Killua in Transformation

Irish Arts Review

Killua in TransformationAuthor(s): Judith HillSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter, 2009/2010), pp. 98-103Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40421385 .

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Killua m du in transformation JHpi Ifc ^R§^ Judith Hill traces the shape of Killua Castle, HBffllufl:!^ ri» S™j¿_ . HHHk& Co Westmeath, from past lives to its present ^^HBBUHHIÊ ^5z!4 '**' '" ! * ì^jÛ Egf strengthened condition l9^^äBB9fnl-^--9^^l

98 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I WINTER 2009

1

long associated with Killua, persists here. The rem-

Romance, nants of the demesne - obelisk, ruins, ice house - encircle the castle on their designated prominences, a world within a

world, as clearly put as in a child's drawing. And beyond, undulating fields ripple out to the hills of Meath and the Dublin mountains, mark-

&m ff^m, ~7 m. üdöWifi na iiíhü i *n£ Killua as a focus within the wider landscape. fsB|B| ?'-"' jn3^yH|^« ^ *s an ̂ûsôn °f course, not least because the

IkSeÉ)^ '**■■■■■ 9»892-acre estate owned by Benjamin Chapman Hwp|l&C I^B^SBbB in 18^ âs ̂ een recniced to less than 100 acres,

SyKj^^Tj^jfe^^Hpj and the ordering of the 577-acre demesne has

^fejjlKR?* 'iBÊÈÈÊmSSiii been overlain by the pattern of fields and Land ^Ä^SS^'-w^^BHfc^äS Commission holdings.1 And the sense of rooted-

Heg^^S^gl^^^^^HEB| ness which the place transmits, that intangible Hl^rm« Illllim ITI 2 ideal that was ultimately elusive for the Anglo- Irish but which they believed they could conjure into being with stone and trees, remains an illusion, for the castle was a ruin until recently, all connection with its past life severed. Until the trajectory of decay was

reversed the history of Killua was a classic example of the Anglo-Irish experience, culminating in Yeats' vision which saw the life-enhancing interiors of Coole reduced to a pathetic object in the landscape: 'When nettles wave upon a shapeless mound/ And saplings root among the broken stone'.2 But, now, braced, strengthened, re-roofed, Killua has the chance of a new life, and its history is perhaps more accurately conceived as a series of reincarnations.

Killua was part of a Cromwellian reward, granted to Captain Benjamin Chapman in 1667.3 It was the Captain's great-grandson Benjamin who demolished his predecessors' house and erected, in c.1784, a compact three-storey neo-classical mansion with an unusual octagonal hall and fashionable oval drawing room, possibly designed by Thomas Cooley.4 It was decorated with in-situ modelled Neoclassical plasterwork, some of which - medallions surrounded by acanthus scrolls in the recessed arches of the hall - miraculously survive.' A vigorous, outspoken man, the first in his family to become a Member of Parliament, and the first to be given a baronetcy, Sir Benjamin had the incentive and energy to



3 KiUua as a ruin

ARCHITECTURE KILLUA IN TRANSFORMATION

underwrite his status with architecture.6 But his ambition stretched

beyond the pursuit of comfort and the announcement that he had taste. He laid out the village of Clonmellon, and a formal approach from it to Killua.7 He re-routed the Dublin-to-Sligo road to pass around the demesne, within which he extended the lake, constructed an icehouse,

planted trees and built two fake ruins. The first, a ruined tower and wall

incorporating a small ogee window from Multifarnham Abbey inscribed with a wheel design (Fig 6), adapted and later used on the house (Fig 7), he described as the ruins of a monastery He rechristened Killua St Lucy's to extend its medieval aura. His son, Thomas, would convince the eminent topographer, Samuel Lewis that the monastery was indeed an authentic ruin. The Irish scholar John O 'Donovan, also

duped, would correct their attribution to the Celtic St Lua.8 The second ruin, the west wall of a church incorporating a window of cathedral

proportions, he built from the stone of the ruined medieval church in the graveyard that he had demolished, giving the fakery a root in real-

ity. This streak of authenticity was strengthened by the fact that his aunt was buried in the graveyard among many unmarked graves.

