanesque forms expressed here, and later in a more ambitious work at Penrhyn Castle in Wales, was undoubtedly conditioned by his birthplace in Rochester … Hopper was to express deep regret that he had come to Ireland, so disillusioned had he become with his patron in 1834. Even then the castle was far from complete.”

“The second phase of work, undertaken by Hopper’s assistant George Adam Burn for the 3rd Earl, involved the creation of a new bastioned entrance on the eastern corner of the north front, along with the completion of the family apartments in the straggling northwest range. The architecture subtly becomes more eccentric and the details more inventive. Adding a new two storey entrance block on the northeast corner, Burn disrupted the formality of its cubic proportions by forming an unusual engaged cylinder as a corner turret to the first floor Billiard Room.”

Sir Charles Brett devoted four pages to Gosford Castle in Buildings of County Armagh, 1999. Charlie’s epic series on the architecture of the Counties of Ulster was cut short by his death six years later. “An important work by one of the leading London architects of the first half of the 19th century, Thomas Hopper, 1776 to 1856. Sir Howard Colvin says that Hopper was an eclectic designer who held the belief that ‘it is an architect’s business to understand all styles, and to be prejudiced in favour of none’, and considers that ‘his most interesting and original works were the two Norman castles in which he effectively combined picturesque massing with a remarkable repertoire of Romanesque detailing which owed something to his familiarity with the 12th century keeps of Rochester and Hedingham.’ His pupils included the young Belfast architect John Millar, who worked on this commission with him, and signed a drawing showing the proposed front elevation.”

“The design was commissioned by Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford, after the previous house had burned down. Mark Bence-Jones says that it was ‘largely paid for by his wife, the daughter and heiress of Robert Sparrow, of Worlingham Hall, Suffolk: so that it is possible that the choice of so strange a style as Norman was hers; she was a lifelong friend of Lady Byron so may have absorbed some of Byron’s exotic and somewhat sinister brand of romanticism.’” Even before the castle was completed, the Gosfords separated and Lady Gosford returned to live in Suffolk where she died in 1841, eight years before her husband. Her Ladyship’s final earthly journey was not without incident. A record from the time states, “On its return journey to County Armagh for burial in the family vault at Mullaghbrack, her coffin was mislaid by the drunken servants whom Lord Gosford had sent to fetch it, and was conveyed by train to somewhere in the Midlands.” Charles Acheson the 7th Earl of Gosford, born in 1942, whose father sold the castle, lives in Suffolk.

Charlie continues, “Gosford is remarkably large, remarkably elaborate, and exceptionally well built – indeed, it appears not just defensible but practically indestructible. It is dominated by its great square keep with corner turrets containing chimneys, with subsidiary round and square towers. Bence-Jones considers that ‘the garden front has a strange beauty; the stone seems pale, Norman becomes more like Southern Romanesque’. The grouping is masterly; the walls are at different angles to each, so that there is a great sense of movement. Although Norman was really unsuited to 19th century living, the interior does not suffer from the heaviness one finds at Penrhyn.”

Bringing the commentary up to date Nicholas Sheaff, first Director of the Irish Architectural Archive, offers these observations in 2024: “The neo Norman style was practised with great conviction by the architect Thomas Hopper in the second quarter of the 19th Century. It was a ‘reinvention of tradition’ (to pirate historian Eric Hobsbawn’s theme) which had its origins in two distinct aesthetic currents. The first current was the neoclassical proclivity for the ‘elemental’ in architecture, awakened by the rediscovery of the Greek temples at Paestum and amplified by the architectural visualisations of Piranesi, particularly his ‘Carceri’ of the 1750s and Paestum etchings of 1778. The second current was the growing pride in British nationhood in the years after Waterloo, with an exploration of the national tradition in architecture and decorative design where the Norman (often dubbed ’Saxon’) was seen as the fountainhead.”

“As the architectural historian Hugh Dixon has suggested, Hopper’s massing of architectural forms at Gosford probably derives from the profile of the great Norman castle of Carrickfergus County Antrim, with its dominating central keep. Hopper’s interior planning embodies a narrative informality which draws on the example of his older contemporary John Nash, each room contributing a fresh spatial and decorative experience to the interior sequence. Hopper’s neo Norman architecture has a sculptural and emotive presence which is the antithesis of the rectilinear, rationalist neoclassical. A lithograph of circa 1830 portrays Gosford Castle in an almost untamed wooded demesne, an irregular architectural grouping set in a vigorous natural environment as advocated by Richard Payne Knight, that leading aesthetician of the picturesque. The lithograph presents a romantic vision of a turbulent landscape under a northern sky, as painted possibly by Jacob van Ruisdael, far distant in its style and impact from the arcadian vistas and golden light of Claude Lorrain.”

It is something of a wonder that Gosford Castle and its demesne both survive for ever since Thomas Hopper put pencil to paper it has had a rocky time. Financial constraints, disputes and overseas sojourns slowed down construction. In 1821 the outbuildings were progressing; in 1828 the Portland stone staircase was erected; in 1833 plasterers and joiners were working on the main rooms; in 1835 Lord Gosford became Governor in Canada for four years; in 1840 Newry architect Thomas Duff took over designing alterations and additions although Thomas Hopper remained involved at some level; in 1852 the Armagh Guardian reported that “a number of tradesmen are now engaged finishing the remaining wing of this building”; in 1864 the 3rd Earl died and the house became a family shooting lodge; in 1888 the 4th Earl sold the library; in 1921 he sold the rest of the contents; in 1940 the British army occupied the house; and in 1978 the Northern Ireland Forestry Commission acquired the 240 hectare demesne and castle. At least Gosford Castle didn’t burn down like its Georgian predecessor which had ended up a charred ruin in 1805.

