Florence Court

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Florence Court

Florence Court is a large mansion and estate eight miles southwest of Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland . It lies in the foothills of Mount Cuilcagh . The nearby village is called Florencecourt ( Irish Mullach na Seangán ). The house is owned and managed by the National Trust along with sister property Castle Coole .

History and description

Florence Wrey († 1718), daughter of Bourchier Wrey, 4th Baronet , (approx. 1653–1696), from his wife Florence Rolle. She was the wife of John Role of Enniskillen, the builder of Florence Court. Her grandmother was one of the first women in England to bear this name. Florence Rolle (1630-1705) was the daughter and heiress of Denys I. Rolle (1614-1638) of Stevenstone House and Bicton in Devon . (in the collection of the National Trust in Florence Court)

The history of the construction of Florence Court is the subject of speculation and the current home was constructed in two if not three phases. The first house on this property was built by John Cole (1630-1726) and named it after his wife Florence Bourchier Wrey († 1718). She was the daughter of Bourchier Wrey, 4th Baronet (approx. 1653-1696) from Tavistock in Devon. A Fermanagh story written by an unknown author in 1718 describes John Cole's house as "very expensive and lavish," but in 1739 the Rev. William Henry described the building as "but small as it is only the left wing of a grand building that was owned by Mr. Cole, who didn't live long enough to have it carried out ”.

The architects of the current house are not known. The central block was built first and various dates, from 1730 to 1764, are traded for its construction. He was attributed to the German architect Richard Cassels , who worked on the nearby Castle Hulme from 1728–1729 . Florence Court also shows similarities with some of the other Castle-designed houses in Ireland. A map of the property from 1768 shows the central block without additions and with a broadly framed ox-eye (instead of today's pair of windows and the large, crouching niche) on the second floor. This was a recurring detail in Castle's work. If Castle was involved, the dating of the first construction phase to 1730 is plausible. On the other hand, Mr. Henry's description nine years later does not mention a new house that was recently built. Rowan says that the plans for the house were drawn by Castle, but were not carried out until much later, as the "old-fashioned" style of the house indicates. He says that "the construction with all its charm is far too strange for [Castle]".

The baroque stucco work in the library and study at the front of the house seem to come from an earlier time than the rich rococo stucco in the dining room, in the salon and in the stairwell on the west side of the house. And the floorboards in these two rooms are different in width from those elsewhere in the house. It is believed that the central block may have been built in two phases, with the rooms at the back of the house, along with the Venetian room, being completed in 1764 when Cole's son, Lord Mount Florence , held a famous house opening ceremony.

The colonnades and pavilions were built around 1771 and are attributed to the Italian engineer and architect Davis Ducart . They are built of clad sandstone, unlike the central block made of reclaimed limestone rubble. The south yard and stable yard were built by the builder Andrew Lambert . The introduction to the Enniskillen Papers says that there was an extension phase in which the building front as we know it today was completed, and emphasizes that the heavily rusticated window coverings were the result of "an idea of ​​another, less accomplished craftsman". They cannot be seen on the facade, which is shown on the map from 1768. The introduction also means that further works are “a helpless attempt to harmonize [the central block] with the artistically cut stones of the connecting structures and pavilions”.

Whether there was an end phase is the subject of speculation. The 1979 National Trust Guide shows the similarity between the unusual, gabled door frame in Florence Court and the door frame of the now defunct Nixon Hall near Bellanaleck (built around 1780). Major renovations were carried out in the years 1778-1780 on the property. These were e.g. B. the landscaping of the park by William King and the construction of a new driveway by him, as well as the construction of the Grand Gates .

Florence Court was the family seat of the Earls of Enniskillen until 1973 . The 5th Earl signed the house and 5,67 acres over to the National Trust in 1953. Under the direction of Sir Albert Richardson , the National Trust carried out the restoration and extensive efforts have resulted in Florence Court having regained much of its original splendor. However, some rooms on the upper floors remain closed.

Interior decoration

The house displays exquisite Rococo decorations and fine Irish furniture. Many of the pieces were procured for this property by the National Trust, while others were on loan from other Irish homes. Most of the original facility was removed when the Cole family moved to Perthshire in 1973, but many of them were bequeathed to the National Trust by the widowed Countess of Enniskillen after her death in 1998.

Landscape park

The house is surrounded by a landscaped park, which William King had created in 1778–1780, and framed by the mountains Benauglin and Cuilcagh ( Binn Chuilceach ). The enclosed garden (expanded in the 1870s) contains a rose garden, the Rose Cottage (formerly the head gardener's home, now a holiday home), groves and a vegetable garden. There is a working water-powered sawmill in the ornamental garden and there is a nearby carpenter's workshop and a hydraulic ram from the Victorian era that pumps water up to the house. On the property you will also find an ice house , the Aalhaus Bridge and a well fed by a natural spring. The ornamental garden contains plants from both the temperate and subtropical vegetation zones, especially a large number of rhododendrons .

The Larganess and Finglass rivers flow through the property, which is largely made up of pastures and forest, mostly larch . The Glen Wood Nature Reserve is a partially natural light oak forest that is being preserved by the Forestry Service near the old deer park on the edge of the property. The most interesting tree on the property is the Florencecourt Yew , one of only two surviving specimens of the Irish yew, a variety of the European yew discovered on nearby Mount Cuilcagh in 1764. Since the Irish yew can only be propagated by saplings, this tree and its sister tree (which died out in the 1860s) are the ancestors of all Irish yew trees found in the world.