Benjamin had reordered the landscape, setting Killua apart from the

surrounding area, while connecting it by two conspicuous lodges (Fig 11). And within the demesne he had evoked a narrative that constructed and dramatised Chapman connections to a place they had lived in for

just over 100 years. He was using the language of the picturesque in

1 Front view of Killua Castle, Co Westmeath

2 Ornamental arrowloop detail on Gothic Gate Lodge, 1828

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100 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I WINTER 2009



5 WILLIAM SADLER II (c.1 782-1839) A VIEW OF THE LAKE FROM KILLUA CASTLE oil on canvas 57x79cm Private Collection. The pleasure garden ruin is on the left and the graveyard ruin is seen across the lake

which buildings set into landscape could embody memories, associa- tions. This method of constructing memory appealed to the Cromwellian Anglo-Irish who, relative newcomers and prone to insecu-

rity, felt compelled to formulate their own significance, often by impos- ing themselves on the landscape. Ruins, which placed the present in a

chronological context, evoking past power and subsequent decline, were particularly attractive for the longevity they suggested. They may also have had an anti-Catholic resonance, derived from their possible use in England after the Jacobite defeat of 1745, when they could be

interpreted as celebrating the crushing of Catholicism.9 The construc- tion of the ruins at Killua was the beginning of a move towards roman- ticism - irregular, personal, appealing to the emotions.

A vital corollary to the picturesque landscape was the painted land-

scape in which the stage sets were fixed and framed. Sir Benjamin's son Thomas, who on his succession in 1810 began planting trees, enlarging the lake and constructing paths, all designed to enhance the experience of his father's demesne, and who would amass a collection of old master paintings, commissioned William Sadler between 1818 and 1821 to produce three oil paintings which would hang at Killua until 1920.10The

slightly stiff style of an artist who usually worked on a smaller canvas does not detract from the carefully contrived romance of the demesne in which, in successive pictures, the house, the ruins, and dis- tant Clonmellon church (built by Benjamin) are seen obliquely from Thomas' serpentine paths across water, between trees. Comparison with the c. 1 840 Ordnance Survey map indicates that Sadler was broadly faith- ful to the position of the planting, though he exaggerated its maturity, and the breadth-enhancing effect of the lake (Figs 4&5).

In 1 834 Thomas contributed an important element to the inscription of

Chapman identity in the landscape when he erected a plain but highly visible obelisk on a rise to the east of the house. It simultaneously celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, an ancestor who had been instrumental in bringing the

Chapmans to Ireland in the late 1 6th century, and himself, the date cut on the base being 1810, the year Thomas succeeded to the baronetcy.

Two particular aspects of the house depicted by Sadler strike the con-

temporary observer; its completeness and its serene classicism. It would in time be stripped of both attributes. The classicism was eroded in 1821 when Thomas began to convert it into a Gothic castle, taking picturesque sensibility to its logical conclusion by applying it to the house, as many of his contemporaries were doing in the aftermath of the Union."

There are no surviving drawings, only a record of piecemeal alter- ations over a period of five years.12 However, the transformation is elo-

quent of a single designer, probably James Shiel whose new castle at

6 Detail of window in the pleasure garden folly; the window was probably taken from Multifarnham Abbey

7 Carved details on the high tower

TWO PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF THE HOUSE DEPICTED BY SADLER STRIKE THE CONTEMPORARY OBSERVER; ITS COMPLETENESS AND ITS SERENE CLASSICISM

8 Front door showing Gothic Revival detail awkwardly overriding the earlier classical style

U WILLIAM SADLER II (c.1 782-1839) A VIEW OF KILLUA FROM ACROSS THE LAKE oil on canvas 53x79cm Private Collection

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12 Rear view of Killua Castle; the Victorian Apartments constitute the right-hand side of the house

ARCHITECTURE KILLUA IN TRANSFORMATION

9 Map showing the transformation of Killua from a compact three-storey Neoclassical mansion with octagonal hall and oval drawing room to Gothic Revival Castle. Drawing by Healy & Partners, Conservation

nearby Knockdrin built around 1815 and adapta- tions to Pakenham Hall in the 1820s and Killeen Castle in 1 840-2 are not dissimilar to Killua.