An estate acquisition by the Forestry Commission normally rang the death knell for a house (not least Pomeroy House in County Tyrone) but somehow even after a failed stint leased to a hotel, Gosford Castle has survived relatively unscathed. The unrelenting permanence of this mountain of a house built of local stone rooted in geography and history continues to shine like a beacon in the woods. The road to its revival has not been smooth and is a story of changing ownership, court cases and construction delays – all sounding familiar as history repeats itself. Hopefully the restoration won’t take longer than the original construction.

At the opening of the 21st century, the Belfast architectural practice The Boyd Partnership led by Arthur Acheson (no relation to the Gosfords) was commissioned by the developer Gosford Castle Development Ltd to design the conversion of Gosford Castle into 23 homes. Arthur had form. He had restored the 17th century Finnebrogue House near Downpatrick and converted outbuildings to residential use. Arthur and his wife lived at Finnebrogue from 1994 until 2009. He died earlier this year. In her condolences, Lord Lieutenant of Belfast Dame Fionnuala Jay-O’Boyle noted the architect was founding Chair of Belfast Civic Trust.

The rockiest of times had immediately preceded The Boyd Partnership’s involvement. Marcus Patton reported in the Summer 2006 Heritage Review of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society that, “It is one of fewer than 200 Grade A Listed Buildings in Northern Ireland and is arguably our most important building at risk. The Society has maintained a keen interest in its future, and for those with knowledge of its recent history the confirmation of its sale for £1,000 to a private developer on 6 January will have come as something of a surprise.”

“Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this process has been the lack of vision shown by central Government as the long term custodian of the castle. We all recognise the significant challenges that such a building can present, and we want to see it sympathetically restored. However this surely could have been achieved in a manner which would have allowed public access to the most important internal spaces as well as facilitating wider economic regeneration.” The Society was concerned about the loss of internal architectural detailing and spatial integrity through the conversion process.

Just before his death, Arthur explained, “In the design of this restoration we as a company decided to break away from the typical apartment model usually associated with conversions of Listed Buildings. Instead we opted to develop the castle as a series of individual homes, each with their own front door, hallway, staircase and in some cases, as many as four floors of accommodation. These unique homes range in size from 92 square metres to 371 square metres.” The average sized three bedroom house in the UK is 88 square metres. This vertical arrangement maximised character and minimised room subdivision. Country townhouses.

The contract value of the development is £8 million; work began in 2006 and is well progressed in 2024. This restoration and conversion is in three phases: firstly, the western part of the family wing and the southern part of the courtyard into eight houses; secondly, the northern part of the courtyard into four houses; and thirdly, the eastern part of the family wing and all of the main block into 11 houses. The cylindrical tower is one of the self contained houses. The neo Norman decorative plasterwork and panelling of the principal rooms such as the Library have been restored. It is unknown if any of the military graffiti scrawled on internal walls will be retained in situ. The demesne is open to the public as a forest park.

Dixie Deane records a structure that predates the castle in his 1994 gazetteer Gatelodges of Ulster, “Circa 1700. Off the old county road, now absorbed into the enlarged Gosford Estate, lie two large ornamental ponds between which the avenue to the manor house led over a causeway. The access is below a semicircular headed carriage archway in a large wall of roughly carved rubble whinstone dressed in classically moulded carved limestone.” On either side of the archway are attached 15 square metre porters’ lodges. Each has a Dutch gable reminiscent of Richhill Castle, also in County Armagh, and Springhill County Londonderry. Perched on their roofs are Sir John Vanbrugh style arched chimneystacks mimicking miniature belfries.

A rerouting of the road to Tandragee means the former gamekeeper’s cottage dating from circa 1840 is now accessed off a cul-de-sac backing onto the Gosford Castle Estate. Probably by Thomas Hopper, it is as unique in its own way as the neo Norman castle: this rustic log cabin is a gingerbread house brought to life. Spindly metal columns prop up a steep hipped roof and frame a wraparound verandah. The walls are panelled with narrow strips of wood at various angles and the windows have triangular heads. A simple rendered contemporary extension doubles the ground floor accommodation of this diminutive dwelling. The cottage is now a two bedroom holiday let.

Gosford Castle is a marvel in so many ways. For starters, why did the 2nd Earl and Countess of Gosford select neo Norman instead of the more popular Gothic or Italianate styles? Perhaps it was in the spirit of choosing your ancestors wisely. In a country of castles to show off your ancestry the next best thing to living in a Norman castle would be erecting and living in a neo Norman castle. The turn of the 18th century entrance archway and lodges – Blenheim Palace on Keizersgracht – are very special. The lodges are windowless but roofed and vegetation has been removed. Most marvellous if not miraculous of all is the survival and reuse of the wooden former gamekeeper’s cottage.

Gosford Castle itself has never looked better. The huge revivification is finally nearing completion to house 23 new Lords and Ladies of the Manor. The white stone glistens in its dense forest surroundings like a fairytale scene. Surprisingly there was no enabling new development as part of the restoration and redevelopment. The Planning Appeals Commission has though in 2024 allowed on appeal a development of 11 one and a half storey contemporary cottages in the abandoned car park to the rear of the castle courtyard. The adjoining walled garden will be restored as part of this residential development.

Commissioner Laura Roddy reports, “The scale and massing proposed with the low elevation design would respect the Listed Building. Whilst the proposed dwellings would be of a more modern design than the castle, this, combined with the simplicity of the design would ensure that the proposed dwellings would be sympathetic to, and do not compete with or detract from, the castle.” She concludes, “Overall, I find the appeal proposal would be of a sympathetic scale of development and would respect the character of the setting of the Listed castle and walled garden. Further, it would restore the Listed walled garden, reinstate the historic pathway between the castle and walled garden and include a significant level of landscaping which would be sympathetic to its setting.” So in the end enabling development was allowed – just for the walled garden not the castle.

