Ardress House is a country house in Annaghmore,

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and ha ...

, in Northern Ireland. The house was owned by the Clarke, then Ensor families, including the writer and lawyer

George Ensor George Ensor J.P. (17 December 1769 – 3 December 1843) was an eminent Irish author and lawyer. Ensor was born in Ardress, County Armagh and lived in Ardress House, Ireland and educated at the Royal School, Armagh followed by Trinity College ...

. The estate, which includes orchards, a farm and a dairy, borders the

River Tall The River Tall is a small river in County Armagh, Northern Ireland which joins the River Blackwater just south of Verner’s Bridge. It is navigable for 4 km by dinghy or canoe. It rises about 5 km west of Markethill and flows north ...

. Collections within the house include eighteenth-century paintings and furniture. In 1959, the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

acquired Ardress from Captain Charles Ensor with support from the Ulster Land Fund.

History

Ardress House was originally a farmhouse built around 1700 by the Clarke family, after their original home was destroyed during the

Wars of the Three Kingdoms The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of related conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, then separate entities united in a pers ...

. Dating for the construction of the house is supported by

dendrochronological Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...

analysis undertaken by

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. In 1760, the heiress Sarah Clarke married

, a

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

-based architect. After about twenty years of marriage the couple moved to Ardress House, which they remodelled in a neo-classical style. Ensor doubled the size of the house and added a classical

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

. His main focus was on the decoration of a

drawing room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name is derived from the 16th-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the 17th cent ...

, which was

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

ed by the artist

Michael Stapleton Michael Stapleton (born Dublin, Ireland, in 1747, died 8 August 1801, in Dublin) is regarded as having been the most skilled stuccodore working in the neoclassical or "Adam" style that dominated Dublin interior decoration in the final decades of ...

. George and Sarah's son, also named

George George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...

, was born in 1769. A lawyer and writer, he continued to live at Ardress House, where he made further changes including the addition of a dining room that could only be reached via an external door. This was because a connecting door could not be knocked through the fine

plasterwork Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster Molding (decorative), decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called parge ...

of the drawing room. In 1959, a descendant, Charles Ensor, sold the house and most of the contents at auction. The

was able to acquire the house with the support of the Ulster Land Fund. From 1962, some restoration was undertaken by the architect Robert McKinstry. In 2015 the property was the recipient of a £150,000 grant to replace the 1960s cement plaster on the outside of the house with

lime render Lime render is the first coat of lime "plaster or the like" applied to the external surfaces of traditionally-built stone or brick buildings. It allows the building to 'breathe' – as lime is porous, it allows for the collection and evaporation ...

. The alteration was necessary since the present exterior finish was stopping the house from "breathing", leading to damp problems inside the building. As of 2015, approximately 8000 people visited Ardress House annually.

Estate

The house is set within of woods, orchards, parkland and farmland. As of 2017 the orchards were managed by Greg MacNeice of MacIvor's Cider. Walking routes on the property include the Lady's Mile walk. The property is also used as a location for bat-detection events. 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. 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. Last inhabited in the 1980s, the cottage was built around 1740 and is typical of the style of construction for houses in south

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...

in the eighteenth century. In order to reconstruct parts of the building, new

mudbrick A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also bee ...

s were made by volunteers. Since 2019 the house has been rented to tenants.

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. The collection also includes two models of the house, crafted in the 1980s: one model imagines the house c.1700, the other c.1900.

Ethnography

In 2005 the National Trust purchased a

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

taiaha A taiaha () is a traditional weapon of the Māori of New Zealand; a close-quarters staff weapon made from either wood or whalebone, and used for short, sharp strikes or stabbing thrusts with efficient footwork on the part of the wielder. Taiaha a ...

and an

adze An adze (; alternative spelling: adz) is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing ...

from

Mangaia Mangaia (traditionally known as A'ua'u Enua, which means ''terraced'') is the most southerly of the Cook Islands and the second largest, after Rarotonga. It is a roughly circular island, with an area of , from Rarotonga. Originally heavily popula ...

that had been acquired by George Ensor III during his travels in the Pacific.

Decorative arts

Notable pieces of furniture in the house include an Irish Chippendale sideboard, and a mahogany bureau that doubles as a bookcase which was created around 1725. Part of the collection includes the table on which the constitution of Northern Ireland was signed on 22 June 1921 by

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until Death and state funeral of George V, his death in 1936. Born duri ...

Fine arts

Artists represented by works listed as part of the collection at Ardress House include: Strickland Lowry,

Gillis Neyts Gillis Neyts or Aegidius Neyts (1618 or 1623–1678) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was a landscape artist who is now mainly known for his italianising and topographical drawings of sites throughout the Southern Netherlands. ...

, Robert Griffier,

Pieter Boel Pieter Boel or Peeter Boel (baptized on 10 October 1622 – 3 September 1674) was a Flemish painter, printmaker and tapestry designer. He specialised in lavish still lifes and animal paintings. He moved to Paris, where he worked in the gobel ...

Bartolomeo Passarotti Bartolomeo Passarotti or Passerotti (1529–1592) was an Italian painter of the mannerist period, who worked mainly in his native Bologna. His family name is also spelled Passerotti or Passarotto. Life and work From approximately 1550 to 1555, h ...

and James Barry.

Notes

References

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External links

Ardress House, side viewCaptain Charles Howard Ensor (1878–1963)
(portrait)
Collections at Ardress HouseArdress House with James Boyce
(short film) Buildings and structures in County Armagh Historic sites in Northern Ireland Country houses in Northern Ireland National Trust properties in Northern Ireland