Extreme inconvenience would have accompa- nied a transformation in which the rendered

Georgian house was given substantial squared stone towers to three corners, a tall slender tower over the ancilliary entrance and two spindly false towers. Each had projecting battlements, arched

openings to the ground floor and hood mould-

ings. Once these were completed the original roof was stripped and massive battlements constructed above the top storey. Finally, the external plaster, sashes and shutters were removed so that the flat arches above the windows could be replaced with hood mouldings.13

The result of the transformation externally was an asymmetrical massing of early 19th-century versions of Norman towers.14 Within this congre-

9 gation of verticals the lineaments of the Georgian mansión could just be read as a medieval keep. Seen from the maturing demesne it was the battlements that would be most visible above the

growing trees. It was all castle, without the domestic overtones of some

contemporary Gothic Revival houses. The castle pedigree derived from Inveraray of 1 748, admired by Lord

Longford and applied by Francis Johnston to Pakenham Hall in c. 1 805.

But at Killua castellation went beyond the adding of identical corner towers to a central block, for the towers, varied and vigorous, had a life of their own. However, Killua 's front was symmetrical, and the house as a whole remained bulky so that it lacked the more graceful asymmetry derived from greater differences in height and massing in Shiel's work at Knockdrin.

Inside Killua, as at Pakenham Hall, classical decoration and proportions were retained. However, the new towers, grafted onto the formal-

ity of the original stately projection from front octagon to rear oval, extracted light from the original rooms and gave the house the com-

plexity of a multiplicity of oddly shaped rooms. The towers were also

large enough to add grandeur; the stair tower, for example, had twice the floor plan of the original main stair.

Extended medieval castles or late 1 6th- and 1 7th-century houses with battlements and machicolations were referred to as castles and spelt age, an attribute that was valued by some despite their inconveniences. At Killua, with a commodious casde presiding over the web of the demesne, local Chapman ascendancy was consolidated. Intriguingly Thomas had

put in place the conditions for the ultimate irony: as a ruin, already estab- lished within the demesne as the eventual state of Gothic architecture, the casde would be an even more convincing account of venerable splendour; something that would happen far too quickly. It was perhaps an uncon- scious anticipation, driven by fear, of the fate of the family.

Thomas Chapman was succeeded by his son, Montagu in 1837, who steered Killua through the Famine. It was his brother, Benjamin, taking responsibility from 1852 until his death in 1888, living in the midst of

AT KILLUA, CASTELLATION WENT BEYOND THE ADDING OF IDENTICAL CORNER TOWERS TO A CENTRAL BLOCK, FOR THE TOWERS, VARIED AND VIGOROUS, HAD A LIFE OF THEIR OWN

10 Detail on the base of the two front towers

11 Temple Gate Lodge, 1802-4

the accumulated achievements of his father and grandfather, for most of the time in the relatively untroubled period between the Famine and the Land War, who enjoyed Killua at its peak.

He commissioned a survey of the estate in 1865. The map of the demesne shows well-defined wooded areas interspersed with fields on the peripheries, and in the middle a vast lawn rolling south from the castle, sufficiently, though by no means completely, cleared of its parkland trees. Benjamin matched the amplitude of that lawn with further additions to the house, which, lacking the planning logic and spatial finesse of the earlier work, are probably not to Shiel's designs. Composed predominantly of long low single- and two-storey sections which included two three- windowed rooms, they are conceived as comfortable domestic apartments, while the Gothic detailing (Figs 7&10), more profuse than previously though still predominantly military in tone, is entirely theatrical. However, by varying the silhouette of the castle and drawing it out laterally these additions added to the picturesque qualities of the ensemble so that Killua became a picturesque Victorian country house,

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rambling, disorientating, well appointed, Romantic. Victorian sensibili- ties dictated that Benjamin improve the servants' quarters; he built a new kitchen yard and, behind the walled garden, constructed a kitchen range, pigsties and fowl yard. He added a boat house to the pleasure garden already decorated with St Lucy's Well (still there), a summer house and shell house, and he contributed to the lavish furnishings and exemplary collection of old masters that decorated the rooms of the castle.

