The Professor at Florence Court’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol
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Francesca Scoones, ‘The Professor at Florence Court’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XIV, 2004, pp. 75–88 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2004 THE PROFESSOR AT FLORENCE COURT FRANCESCA SCOONES t home at Florence Court, Co. Fermanagh, early where they had removed in after a fire had A on the morning of March , Lady devastated the whole town of Enniskillen, including Enniskillen was woken by a smell of burning. A fire the Castle. had broken out on the landing adjacent to her Sir John Cole’s will, dated , bequeathed to bedroom, outside the Venetian Room. The fire his wife Elizabeth ‘my mansion house of Florence brigade was summoned and arrived soon after am. Court’. A house had then been built, probably in the By am the firemen, thinking they had got the fire ’s. Such a date is consistent with the appearance under control, left, but a stiff east wind got up, re- of the surviving plasterwork in the Library, Entrance igniting some hot spots. By evening the roof and attic Hall and Study, the rooms on the front of the house had been consumed, exquisite rococo plasterwork (Fig. ). In the basement too there is evidence of that destroyed and the wonderful eighteenth-century date in the vaulted roofs and stout window frames. Chinese wallpaper utterly lost (Fig. ). The Rev. G.N. Wright’s Scenes in Ireland , Sir John Cole ( – ) was the first member published in , states ‘The Mansion after a noble of the family to build outside the walled town of and classical design by Cassels was raised about the Enniskillen. He was the great-grandson of Sir year .’ Richard Castle ( c. – ), as his name William Cole, a principal instigator of the Ulster is now generally rendered, was a German architect plantation of James I. Sir William had been assigned from Kassel in Hesse who came to Ireland in , a substantial grant of land in and around Enniskillen. and became the assistant to the Irish Palladian It was on this land some miles south of the town Edward Lovett Pearce (d. ). Castle’s first known that Sir John began to build a new house, naming it work in the country was Castle Hume, near after his wife, Florence Bourchier Wrey of Tawstock Enniskillen, built in – for Sir Gustavus Hume. in Cornwall. His plans were ambitious and included He was the leading architect in Ireland until his the planting of great avenues of fir and elm, but at his death at Carton, Co. Kildare, in ; the re-building death in all that was completed of the new of Carton for the th Earl of Kildare was amongst the mansion was the small left wing of a proposed grand last of Castle’s commissions. So Wright could not building. be correct both as to architect and date of Whatever he intended, his son, another Sir John completion. In a demesne map, dated , the ( – ), created Lord Mountflorence in , central block of the house is shown, without its seems not to have continued building at Florence wings but otherwise recognisable. Richard Castle Court immediately. In a guide book to Upper Lough could only have been responsible for the central Erne of , the Castle at Enniskillen is still given as block, but was he involved at all? Edward McParland the principal residence of the family. At that moment observed in Country Life, ‘The details of execution – the family were actually living at Portora Castle, at least in the central block – show that the Florence THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE PROFESSOR AT FLORENCE COURT Fig. Florence Court in the late afternoon of March . National Trust Photographic Archive. Court masons were untroubled by any rigorous the future st Earl of Enniskillen, in August , supervision.’ This amateurish execution was also described him as ‘(five thousand a year and just noted by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who unflatteringly come from abroad) a pretty well behaved young described Florence Court as ‘a very high house man.’ Four years later Lord Mountflorence was abounding with a superfluity of windows, bearing forced to borrow £, from a Dublin banker, yet, more the resemblance of a manufactory than a on his death in , the building work was still not comfortable dwelling house.’ complete. In a codicil to his will, dated November The long building history of the house is surely , he referred to the ‘Marble Chimney Pieces and testimony to a perennial shortage of money, cut Stone for the Colonnades’ at Florence Court, and inconsistent with the family tradition that Lord requested his heirs to pay to ‘Andrew Lambert Mountflorence inherited an estate of £, per whatever Sum will remain justly due when the Work annum on the death of his great-uncle Lord is finished’. The Rev. Wright gives a very full Ranelagh. Nonetheless the story had common description of the chimney-piece in the Drawing currency, for Mrs Delaney, meeting William room (now replaced), which is surely identifiable as Willoughby Cole, son of Lord Mountflorence and that supplied by the local builder: ‘of a beautiful THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE PROFESSOR AT FLORENCE COURT Fig. Florence Court, Entrance Hall. National Trust Photographic Library. Andreas von Einsiedel. brown-veined marble, peculiar to the county of passing into cornucopias, which bears comparison Fermanagh’. with the finest metropolitan plasterwork in ’s The unfinished work for which Andrew Dublin (Fig. ), though it could date from the next Lambert was to be paid may thus refer not only to decade. There was a certain influx of cash in , the pavilions and linking arcades but also to the and , from the successive sales of the two rooms on the west side of the house (Fig. ). The parliamentary seats for the borough of Enniskillen. Knight of Glin has suggested the name of Davis Though unrecorded, the price fetched would have Ducart as the architect responsible for overseeing been in the order of £, to £, per seat. Was this work as well as the internal remodelling . A it these sales that funded the beautiful rococo grand staircase was inserted, within a full-height plasterwork of the principal rooms? canted bay pushed out of the centre of the west front. Arthur Cole, resident of Mysore, gave his sister The Drawing Room and Dining Room, to either Florence an ‘Indian paper’ as a wedding gift in . side, and the Venetian Room over the Entrance Hall According to the Rev. Wright, a Chinese paper was were ornamented with exquisite plasterwork with hanging in the Drawing Room in . The naturalistic details of feeding birds and swags National Trust Guide of suggests that this was THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE PROFESSOR AT FLORENCE COURT Fig. Florence Court, south arcade and pavilion. National Trust Photographic Library. Matthew Antrobus. the late eighteenth-century bird and flower paper In the absence of Lord Enniskillen, at the dentist in which was in the bedroom until the fire of Dublin, the clearance was organised by Viola (Fig. ), presumably moved there when the Drawing Grosvenor, a neighbour at Ely Lodge, who was to Room fireplace was changed. play an important role more than once in the saving The National Trust acquired Florence Court as a of Florence Court and its collection. As usual the gift from Lord Cole, son of the th Earl of Enniskillen, water caused much of the damage. It was only the in , with an endowment provided by the Ulster foresight of the local builder, Pierce, who had six Land Fund of £ , . Just two years later disaster holes drilled in the plaster of the Dining Room struck. The first inspection on the day after the fire ceiling, allowing the water to escape, that saved one of March revealed: of the finest ceilings in Ireland. Half of the Drawing room ceiling has come down, the Florence Court was only ensured for £ , but staircase is buried under a pile of debris…but all the re-building was never in doubt. The National Trust furnishings carpets, pictures etc. in the main ground was obliged to provide a home for Lord and Lady floor rooms have been saved; also the silver and Enniskillen and their son, Lord Cole. The question collection of Chelsea china… all the books have been of whom to entrust with these complicated and saved, crated and safely stored. delicate repairs was posed by Lord Antrim in a letter THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XIV THE PROFESSOR AT FLORENCE COURT Fig. Florence Court, Dining Room, detail of the ceiling Fig. Florence Court, chinese wallpaper of c. , plasterwork, an eagle surrounded by the four winds. in the Red Room in . Irish Architectural Archive. National Trust Photographic Library. Andreas von Einsiedel. to Lord Esher, Chairman of the National Trust, the restoration of the Bath Assembly Rooms, which dated March: had been gutted by incendiary bombs in the Second World War. Now aged , and President of the The problems which we are confronted there are Royal Academy, Richardson was still at the height of aesthetically so difficult that I don’t think our local his powers. He was a friend and adviser to collectors Belfast architects could be expected to give us informative advice on Florence Court…I spent last as varied as Queen Mary and Lord Fairhaven of night with the Grosvenors…also staying at the house Anglesey Abbey. Famously eccentric, he would dress was the Duke of Abercorn who had his own home – up in eighteenth-century frock coat and breeches, Baronscourt – restored and repaired by Professor both at home and whilst staying with friends like Richardson. The work gave tremendous satisfaction Charles Wade at Snowshill. In he was and furthermore he was taken over to Florence Court several times and expressed his admiration for it as a instrumental in founding the Georgian Group.