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Ardress House

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Coordinates: 54°26′31″N 6°35′31″W / 54.442°N 6.592°W / 54.442; -6.592
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Ardress House
Map
LocationAnnaghmore, County Armagh
Coordinates54°26′31″N 6°35′31″W / 54.442°N 6.592°W / 54.442; -6.592
TypeHistoric house museum
Websitenationaltrust.org.uk/ardress-house

Ardress House is a country house in Annaghmore, County Armagh. The house was owned by the Clarke, then Ensor families, including the writer and lawyer George Ensor. The estate includes orchards, a farmyard and borders the River Tall. Collections include eighteenth paintings and furniture. The National Trust acquired Ardress from Captain Charles Ensor in 1959 with support from the Ulster Land Fund.

History

Owned by the Clarke family, Ardress House was originally a farmhouse built c.1700, after the original home was destroyed during the Civil War between 1641-42.[1] Dating for the construction of the house is supported by dendrochronological analysis undertaken by Queen's University Belfast.[2]

In 1760, the heiress Sarah Clarke married the Dublin-based architect George Ensor.[1][3] After approximately twenty years of marriage the couple moved to Ardress House, where they began to remodel it in a neo-classical style.[4][1][5] Ensor doubled the size of the house, and added a classical portico. However his main focus was on the decoration of a Drawing Room, which was stuccoed by the artist Michael Stapleton.[5][6]

George Ensor and Miss Clarke's son, also George Ensor, was born in 1769. A lawyer and writer, he continued to live at Ardress House, where he made further changes to it, including the addition of a dining room that could only be reached via an external door. This was due to the fact that a connecting door could not be knocked through the fine plasterwork of the Drawing Room.[1][6]

In 1959, a descendant, Charles Ensor[note 1], sold the house and most of the contents at auction.[1] The National Trust was able to acquire the house with the support of the Ulster Land Fund.[8]

From 1962, some National Trust restoration was led by architect Robert McKinstry.[9] In 2015 the property was the recipient of a £150,000 grant to replace the cement plaster on the outside of the house with lime render.[10] The alteration was necessary since the 1960s cement finish was stopping the house from 'breathing', leading to damp problems inside the building.[10] As of 2015, approximately 8000 people visited Ardress House per year.[10]

Estate

Apple orchard, Ardress

The house is set within 100 acres of woods, orchards, parkland and farmland.[5] As of 2017 the orchards were managed by Greg MacNeice of MacIvor's Cider.[11] Walking routes on the property include the Lady's Mile walk.[12] The property is also used as a location for bat-detection events.[13]

Part of the site is the farmyard, which has displays of traditional agricultural equipment, brought together by the Trust and the Craigavon Historical Society, as well as a forge and a dairy.[5][14]

In 2017 the property received a legacy of £334,000 which enabled the restoration of a house on the estate known as Frizzell's Cottage.[15] Last inhabited in the 1980s, the cottage was built c.1740 and is typical of the style of construction for houses in south Ulster in the eighteenth-century.[15] In order to reconstruct parts of the building, new mudbricks were made by volunteers. Since 2019 the house has been rented to tenants.[15]

Collections

Whilst the majority of the original collection belonging to the Ensor family was sold at auction, some of the pieces have been recovered. The property is notable for its furniture collection, as well as the 18th-century Dutch, Flemish and Italian paintings on display, acquired through gifts and loans.[16] The collection also includes two models of the house, crafted in the 1980s: one model imagines the house c.1700, the other c.1900.[17][18][note 2]

Ethnography

In 2005 the National Trust purchased a Māori taiaha and an adze from Mangaia that had been acquired by George Ensor III during his travels in the Pacific.[20][21]

Decorative arts

Notable pieces of furniture in the house include an Irish Chippendale sideboard, as a well an mahogany bureau that doubles as a bookcase that was created circa 1725.[6][22] Part of the collection includes the table that the constitution of Northern Ireland was signed on 22 June 1921 by George V.[23]

Fine arts

Artists represented by works listed as part of the collection at Ardress House include: Strickland Lowry, Gillis Neyts, Robert Griffier, Pieter Boel, Bartolomeo Passarotti and James Barry.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ During this time he also donated a ring-pin found in the Tall River near the house, and a penannular brooch, to Armagh County Museum.[7]
  2. ^ Until 1994 a fifteenth-century logboat was displayed in the house.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Campbell, Maureen (1997). Armagh, City of Light and Learning: Paintings and Stories from the Orchard County. Dundurn. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-900935-05-0.
  2. ^ Alcock, N. W. (2010-12-01). "Tree-Rng Date Lists 2010". Vernacular Architecture. 41 (1): 84–122. doi:10.1179/174962910X12838716154041. ISSN 0305-5477. S2CID 162223005.
  3. ^ Reeves-Smyth, Terence (1994). Irish Country Houses. Appletree Press. ISBN 978-0-86281-373-4.
  4. ^ Armagh: History & Society. Geography Publications. 2001. p. 713. ISBN 978-0-906602-36-2.
  5. ^ a b c d "Ardress House". Northern Ireland Museums Council. 27 July 2022. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  6. ^ a b c Greeves, Lydia (2008-09-30). Houses of the National Trust. Pavilion Books. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-1-905400-66-9.
  7. ^ Weatherup, D. R. M. (1978). "Armagh County Museum Archaeological Acquisitions 1935-1959". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 108: 23–50. ISSN 0035-9106. JSTOR 25508735.
  8. ^ Trust, National. "Ardress House". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
  9. ^ Stevens Curl, James; Wilson, Susan (2006). A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 978-0-19-860678-9.
  10. ^ a b c "Ardress House: 18th Century farmhouse to get £120k facelift". BBC News. 2015-07-31. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  11. ^ Ireland, Tourism Northern. "Year of Food & Drink Dessert Course." (2017).
  12. ^ "Lady's Mile". National Trust. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  13. ^ "Bat spotting in Northern Ireland". National Trust. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  14. ^ Gallagher, Lyn; Rogers, Dick (1992). Castle, Coast, and Cottage: The National Trust in Northern Ireland. Blackstaff Press. ISBN 978-0-85640-497-9.
  15. ^ a b c "The Restoration of Frizzell's Cottage". National Trust. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  16. ^ a b Trust, National. "Ardress House". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  17. ^ Trust, National. "Model 247618". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  18. ^ Trust, National. "Model 247617". National Trust Collections. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  19. ^ Fry, Malcolm F (1995-09-01). "Communicating by Logboat: Past necessity and present opportunity in the North of Ireland". Irish Studies Review. 3 (12): 11–16. doi:10.1080/09670889508455498. ISSN 0967-0882.
  20. ^ Rowell, Christopher, Alastair Laing, and James Rothwell. "Acquisitions 2004-2006: the first priority of the National Trust's acquisitions policy is the return to its houses of works of art and furnishings historically associated with them. There have been some notable triumphs in the past two years, described by Christopher Rowell, Alastair Laing and James Rothwell in this selection of recent gifts and purchases." Apollo. Vol. 163. No. 530. Apollo Magazine Ltd., 2006.
  21. ^ Trust, National. "Adze 247906". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  22. ^ Trust, National. "Bureau bookcase 247073". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  23. ^ "Ardress House". Discover Lough Neagh. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
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