The fire

The hall of Florence Court in the 1890s

Early in the morning of March 22, 1955, a fire broke out on the first floor landing of Florence Court, right next to Lady Enniskillen's bedroom. The fire brigade was almost under control of the fire around 9:00 a.m., but the dry weather caused the fire to reignite. The flames reached the roof of the house, which subsequently broke down into the hall, so that by evening about two-thirds of the interior of Florence Court was a victim of the flames.

Lady Enniskillen, née Mary Cicely Nevill of the Marquesses of Abergavenny , discovered the fire that had broken out during one of her husband's rare absences from home. After running down to the servants' apartments to raise the alarm, she ran to nearby Killymanamly House to call the old 5th Earl of Enniskillen (1876–1963), who was at the Ulster Club in Belfast , for him to inform that the house was on fire. He is said to have yelled: "And what should I do?"

Much of the damage to the Florence Court facility was caused by the fire water. The dining room with its exquisite stucco work was only saved by the immediate intervention of the builders Bertie Pierce and Ned Vaughan, who, on the instructions of Viola Grosvenor , who later became the Duchess of Westminster , drilled six holes in the flat part of the ceiling so that the water could flow that had accumulated above the ceiling could drain without causing the ceiling to collapse. Two of these holes are still visible in the dining room today.

Florence Court Park in early autumn between the foothills of Mount Cuilcagh

The fire was just one in a series of events in Florence Court in the 1950s and 1960s that marked the end of an era for the home and family. After World War II , agricultural prices fell, labor costs rose, estate taxes were payable, estates were drastically reduced in size, and the lifestyle of the 5th Earl of Enniskillen and his second wife, Mary (née Nevill), carried on too contributes to the financial problems. In order to secure the long-term existence of the house, Lord Enniskillen assigned Florence Court to the National Trust in 1953. In the following year the house was opened to the public.

In 1956, Lord Enniskillen's only son and heir, Michael, Viscount Cole , died suddenly at the age of only 36; he was unmarried. In 1961, as restoration work on the home was coming to an end, Hurricane Debbie devastated the property. In 1963 the 5th Earl of Enniskillen and his wife, Lady Enniskillen, died just three months apart.

The 5th Earl was followed by his nephew, Captain David Lowry Cole , MBE (1918-1989), who became the 6th Earl of Enniskillen. David Enniskillen - as he was commonly called - had spent most of his life in what was then the British colony of Kenya , where he was elected to the legislative assembly in the early 1960s, shortly before the independence of the state. In 1955 he was divorced from his first wife Sonia (née Syers), stepdaughter of his uncle, the 5th Earl of Enniskillen. With her he had a son and a daughter.

David Enniskillen and his second wife Nancy (née MacLennan), a former US diplomat, moved into Florence Court and lived there from 1964 to 1973. That year, at the beginning of the Northern Ireland conflict , the two left Florence Court and settled in Kinloch House settled in Kinloch in Scotland . David Enniskillen was the last Earl of Enniskillen to live in Florence Court. He was succeeded by his son Andrew , who became the 7th Earl of Enniskillen in 1989. Andrew Enniskillen lives on a large estate in Kenya.

On TV

In the spring, the BBC filmed parts of the comedy series Blandings in Florence Court. Most of the series, however, was filmed at Crom Castle . The series first aired on BBC 1 in January / February 2013.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alistair Rowan: The Buildings of Ireland . Chapter: North West Ulster (with Counties Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone). Penguin, London, 1979. p. 299
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Enniskillen Papers . Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. 2007. Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  3. ↑ Adrian Tinniswood: County Fermanagh . The National Trust, London 1998. p. 19
  4. ^ A b Alistair Rowan: The Buildings of Ireland . Chapter: North West Ulster (with Counties Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone). Penguin, London, 1979. p. 300
  5. ^ Person Page 7880: Mary Cicely Nevill . In: thepeerage.com . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  6. ^ Person Page 7880: John Henry Michael Cole, 5th Earl of Enniskillen . In: thepeerage.com . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  7. ↑ Florence Court, County Fermanagh . In: irelandseye.com . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  8. ↑ Person Page 7881: Michael Galbraith Lowry Cole, Viscount Cole . In: thepeerage.com . Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  9. ↑ Patrick Cracroft-Brennan: Enniskillen, Earl of (Ireland, 1789) . Retrieved January 5, 2013. The entry on Enniskillen is obsolete, showing Arthur Gerald Cole as alive in 2013; he died in 2005, and his son Berkeley was the presumed heir.

literature

  • Alistair Rowan: The Buildings of Ireland . Chapter: North West Ulster . Penguin Books, London 1979 and Yale 2003. ISBN 9780-3000-96675 .
  • Kenneth W. James: Damned Nonsense! - The geological career of the third Earl of Enniskillen . Ulster Museum, Stranmillis, Belfast 1986. ISBN 09007-61180 .
  • Adrian Tinniswood: County Fermanagh . The National Trust, Heelis, Swindon 1998 (revised 2006). ISBN 9781-8435-92365 .
  • Mark Purcell: The Big House Library in Ireland: Books in Ulster Country Houses . The National Trust, Heelis, Swindon 2011. ISBN 9780-7078-04163 .

Web links

Commons : Florence Court  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Coordinates: 54 ° 15 ′ 39.6 "  N , 7 ° 43 ′ 38.3"  W.