And that concludes the definitive tale of Gosford Castle, spanning two centuries and delivered in different voices over four decades, its origins best summarised by Nicholas Sheaff’s narrative of two distinct aesthetic currents.

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Tullymurry House Newry Down + Slemish Market Supper Club

Mount Charles All Over Again

We’re getting ready to join you on this beautiful life adventure. “County Down in the holidays and Surrey in the term – it was an excellent contrast,” raved Clive Staples Lewis in 1955. We couldn’t agree more and technically we do reside in Surrey albeit the hectarage swallowed up by southwest London. Tullymurry House is only five kilometres on the Belfast side of Newry but feels a world away from everywhere and everything and everyone. There are uninterrupted views across drumlins to the irregular polygon of the snow capped Mourne Mountains.

Tullymurry, blurring the line between a grand farmhouse and a modest country house, is run by the Irish Landmark Trust, founded in 1992. The Trust’s mission is to save, share and sustain. Hearth Revolving Fund restored the house in 2012 before handing it over for use as a holiday home. The Autumn 1989 Heritage Newsletter of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society states, “Hearth has completed 55 houses and flats for rental over the last 10 years …” Tullymurry most likely originated as a single storey Scottish Planters’ house. An extension by the Weir family of circa 1700 is now the kitchen and downstairs bedroom. The L shaped two storey block with its sureness of style was then added in the late 18th century. In 1828 a farmer John Marshall bought the house and remodelled it further 12 years later. A folder beside a vase of fresh (custard yellow and raspberry red) roses on the entrance hall table details the restoration:

“Work started on the house from the top downwards; the roof tiles were taken off and replaced but fortunately the roof timbers were found to be in excellent condition and original to the house. The sash windows were taken out, repaired and painted before being put back in place. The house was riddled with woodworm so large areas of floorboards had to be replaced as necessary. The house was rewired and replumbed with the important addition of central heating and extra bathrooms. A small area of kitchen units was added with plenty of modern appliances and a utility room just across the passage for any extra equipment.”

“As much of the existing decoration as possible was retained including the wood effect graining on many of the doors, shutters and skirting. Where wallpaper had to be replaced and painting carried out, traditional ranges from Farrow and Ball were used. Much of the furniture and pictures are 19th century and were in the house before restoration began. They were removed before work began and replaced when work was complete as close as possible to their original locations. The house is now ready to face the next 200 years and has been given a new lease of life as a holiday home.” Original items include hall chairs, an organ, a piano, a family Bible, portraits and a watercolour of nearby Narrow Water Castle by Tom Irwin.

Like the Sunday school chorus, Tullymurry is “deep and wide”. The ivy cloaked south facing façade and east front are both symmetrically five bay. A very complete (custard yellow) doorcase formed of pilasters rising to brackets supporting a sprocketed hood frame the (raspberry red) door and oblong overlight with its geometric glazing. Over the façade the roof is gable ended to the west and  hipped roof to the east. Single storey older parts of the house are hidden behind these two principal fronts. The dual aspect first floor principal bedrooms each take up two bays of the façade. Coved ceilings push into the roof slopes. Floor height windows add charm to all four upstairs bedrooms.

It’s a long five kilometres from Newry: almost everyone gets lost along the dark country lanes. A Friday night feast from Dong Fang Asian Fusion is eventually spread out on the long kitchen trestle table. The Aga will rest tonight. A Saturday morning walk under low hung grey skies parallel lined with cloud and mist is County Down tranquillity at its best. The lawns on either side of the avenue are speckled with snowdrops. Grey turns to blue as the sound of agricultural machinery gearing up is a reminder this is still a working farm. The burnt red ribbed metal barrel vaulted barn may be aesthetically pleasing but it’s also functional.

Sun streams in through the open door down the entrance hall passing from the glory of the day into the dim hinterland of the back hall on this late February weekend. The Victorian wallpapered drawing room, a polite space full of bygones, is turned into a cinema for the afternoon. And then in a flash it’s Saturday evening. Pre dinner cocktails are served in the drawing room while guests are serenaded by local harpist Sharon Carroll playing Sì Beag Sì Mòr and other sweet melodies. French 75s: squeezed lemon juice and gin mixed with a little sugar and shaken on ice. Pour into Champagne glasses and top up with Champagne. Sidecars: shake equal parts of Cognac Hennessy, Cointreau and lemon juice with a little sugar. Pour into cocktail glasses and place orange peel on top. A tip is to peel the lemons and oranges into the glasses so that zest and spray go over the drinks and glass rims. So that’s two of our five a day!

Chef Rob Curley of Slemish Market Supper Club arrives with the first of the evening’s dishes (service à la Russe not à la Française of course). He explains, “Wee Bites are our style of tapas. You have vol au vents filled with wild mushrooms, parsley and garlic with egg yolk jam inside them. And then you have lovage and cucumber gazpacho. You also have smoked salmon, crème fraîche with elderberry capers pickled pumpkin and fish pancakes flavoured with dolce seaweed.” Lovage is a green plant used in soups and also for medicinal purposes. Gazpacho is a tomato and red pepper based Spanish soup served cold. So more of our five a day!

The curtains and shutters in the blue painted dining room are pulled back: there are no neighbours. Rob’s dinner courses reflect Slemish Supper Club’s commitment that, “The land, sea, rivers and lakes are really important to our gastronomy. Every ingredient is chosen to honour and pay tribute to the important local resources of our cuisine.” The starter is beetroot tortilla, goat’s cheese, beetroot, liquorice, winter leaves. The main is king scallops, Rathlin Island sea lettuce, cucumber pearls, elderberry capers, potato noisette, buttermilk whey sauce. Pudding is spiced orange cake, milk ice cream, liquorice gel. Haute monde, haute couture, haute cuisine.

