Mount Stewart
Mount Stewart | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 54°33′18″N 5°36′29″W / 54.555°N 5.608°W |
Built | 1820–1839 |
Built for | Marquess of Londonderry |
Architect | George Dance, William Vitruvius Morrison |
Owner | National Trust |
Listed Building – Grade A | |
Designated | 20 December 1976 |
Reference no. | HB24/04/052 A |
Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in
History
County seat of the Stewarts, Lords Londonderry and Castlereagh
The original property, Mount Pleasant, was purchased with neighbouring estates in 1744 by Alexander Stewart (1699–1781). Exceptionally for an aspiring member of the landed Ascendancy, the Stewarts did not conform to the established (Anglican) church. They were Presbyterians, farmers and linen merchants whose fortunes had been transformed by Alexander's marriage to the sister and heiress of Robert Cowan, the East India Company Governor of Bombay.[1]
As fellow Presbyterians, the Stewarts appeared to the county's enfranchised forty-shilling freeholders as "friends of reform", and on that basis Mount Stewart rivalled Hillsborough Castle, seat of the Earls (later Marquesses) of Downshire, for control of the county's two parliamentary seats. In the increasingly troubled 1790s, Mount Stewart quietly converted to Anglicanism and stilled the contest, agreeing with Hillsborough that each should return a member to the parliament in Dublin unopposed.[2]
Titles and office followed. In 1795 Alexander's son, Robert Stewart (1739–1821) was elevated to Earl of Londonderry (Marquess in 1816),[3] and in 1797 his son Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822), was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant, Londonderry's brother-in-law, John Pratt, Earl Camden.[4]
After helping, in the wake of the
In 1787, writing to her brother William Drennan (a disappointed supporter of the Stewarts' electoral ambitions, later to be targeted by Castlereagh as a United Irishman), Martha McTier described visiting Mount Stewart, and meeting "with no one thing worth notice, unless great wall pounds are so – much expense, no taste, every thing unfinished and dirty, grand plans for the future, nothing pleasant nor even comfortable at present".[6]
Commensurate with the family's rising fortunes, Castlereagh moved to realise some of these "grand plans". In 1803, he choose the architect George Dance to design a Classical Regency replacement of the west wing with new receptions rooms.[7] A number of the present furnishings reflect Castlereagh's career, including a portrait of the French emperor,[8] and chairs elaborately embroidered for the delegates who redrew the map of Europe at Vienna.[9]
In the Year of Liberty, 1798
During the three-day "Year of Liberty"[10] in Ards and north Down, 10 to 13 June 1798,[11] Mount Stewart was briefly occupied by the United Irish insurgents.[12] In the wake of the court martials that followed, the wife of the local Presbyterian minister, James Porter, appeared at the house with her seven children to plead for his life. Together with her younger sister, Lady Elizabeth, then dying of tuberculosis, Lady Londonderry was tearfully persuaded. (She had often received Porter at Mount Stewart[13][14] and in correspondence with the United Irishwoman Jane Greg had referred to herself as a "republican countess").[15] But Londonderry was to see to it that Porter, convicted on uncertain evidence of having consorted with the rebels, was hung outside his church and home at Greyabbey.[14][16]
Other offenders (David Bailie Warden who commanded the local rebels in the field,[17] and the Reverend Thomas Ledlie Birch who urged them to "drive the bloodhounds of King George, the German king, beyond the seas"),[18] were allowed American exile.[19] Porter's offence may have been to have serially lampooned Londonderry in a popular satire of the landed interest, Billy Bluff. Porter caricatured the master of Mount Stewart as Lord Mountmumble, an inarticulate tyrant who has a dog shot for the temerity of barking.[14][20]
Irish country seat of the Vane-Tempest-Stewarts
Castlereagh inherited his father's title in 1821, but within the year took his own life. The next owner of the house was his half-brother,
Controversially in 1847, while spending £15,000 on the refurbishment, the Marquess of Londonderry gave just £30 to local soup kitchens for famine relief,[21][22] and as the hunger persisted rejected rent reductions on grounds of "personal inconvenience".[23] This was in contrast to his wife's management of her estate in Antrim. Even as she embarked upon of the construction a castellated summer residence (Garron Tower), the Marchioness not only reduced the rents of her tenants, but in dire cases of potato blight, waived them altogether.[24]
This remodelling created the present exterior of Mount Stewart. The small Georgian house and the small portico on the west wing were demolished and the house was increased to eleven bays. On the entrance front, a huge portico was added in the centre, and a smaller 'half portico' was added to the other side.[25]
The marriage also brought in much of the Vane-Tempest property, including land and coal mines in
In 1854, the Emperor Louis Napoleon was among the subscribers who helped raise a memorial tower to the 3rd Marquess north of Mount Stewart at Scrabo.[26]
The
Ulster unionist manse
Lady Londonderry (Theresa Chetwynd-Talbot) was valued for her family and political connections in England. In 1903, at Mount Stewart, she had hosted
At the height of the
Host to Hitler's ambassador