After his death the descent, under his son Montagu and his wife Caroline, was rapid, driven by the United Irish League demands for the

implementation of the Land Acts and the division of the estate. It cul- minated in the selling of the contents in 1920 by the heir, General R S

Fetherstonhaugh, the Chapman's possessions displaced, their significance unrecoverable. There was a twilight period in the 1920s and 1930s when, owned by William Hackett, the lawn was transformed into a celebrated nine-hole golf course and Killua hosted hunt balls. This ended in 1944 when Hackett 's wife sold it to an auctioneer. He

passed it on to a scrap dealer, David Frame, who took off the roof. By 1967 when the Land Commission divided the residue of the estate into small farms the house was a ruin. Allowed to remain a ruin, frequently photographed, Killua became an icon, one of the examples that most

readily came to mind of the Anglo-Irish tragedy or failure, inevitable or deserved, depending on the point of view

To reverse this lingering demise in the 21st century was initially to work in the dark; the new owner, his architect, Matthew Shinnors, and

engineer Kevin Clancy, did not know the strength of the building nor whether it was capable of meaningful restoration. Smothered by accumulated debris and vegetation, with a large tree rooted in the basement vaults and growing through the dining room, they had to approach the structure step by vertical and horizontal step, avoiding the vaults, testing the walls, removing the potentially destructive - chimneys particularly. Once

mapped the structure had to be strengthened using bespoke engineering. It was discovered that the weakest points were the result of Shiel's inter- ventions: the replacement hood mouldings had failed and many window heads had to be reinforced; crenellations had to be replaced. With struc- tural integrity returned to the walls the floors, roof, vaults and internal walls could be remade or repaired, and the rooms rediscovered; their vol- ume, their relation one to the next. Now the house stands on its emi- nence, a self-contained entity once more. ■ With the exception of figs 3, 4 & 5, photography by Kieran Clancy.

Judith Hill is an architectural historian

1 Estate acreage in Westmeath and Meath from John Bateman, The Great Landowners of Great Britain and Ireland, 4th ed. revised. Demesne acreage in 'Maps of the Estate of Sir Benjamin Chapman Barf, surveyed by C. Kane, 1865, NLI.

2 Coole Park 1929. 3 Eugene Sheridan, A History of the Parish of Clonmellon/Killallon, 2001 for a his-

tory of the family. 4 Kevin Mulligan in W. Laffan (ed), Painting Ireland, Tralee, 2006, pp. 169- 171 5 Observations from Richard Ireland. 6 MP for Fore 1773-6 and Westmeath 1776-83, he was a patriot. See James Kelly,

That damn' d thing called honour: dueling in Ireland, 1570- 1860, Cork, 1995 for Chapman's outspokenness.

7 See Lady Chapman's Notes, photocopy of ms in Irish Architectural Archive, for dates of changes made at Killua. Probably written by Caroline Chapman who lived at Killua from 1894 until her death in 1919.

8 A.E. Vicars, Index to Prerogative Wills, Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary

of Ireland, 1837, John O'Donovan, Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Westmeath ... 1837, Dublin, 1926 and OS map c.1840.

9 David Stewart, 'Political Ruins: Gothic sham ruins and the '45', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol 55, no 4, December 1996.

10 William Sadler II (c.1 782-1839). Wanda Ryan-Smolin, 'William Sadler's views of Killua Castle, Co Westmeath', Irish Arts Review, vol 12, 1996, pp. 66-70. Lot 19, Catalogue of valuable antique and modern furniture. ..2 June 1920, NLI.

1 1 Lady Chapman records that Thomas had built a dining room with a domed ceiling in 1814 (seen on plans 234 in figure 9) replaced in 1854. Its crenellated lean-to roof is shown by R. Maude in c.1830, see Mulligan, op. cit. These stylistic hints suggest that it was pre Shiel's involvement.

12 Lady Chapman's Notes, op. cit. 13 The suggested sequence of work on the main building is derived from Matthew

Shinnors. architect of the restoration. 14 Similar projecting battlements were added to the medieval towers of Nenagh

Castle and the Record Tower in Dublin Castle in the early 19th century.

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Killua in Transformation