Just as Rob and his team wave goodbye to a thrilled dinner party, who pulls up but American chanteuse Kara Kalua with all the pyrotechnical melisma of a diva. The highly versatile drawing room is now a disco and soon everyone is singing for their supper like a scene from Saltburn, murdering Sophie Ellis Bexter’s hit Murder on the Dancefloor. It’s an eclectic late night for boon companions, older and wilder, ending in the relaxing spa carved out of the former stables with their merry assortment of lattice, casement and sash windows. “All reality is iconoclastic,” as Clive Staples Lewis used to say.

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Architects Architecture Art Design Developers Hotels Luxury

McCausland’s Hotel + Malmaison Hotel Belfast

Intercontinental

Two decades ago Belfast’s first boutique hotel disappeared. McCausland’s – the scene of lively lunches for a few years – may be missed but thankfully from its ashes arose the phoenix that is Malmaison. But hey, halcyon days are back to stay, today’s the future’s heyday. Malmaison’s trademark extensive use of black allows the architecture to speak. And speak it does. Dropping a consonant (remember the amusing Lost Consonants cartoon in the Saturday Guardian when it used to come with a shelf load of supplements?) between editions, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society published Marcus Patton’s Central Belfast A Historical Gazetteer in 1993 and 22 years later Central Belfast An Historical Gazetteer. Going with the earlier version:

“1867 to 1868 by William Hastings with sculpture by Thomas Fitzpatrick. A pair of four storey stone warehouses built as a pair but with varied detail to suit the two clients: the rival seed merchants John Lytle and Sons and Samuel McCausland. Lytle’s warehouse has a five bay ground floor with arches springing from columns with varied capitals and standing birds at the springing of the arches; a massive rope moulding forms a cil course to the second floor windows, which are grouped as a triple light flanked by duples, with red granite colonettes and freely carved almost Celtic arches and keystones; over the third floor windows, grotesque heads with long tongues form corbels for the cornice brackets which are interspersed with strapwork panels; at the centre of the parapet is a little pediment over a crown and harp (Lytle’s trademark).”

Malmaison is really a pair of semi detached warehouses forming one architectural composition. Looking up from Victoria Street, the lefthand five bays are Lytle’s; the righthand six bays, McCausland’s. Round the corner on Marlborough Street, over a carriageway entrance into Lytle’s warehouse is a carved Chinaman stone head. Complete with coolie hat, drooping moustache and pigtail he is very Fu Manchu. An African stone head rescued from nearby demolished sugar stores forms an unusual talking piece in Malmaison reception.

But it’s McCausland’s warehouse which really goes to town, shouting out its international credentials. Peering over the top of the five ground floor piers along Victoria Street are carved stone heads placed above clusters of fruit and vegetables. They represent the five continents, a conscious and highly visible display linking this business to the great trading houses of the past, demonstrating global trading connections and pride in the Empire. Africa has wavy hair and wears earrings. Asia is turbaned. Oceania is the only female. Europe is whiskered. America wears a feathered headdress.

For two decades before McCausland’s Hotel opened, Belfast’s loudest façade almost disappeared. It was blighted as part of one of the city’s many unexecuted 20th century road widening schemes.

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Dorinda The Honourable Lady Dunleath + Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity Downpatrick Down

Music in September

A Service of Thanksgiving was held for Dorinda Lady Dunleath in the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Downpatrick, County Down on 28 September 2022. The Dean of Down Cathedral, The Very Reverend Henry Hull, welcomed the congregation and noted that like the late Queen, Dorinda had a Christian faith which was reflected in a lifetime of dedicated and joyful duty. He recorded how she had worshipped at Holy Trinity Church Ballywalter, St Andrew’s Church of Ireland Balligan and at times, Down Cathedral. The cathedral is high on a hill clinging to the edge of the town, clearly visible across uninterrupted countryside from Ballydugan House to the southwest.

In 1970, just three years after Dorinda co-founded the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, along with Peter Rankin and Professor Alistair Rowan she wrote and published the Society’s List of historic buildings in Downpatrick. The introduction to the cathedral’s entry is: “A church has existed here since 530 AD when St Caylan was Bishop: early in the 12th century it was occupied as a house of Regular Canons of the Order of St Augustine, superseded after 1177 by Benedictines. The Church was destroyed by an earthquake 1245; pillaged and burnt early in the 14th century by Robert Bruce; rebuilt; destroyed by the English in 1538, pillaged and burn 1539; incorporated with a chapter by Charter 1609. In the 18th century it fell into disrepair. An Act of Parliament was passed 30 April, 1790, for restoration at the instigation of the Dean, the Honourable and Reverend William Annesley, and of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, and 1st Marquis of Downshire; ready for divine service 1818; vestibule and tower added, the latter completed 1826; totally disendowed by Irish Church Act 1869.”

The Service of Thanksgiving tributes were by architectural historians and authors Professor Alistair Rowan and Dr Anthony Malcolmson. Both spoke eloquently about Dorinda’s significant contribution to charities and culture in Northern Ireland, and in particular, architectural heritage. There were plenty of anecdotes of fun times too. Professor Rowan recalled Dorinda and her husband Henry arriving in fancy dress one evening at Leixlip Castle, County Kildare. The hostess, Mariga Guinness, was surprised to greet Dorinda in Little Bo Peep attire and Henry in cartoon character costume. Somehow there had been a miscommunication: it was a formal white tie dinner.

One of the readings was Order to View by Louis MacNiece. The poet’s mother and Dorinda’s mother were cousins. The opening line is, “It was a big house, bleak.” Another reading was a verse from St John’s Gospel which includes the line, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” The organist and choirmaster Michael McCracken led Down Cathedral Choir singing In Paradisum from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem. The Harty Quartet played three pieces: George Frideric Handel’s Le Réjouissance; Johann Sebastian Bach’s Arioso; and Edward Elgar’s Salut d’Amour.