In 1921, the 7th Marquess, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, (1878–1949) accepted office as Minister of Education in the unexpected fruit of unionist agitation, the new home-rule Parliament of Northern Ireland. In 1935, his larger ambitions in London were dashed when he was forced to resign as Air Minister. Despite having preserved the core of the RAF when it was under attack from the Treasury, critics believed he was one of an aristocratic circle of "appeasers".[33][34][35] At Mount Stewart it was a suspicion Londonderry appeared to confirm when, following on a visit to Hitler in Berlin, in May 1936 he entertained the German Ambassador to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop is reported to have landed in Newtownards with a "noisy gang of SS men" and the four-day visit became a national newspaper story.[36]
The house retains a memento of this private diplomacy: an
The ancestral home of the 7th Marchioness of Londonderry, Edith Halen Chaplin, was Dunrobin Castle in Scotland and it was that house's gardens which inspired her reworking of those at Mount Stewart with themed plantings (the Italian, Spanish, and Mairi gardens) and the Dodo Terrace with its whimsical statuary[42] (Ribbentrop described the effect as "paradise").[33] Rather than enter her gardens through a house door she would dive in and out of a sash window, followed by her dogs — of which there were 14 at one time, ranging from deer hound to Pekinese.[43] Lady Edith also redesigned and redecorated much of the interior, for example, the huge drawing room, the Castlereagh Room, the smoking room (whose mantelpiece displayed the Fahnenträger) and many of the guest bedrooms. She named the latter after European cities including Rome and Moscow.[28]
Donation to the National Trust
The last
On Lady Bury's death, her daughter Lady Rose Lauritzen, wife of art historian Peter Lauritzen, became the live-in family member.[47]
National Trust property
The National Trust took over the house and gardens in 1977. The Trust operates the property under the name "Mount Stewart House, Garden & Temple of the Winds".
In 1999, the Mount Stewart Gardens were added to the United Kingdom "Tentative List" of sites for potential nomination as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[48]
In 2015, the National Trust completed an extensive restoration of the house and its contents as well as the purchase of 900 acres (360 hectares) of the wider estate, thus re-uniting it, and plan[needs update] to open for visitor access.[49]
House
The present house is largely a legacy of the 3rd
Portions of what are now Lady Londonderry’s sitting room, the music room, the Castlereagh room and the staircase were left untouched, but a new suite of rooms was added.[50] Of these the principal is the Drawing Room, which looks out onto the main gardens and, before the building along the shore of the A20, would have had a view of Strangford Lough. The house's private chapel, with stained glass windows and Italian murals, was added after the death of 3rd Marquess in 1854, and in his memory.
The National Trust refurbishment, completed in 2015, sought to restore the interiors to how they appeared in the 1950s when the house belonged to Lady Edith, the seventh Marchioness.[49] An exception is the Ionic-columned octagonal main hall, where the chequered stone floor laid by the 3rd Marquess has been uncovered and restored.[51]
Mount Stewart Gardens
After further alterations to house's interior, the 7th Marchioness, redesigned the gardens a lavish style that took advantage of the sub-tropical local climate. As Lady Edith discovered, Mount Stewart under the general influence of the North Atlantic Drift, on the Ards Peninsula Mount Stewart enjoys mild and humid island conditions, allowing tropical plants to thrive.[52]
Prior to her husband's succession to the
Estate
The present-day estate of Mount Stewart extends to 950 acres (380 ha) with a large lake and many monuments and farm buildings.
Temple of the Winds
The Temple of the Winds, overlooking Strangford Lough, is an octagonal building designed architect
Many country houses in the UK had adaptations of the 'temples' their owners had seen on their tours of the
Use as filming location
The house was used as a location for the third series of the BBC children's TV series The Sparticle Mystery.[58]
See also
- Dunduff Castle, South Ayrshire, property of the ancestors of the Stewarts of Mount Stewart
Other residences of the Marquesses of Londonderry:
- Londonderry House in London
- Plas Machynlleth in Wales
- Seaham Hall in County Durham
- Wynyard Park in County Durham
- Loring Hall in Kent
References
- ISBN 978-0-85738-186-6.
- ISBN 978-0-85034-045-7.
- ^ "No. 13922". The London Gazette. 10 August 1796. pp. 781, right column.
To Robert Lord Viscount Castlereagh, and the Heirs Male of his Body lawfully begotten, by the Name Stile and Title of Earl of Londonderry, of the County of Londonderry
- ^ Bew (2011), p. 113
- ^ Bew (2011), pp. 311-418
- ^ "Bloomfield and the Crawfords 1798-1831". www.bloomfieldbelfast.co.uk. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
- ^ "Mount Stewart and its role in European History". National Trust. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Trust, National. "Napoleon I, Emperor of France (1769–1821) 1542319". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 10 September 2021.[permanent dead link]
- ^ ntmountstewart (16 June 2015). "Mount Stewart and the road to Waterloo". Mount Stewart - House & Restoration. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8129-3088-7.