Beautiful floral arrangements by Florestina enriched the stone architectural foil. Dorinda’s brother, Brigadier James Percival, remarked that just a couple of weeks earlier, Florestina, which is owned and run by Suzie Scott, Dorinda’s cousin, was responsible for the floral decorations of The Queen’s Service of Reflection at St Anne’s Cathedral Belfast. A reception was held after The Service of Thanksgiving for Dorinda at the appropriately historic Denvir’s Hotel below Down Cathedral in the town centre. Architect John O’Connell summed up Dorinda subtly and succinctly as being “spirited and singular”.

The Ulster Architectural Heritage Society’s entry for Denvir’s Hotel includes: “Originally 17th century. A date on the post is inscribed 1641, but the present appearance of the building is the late 18th century and early 19th century. A two storey four bay block pleasantly recessed from the street lined and flanked by two projecting three storey wings – all stuccoed with horizontal glazing bars. The east wing gives arched access to the hotel yards; the west has a gable to the street and, in the corner, a good late Georgian door of tripartite pattern, with grooved columns for the jambs.”

In the evening, back in the cathedral, internationally recognised musician Desmond Hunter performed an organ recital accompanied by the Balligan Consort (a nine voice choir founded by the late Norman Finley), celebrating the life and work of the late Lord and Lady Dunleath through their influential Music in May festival in the 20th century. Pieces covered four centuries from William Byrd’s Fantasia in C to the first performance of Fantasy-fanfare Ostendite Terram Occultatum by Northern Irish composer Dr Philip Hammond.

Desmond has written a short history of Music in May. Extracts include: “Lord Dunleath’s passionate interest in the organ and the success of the rebuilding of the Conacher Organ in Ballywalter Parish Church were probably key factors in sowing the seed that eventually led to the flowering of an organ festival … The first recital in 1970 was given, appropriately, by Norman Finlay, co-founder of Music in May.” Norman was Headteacher of Music at Belfast Royal Academy. “Each of the recitals was followed by an informal reception in Ballywalter Park, hosted by Lord and Lady Dunleath. This attractive addition probably helped to ensure a large attendance at the recitals.”

“After Lord Dunleath’s untimely death in 1992, it was proposed that an organ trust might be established in his memory. Discussions with Dorinda, Lady Dunleath, and others closely associated with Music in May initiated the process that led to the formation of the Dunleath Organ Scholarship Trust. The Trust was launched at a concert in Ballywalter in 1995.”

The postlude to Dorinda’s Service of Thanksgiving on 28 September 2022 was Wolfgang Mozart’s Laudate Dominum with soprano Lisa Dawson hitting the high notes to perfection. The early autumn late afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass doors of the cathedral, illuminating the vestibule, touching the tip of the nave with its warm glow. As everyone departed, beyond the sea of parked cars, a cross was momentarily silhouetted by the golden sun setting behind a silver edged cloud.

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Killymoon Castle + Estate Cookstown Tyrone

The First of the Best Two Days

It was the poster boy of the 1970s, gracing the covers of various publications. Half a century later, a new generation of aesthetes is falling in love with the romantically named and romantically styled and romantically positioned Killymoon Castle. Richard Oram and Peter Rankin included a sketch of the south elevation on the cover of their Ulster Architectural Heritage Society Listings for Cookstown and Dungannon. “The Nash block is of ashlar, a strong roll moulding surrounding it at basement level. Behind, the earlier back-quarters are of rubble, castellated, buttresses added and certain windows enlarged by Nash, the roofs of graduated slates… Behind the house, a stable and farmyard, including a substantial two storey block with Gibbsian door surrounds.”

In another Ulster Architectural Heritage Society publication from last century, An Introduction to Ulster Architecture, Hugh Dixon, wrote, “Interest in the picturesque resulted in the Gothick castle style becoming a fashionable alternative to the neoclassical for country houses. Pioneered by Richard Payne Knight at Downton Castle, Herefordshire, the asymmetrical castle was made popular by the Prince Regent’s architect, John Nash, whose large practice extended to Ulster on several occasions. Killymoon Castle is clearly a sham unlike Gosford Castle (by Thomas Hopper, circa 1820) at Markethill, County Armagh, where really thick walls and correct medieval windows show a new more serious approach. Generally more popular in Ulster was the symmetrical castle, a type developed by Robert Adam in Scotland. Adam, indeed, remodelled Castle Upton in County Antrim (1788) in this style, although it has had later alterations. Among the best local designs are Necarne, Irvinestown, County Fermanagh (circa 1825) and the delightfully simple Dungiven Castle, County Derry (1839).”

Brian de Breffny included Killymoon in his Castles of Ireland and featured it on the dust jacket. “John Nash, the celebrated architect of Regency England, also designed a few buildings in Ireland, including some parish churches and four Gothick castles, two of which are Killymoon and Lough Cutra. Shanbally Castle, County Tipperary, which he built about 1812, was larger than either of these. The fourth castle, Kilwaughter, County Antrim, is a not very successful adaptation of an earlier house, and is now in a state of disrepair… Before he was engaged in radically transforming parts of London by such creations as Regent’s Park, Regent’s Street, Trafalgar Square and Carlton House Terrace, and before his work on Brighton Pavilion. It brought him other Irish commissions through the family connections of James Stewart, Member of Parliament for County Tyrone, the satisfied client… The house at Killymoon built by James Stewart’s father, William Stewart, who also built the nearby town of Cookstown about 1750, was largely destroyed by fire about 1800.”

Each publication has a different take on its castellation: the dressing of the original castle to complement the new building; the light hearted asymmetry; and the heralding of the architect’s popularity for designing castles in Ireland. Killymoon Castle was John Nash’s first – and finest – castle in Ireland. Dorothy Coulter, who lives in the castle with her husband Godfrey, knows its history well. “Killymoon Castle was built in 1671 by James Stewart who had bought the lease five years earlier from Alan Cooke, the founder of Cookstown. The Stewarts had come over from Scotland during the Plantation of Ulster. They set up two castles at that time: Killymoon and Ballymena Castle. Six generations later, the Stewarts left Killymoon in 1852. There are six houses built by the Stewarts still in Cookstown Old Town.”

The original building was mostly destroyed by fire in 1802. Dorothy reckons, “Colonel James Stewart built this castle a year later and it must have been a truly wonderful fairy tale to bring his beautiful wife Lady Molesworth to this romantic spot!” She points to his portrait in the central hall. “He met John Nash on his Grand Tour. James frequently visited London to gamble with the Prince Regent at Carlton House. Apparently he gambled Killymoon Castle one night with Prince Regent and lost it on the turn of the cards. I don’t envy him coming back to his wife after that! Fortunately the Prince Regent told him he could keep his ‘Irish cabin’. The other portrait is of his father William Stewart. He brought James back from the Grand Tour as he wanted him to stand for MP for Tyrone and he stood and he had the seat for 44 years. He was well liked. The estate changed hands several times after the Stewarts until timber merchant Gerald Macura bought it in 1916. He wanted to make railway sleepers from felling the trees.”

The Public Records Office Northern Ireland’s Introduction to Stewart of Killymoon Papers, 2007, sheds some light on Lady Molesworth, “In 1772 Stewart married Elizabeth Molesworth, daughter of the 3rd Viscount Molesworth. She was one of the survivors of a tragic fire in London in 1763, where she was living with her widowed mother. Lady Molesworth senior, two of her daughters and six of the servants were killed. Two other daughters were badly injured when they jumped from upper windows – one had to have her leg cut off after landing on the railings below – and a third was badly burned. Elizabeth Stewart became in 1794 a co-heiress of her late brother, the 4th Viscount Molesworth, and inherited a share of the Molesworth estates in Dublin City, near Swords, County Dublin, and in and around Philipstown, King’s County.”

A castle is not a castle without a ghost. Dorothy relates, “Gerald Macura’s 97 year old daughter came to visit us a couple of years ago. She’d such fond memories of the castle and told me how as a six year old child she used to hear ghostly footsteps going up and down the secondary staircase. She had that story built up in her head all those years. I said to her, ‘But there only is one staircase!’ We went on a tour of the house and upstairs she showed me something. There were so many different layers of paint over the door you could only see the shape of the frame so when we looked into that cupboard there was this other door that opened into a set of stairs that went up to James’s room in the top of the circular tower! He had a whole big bedroom suite that went out onto the balcony. She said it was really just the joy of her life getting back to Killymoon; she died not long afterward.”

Dorothy reveals, “My husband’s great grandparents lived over the bridge past those trees and these grounds came up for sale. His great grandfather John Coulter bid £2,000 on the grounds but all the bids were rejected. So six months later the Bank of Ireland put it up for sale again and he increased his bid by an extra £100 and this time it was to include the castle. He was successful so everyone thinks it was a great deal as he got the castle for £100! They moved in with their two sons Tommy and Jacky at the end of 1921.”

A suitably long drive winds through parkland and farmland, past the château-like 18th century stable block to one side, until the porte cochère of the castle finally appears. And there it is, the castle in all its glory, one of the great architectural moments of early 19th century Ireland – still unrivalled in early 21st century Ireland. The genius at work: rectangular, elliptical and polygonal components of varying heights fitting together like the pieces of an intricate three-dimensional puzzle, unified by Gothick windows, Romanesque detailing and a castellated roofline. John Nash added buttresses to the adjoining remaining portion of the old rubble stone castle and remodelled some of its windows to be more in keeping with his cut stone architectural masterpiece.

The interior is equally ingenious. A slender row of stairs connects the porte cochère to the tall spacious central hall. The piano nobile is elevated by a raised basement. “That’s the Stewart and Molesworth coats of arms in the stained glass over the front door,” highlights Dorothy. The central hall is linked by a Gothick arch to the staircase hall with its cantilevered stone stairs flying off in opposite directions like the wings of a dinosaur. John Nash knew how to deliver drama! Another great spatial flow running parallel with the inner halls is formed by an enfilade of four adjoining reception rooms overlooking the sloping lawn and field down to Ballinderry River. The variety of room shapes seems endless. Apses and niches and balconies and vestibules show such a grasp of spatial acuity. Oak detailing and ornate plasterwork define and refine the interior throughout. Window shutters concertina out from hidden cavities in the external walls. One of the reception rooms has 1800s wallpaper which survived a major flood.

Dorothy continues, “American soldiers occupied the estate from December 1943 to February 1944. Officers stayed in the castle while paratroopers were housed in Quonset huts. It was the 82nd Airbourne Division that was stationed here. We have retained one of the brick huts built near the river as a cottage for holidaymakers. One of the castle bedrooms has been restored as an officer’s room with militaria and uniformed mannequins. The cellars are now a military museum with a permanent signal post, muster station and officers’ mess. There was a German prison of war camp at the top end of the town. We’ve a lot of letters from the American and German soldiers – they’re all down in the cellars. Killymoon is part of the heritage of Cookstown. It needs people in it to keep it alive.”

“We decided whenever we got married to restore the long end of the castle in the 1970s. Tommy lived down in the back end of the castle.” She continues the tour, “In 2000 we restored the big upstairs library. This room was in ruins – the ceiling was completely down, there were trees growing in it. I said to the builders there’s a ceiling like Nash’s original one here in Kildress Parish Church. They were able to copy the church’s ribbed plasterwork ceiling. The timber floor is new too. The only original features to survive are the windows which date back to the 1600s. One of the bedrooms had no ceiling as well. It was like the planetarium where you could look right up to the sky!”