- ISBN 978-0-85640-558-7.
- ^ The National Archives, Reference U840/C562 (1797–1809). "Insurgents in occupation at Mount Stewart", John Petty to Frances Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - JSTOR 29742440.
- ^ a b c Gordon, Alexander (1896). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 46. pp. 180–181.
- ISBN 978-0-7524-9367-1.
- JSTOR 29742440.
- ISBN 978-1-909556-06-5.
- ^ quoted by J. C. Robb, Sunday Press, 1 May 1955. The source is not given.
- ^ McClelland, Aiken (1964). "Thomas Ledlie Birch, United Irishman" (PDF). Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (Sessions 161/62-1963/64). Second Series, 7. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
- ^ Bew (2011), p. 101
- ^ University College Cork records on the Irish Famine Archived 22 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, ucc.ie; accessed 20 December 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-4411-1758-8
- ^ "Irish Famine: How Ulster was devastated by its impact". BBC News. 26 September 2015. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
- ^ Glens of Antrim Historical Society (31 August 2015). "Lady Frances Anne Vane's County Antrim Estate: By Jimmy Irvine". Glens Of Antrim Historical Society. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
- ^ "MNA153327 | National Trust Heritage Records". heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-870132-70-1, p. 140a
- ^ "Vane-Tempest-Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry - National Library of Wales Archives and Manuscripts". archives.library.wales. Retrieved 17 August 2022.
- ^ a b "VIPA Mount Stewart House". vipauk.org. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
- ^ a b c Finley-Bowman, Rachel E (May 2003). "An Ideal Unionist: The Political Career of Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry, 1911-1919" (PDF). Journal of International Women's Studies. 4 (3): 15–29.
- ^ Women's Museum of Ireland. "The Ulster Crisis and the Emergence of the Ulster Women's Unionist Council". Retrieved 9 April 2020.
- ^ "Theresa, Marchioness of Londonderry". National Trust. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
- ^ A.T.Q., Stewart (1967). The Ulster Crisis. London: Faber and Faber. pp. 226–267.
- ^ a b c Fleming, Neil (2013). "'The Londonderry Herr': Lord Londonderry and the appeasement of Nazi Germany". History Ireland. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
- Martin Pugh, "Hurrah For the Blackshirts!" Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the War, Pimlico, 2006, p. 270
- ^ Griffins, Richard T., Fellow Travellers of the Right: British enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9, Constable, 1980, p. 1
- ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
- ^ Trust, National. "SS Fahnenträger 1220314". www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk. Retrieved 9 September 2021.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "The Avalon Project : Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 13". Archived from the original on 12 September 2006. Retrieved 9 June 2006.
- ^ "Art Unlocked: National Trust at Mount Stewart | Art UK". artuk.org. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
- ^ Aldous, Richard (13 November 2004). "A swastika over Ulster". The Irish Times. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
- ISBN 0-14-101423-7
- ^ Porteous, Neil. "Garden of the imagination: Lady Londonderry's Mount Stewart". National Trust. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
- ^ Wilson, Matthew (21 September 2018). "A garden where Londonderry flair meets the suffragette movement". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
- ^ Death of Lady Mairi Bury, scotsman.com; accessed 20 December 2015.
- ^ "Lady Mairi Bury: Chatelaine of Mount Stewart who met Hitler and von Ribbentrop". The Independent. London, UK. 27 November 2009.
- ^ "Lady Mairi Bury". The Daily Telegraph. London, UK. 13 January 2010.
- ^ "Lady Rose of Mount Stewart shares memories of a magical childhood growing up on her family's estate, its famous visitors and her life now, split between Strangford Lough and Venice". Belfasttelegraph.
- ^ "Mount Stewart Gardens". UNESCO. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- ^ a b "Mount Stewart House restored in £8m refurbishment". BBC News. 17 April 2015.
- ^ a b MNA153327 | National Trust Heritage Records. "Mount Stewart House". heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Newsroom (12 April 2017). "Goodbye to chequered past as Mount Stewart fully restored". News Letter.
- ^ Battersby, Eileen (13 September 2008). "Paradise on the peninsula". The Irish Times. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
- ^ "Garden of the imagination: Lady Londonderry's Mount Stewart".
- ^ a b "Temple of the Winds". The Irish Aesthete. 1 July 2013. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
- ^ Campbell, Georgina. "Mount Stewart House & Gardens | Newtownards Review Georgina Campbell Guides". Ireland-Guide.com. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
- ^ "Temple of the Winds at Shugborough Hall".
- ^ Historic England. "Temple of the Four Winds (1160544)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
- ^ "The Sparticle Mystery series 3". Northern Ireland Screen. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
Bibliography
- Murdoch, Tessa (ed.) (2022). OCLC 1233305993
- OCLC 1048756779
External links
- Mount Stewart House, Garden & Temple of the Winds information at the National Trust
- Virtual Tour of Mount Stewart House & Gardens Northern Ireland – Virtual Visit Northern Ireland
- Wikidata List of Paintings at Mount Stewart