“We started to restore the roof lantern over the staircase in 2014,” Dorothy recalls. “It had been badly damaged when the Golf Clubhouse was bombed in about 1989.” Since 1889, part of the estate has been Killymoon Golf Club. “Eventually we did get help with the restoration of the roof lantern: the Northern Ireland Environment Agency were very good and we’ve worked with Cookstown Council. Our architects, builders and craftsmen have all been local – real godsends. We’ve been very blessed and are very thankful. Recently, we’ve been working with the Tourist Board promotion ‘Embrace a Giant Spirit’. We won ‘Best Maintenance of a Historic Building or Place at the 2021 Heritage Angel Awards Northern Ireland.”

She adds, “In 2016 we opened the tearoom. On our first day the queue of people stretched down the drive! Our candlelit Christmas dinners have proved a real success. We’re sold out already. It’s a family affair – the grandchildren get their dusters out and we light all the fires. When you see the castle being used for different functions, it brings it to life. We’ve had people visit here from all over the world. We are very busy with group tours too.” Today, afternoon tea is served in the east and south facing Lady Molesworth’s morning room with views (once admired by Queen Mary, wife of King George V) across the 122 hectare estate. Under the shallow dome laced by a patera frieze, potato and leek soup is served in china cups on saucers. Grandfather clocks tick and chime to the passing of time.

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Dorinda The Honourable Lady Dunleath + Killyvolgan House Ballywalter Down

Life and Times

Dorinda loved discussing the many Irish country houses she knew well. “I could write a book about my experiences in country houses. Maybe you should for me!” One of her earliest memories was visiting her uncle and aunt, Major Charlie and Sylvia Alexander, at the now demolished Pomeroy House in County Tyrone. Dorinda also enjoyed visiting Springhill in County Londonderry (now owned by The National Trust) – she was married from there in 1959. There was a painting of Springhill in the sitting room of Killyvolgan House. It was her Great Aunt Mina’s home. Mina Lenox-Conyngham was the last owner of Springhill. “Staying at her house was always enormous fun.”

“I remember aged six being taken against my will to dancing lessons at Lissan House. It was absolutely freezing! I lay on the ground screaming and kicking my feet in the air. Such a dull house, don’t you think?” She was great pals with Diana Pollock of Mountainstown House in County Meath and recalled good times there with Diana and her sisters. “I could never love Mount Stewart. Dundarave has an interesting vast hall but the reception rooms are plain. I remember the auction of Mount Panther’s contents. Everyone was standing in the entrance hall and up the stairs when the staircase started coming away from the wall! Cousin Captain Bush lived in Drumhalla House near Rathmullan in Donegal. He’d a parrot and wore a wig. I remember he threw his wig off when he went swimming in the cove end of the garden. I was absolutely terrified to jump in after him!”

One of Dorinda’s most memorable stories combines several of her loves: country houses, fashion and parties. “It was the Sixties and I had just bought a rather fashionable tin foil dress from a catalogue. I thought it would be perfect for Lady Mairi Bury’s party at Mount Stewart. It was so tight and I was scared of ripping it so I lay down on our bedroom floor, arms stretched out in front of me, and Henry slid me into it.” She gave a demonstration, laughing. “Unfortunately I stood too near one of the open fires and my dress got hotter and hotter. I thought I was going to go up in smoke! So that was the first and last time I wore it!” Dorinda always managed to look stylish, whether casual or formal. Her suits were the envy of fellow Trustees of the Board of Historic Buildings Trust. Her ‘off duty’ uniform of polo neck, sports jacket, jeans and boyish shoes was effortlessly chic.

When it came to finding her own country house after her tenure at Ballywalter Park ended, things proved challenging. “I searched for two years for a suitable property. There’s a country house for sale in Keady. Nobody lives there! I’d be driving up and down to Belfast non stop!” Eventually Dorinda would build her own house on a site just beyond the walled estate of Ballywalter Park. At first, she wanted to rebuild the double pile gable ended two storey three bay house occupying the site called McKee’s Farm but when the structure proved unstable, a new house was conceived. Despite being known as a modernist, Belfast architect Joe Fitzgerald was selected to design a replacement house of similar massing to McKee’s Farm, adding single storey wings in Palladian style. Like its owner, Killyvolgan House is understated, elegant and charming. She was pleased when the council planners described Killyvolgan as the ideal new house in the countryside. It displays a distinguished handling of proportion and lightness of touch.

“I bought the Georgian grandfather clock in the entrance hall from Dublin. I’m always slightly concerned at how fragile my papier mâché chairs are for ‘larger guests’ in the drawing room. I guess the chairs were really meant for a bedroom? I’ve painted all the walls in the house white as the shadows on them help me see around.” And then there was the urn in the courtyard. “The Coade stone urn I found in the 19th century barn was much too grand. So instead I bought this cast iron urn on the King’s Road in Belfast. Fine, I will leave the Marston and Langinger pot you have brought me in the urn so that I remember that colour. Oh, Farrow and Ball are very smart! They’re very clever at their marketing.” In the end, the much debated urn would remain unpainted. “Henry wouldn’t deal with snobs. That’s why I liked him. Henry took everything he got involved in very seriously. Henry was the only Alliance Party member in the House of Lords. He strongly promoted the Education (Northern Ireland) Act 1974 which provided greater parity across the sectarian divide.” Later, “Oh how exciting, is it full of good restaurants and bars? Great! I’ll be an authority now on Ballyhackamore.”

She recalled an early drama at The Park. It was a tranquil Sunday morning in 1973 and unusually Dorinda was at home rather than at Holy Trinity Church Ballywalter. “Henry was singing the 23rd Psalm at Eucharist when he heard six fire brigades go by. Poor people, he pitied. I’d warned our butler not to interfere with the gas cylinders of the boiler, but he did, and the whole thing exploded, lifting off the dome of the Staircase Hall like a pressure cooker. The Billiard Room disappeared under a billow of smoke and flames. I rang the fire brigade and said, ‘Come quickly! There’s a fire at Ballywalter Park!’ The operator replied, ‘Yes, madam, but what number in Ballywalter Park?’” The estate of course doesn’t have a number – although it does have its own postcode.

“A spare room full of china collections fell through the roof. Well, I guess I’d always wanted to do an archaeological dig! It was so sad, really. As well as the six fire brigades, 300 people gathered from the village and around to help lift furniture onto the lawn. Fortunately the dome didn’t crack. Isn’t life stranger than fiction? The Powerscourt fire happened just one year later. Henry was philosophical and said we can build a replacement house in the walled garden.” In the end the couple would be responsible for restoring the house to its lasting glory. Ballywalter Park is a mid 19th century architectural marvel designed by Sir Charles Lanyon.

“I arrived over from London as a young wife and suddenly had to manage 12 servants. I used to tiptoe around so as not to disturb them. There was a crazy crew in the kitchen. Mrs Clarke was the cook. Billy Clarke, the scatty elderly butler, mostly sat smoking. Mrs Clarke couldn’t cook unless he was there. I was too shy to say anything!” Dorinda once briefly dated Tony Armstrong-Jones who would become the society photographer Lord Snowdon. “We met at pony club. He got me to model sitting next to a pond at our house in Widford, Hertfordshire.” One book described Dorinda as being “very pretty”. When questioned, she replied, “Well, quite pretty!” She was more interested in her time bookbinding for The Red Cross. In those days The Bunch of Grapes in Knightsbridge was Dorinda’s local. “Browns Hotel and The Goring were ‘safe’ for debutantes. After we got married we went to the State Opening of Parliament. We stayed in Henry’s club and I haled a taxi wearing a tiara and evening dress. Harrods was once full of people one would know. We would know people there. ‘Do you live near Harrods?’ people would ask. I’ve heard everyone now lives southwest down the river, near the boat races. You need some luck and then you’ve just got to make your own way having fun in London.”

As ever with Dorinda there were always more great stories to relate. “I bought the two paintings from the School of Van Dyke in my dining room for £40. I knew they were rather good landscapes so I decided to talk to Anthony Blunt about them. We arranged to meet in The Courtauld for lunch. Halfway though our meal he disappeared for a phone call. He was probably waiting for a message, ‘Go to the second tree on the left!’ He never reappeared. Next thing I heard he was a spy and had gone missing! I think he turned up in Moscow. I’ll remember other interesting things when you’re gone.” Occasionally colloquialisms would slip into her polite conversation. “The funeral was bunged! He’s completely mustard! She’s a pill!” One of Dorinda’s catchphrases, always expressed with glee, was, “That’s rather wild!”

“I called up to The Park. It was so funny: for the first time in history there were three Lady Dunleaths including me all sitting chatting on a sofa! One lives in The Park; the other, King’s Road and I don’t mean Belfast!” Dorinda made steeple chasing sound so riveting. A dedicated rider and breeder, she was Chairman of the Half Bred Horse Breeders Society. The Baroness’s contribution to Northern Irish culture and society is unsurpassed. She was Patron of the Northern Ireland Chest Stroke and Heart Association and the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, as well as being a Committee Member of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society. Dorinda was a Director of the Ulster Orchestra and a founding member of the National Trust in Northern Ireland and the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. Along with Sir Charles Brett she laboriously carried out and published early ‘Listings’ of buildings in places such as Downpatrick, Dungannon and Lisburn. The Baroness’s legacy lives on in the Dorinda Lady Dunleath Charitable Trust. This charity was started by her late husband but after he died it was changed into Dorinda’s name and she added to it every year thereafter. It supports education; healthcare and medical research; the arts, culture, heritage and science; the environment; alleviating poverty; and advancement of the Christian faith. The Dorinda Lady Dunleath Charitable Trust continues to donate to charities that she would have liked, with a focus on Northern Ireland.

One of the last heritage projects Dorinda supported was the restoration and rejuvenation of Portaferry Presbyterian Church, not far from Ballywalter. It’s one of the best Greek Revival buildings in the United Kingdom. “Prince Charles came to the reopening. I curtsied so low I could barely stand up again! Afterwards, a few of us had a very grand supper at Ikea to celebrate!” She voiced concern about the future of the organ at Down Cathedral. Music in May at Ballywalter Park was an annual festival of organ music started by the newlyweds. The Dunleath Organ Scholarship Trust was set up by her late husband and she continued to support it for the rest of her life, attending its concerts each year.

“It’s so exciting… I can’t say how exciting it is you’re here! Tell me, who is this David Bowie everyone’s talking about? I feel like I’m about 100! It’s like when my father asked me, ‘Who is this Bing Crosby?’ The House of Lords used to be full of country specialists like experts in bees or men who loved linen. They used to give the most marvellous speeches. Each generation must do something. It would be great to write this down.” Later, “Gardens should have vistas, don’t you think? They need focal points; you need to walk for an hour to a place of discovery. Capability Brown and Repton knew how to do it.”

In latter years, there were memorable times to be had at The Wildfowler Inn, Greyabbey. Those long, languid lunches. “Portavogie scampi? I’ll have the same as you. And a glass of white wine please. We can have sticky toffee pudding after.” Dorinda would don her yellow high viz jacket, pulling the distinctive look off with considerable aplomb. Her eyesight failing, she would claim, “It helps people see me in Tesco in Newtownards!” Much later, balmy summer afternoons in the sheltered courtyard of Killyvolgan House would stretch long into the evening. There was Darjeeling and more laughter. Those were the days. Halcyon days by the shore. Days that will linger forever. On that last evening at Killyvolgan, Dorinda pondered, “Is there anyone left who cares about architectural heritage?”