Bessmount Park, Drumrutagh, Co Monaghan
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 41. “A high Victorian Ruskinian Gothic house with a fantastic carved porch.”
https://www.igs.ie/conservation/project/bessmount-park-co-monaghan
Day 7: Bessmount Park, Co. Monaghan
A nineteenth-century mansion in the heart of the Irish countryside—in this case Co. Monaghan—with its pyramid roof, and patterned surfaces, there is nothing ordinary about Bessmount Park. Somewhere within this Ruskinian riot of pinnacles, gables, polychrome brick and coloured stonework, lies the original Bessmount, a plain and unremarkable country house of the early eighteenth century. Around 1868, the Henderson family decided that it was time to spend money on home improvements. The name of the architect they employed is not known for certain; John McCurdy, responsible for the nearby Monaghan Lunatic Asylum, (now St. Davnet’s Hospital), has been suggested, but it was probably the Belfast architect W. J. Barre who took on Bessmount, with a relish equal to his Albert Memorial in Belfast—another great exercise in Gothic Revival. Barre’s re-imagining of Bessmount is eclectic in outlook and nternational in flavour. A brief description of the exterior, with its proliferating voussoirs, mullions, crockets, diapers and gargoyles, would task a lexicon of architecture. On either side of the Romanesque entrance, stone roundels contain sculpted portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, whose fortunes sprang from brewing beer and whose cheerful countenances greet visitors as they ascend the steps to the front door. A study in colours, textures and geometries, the windows and brick arcades are serried in ranks of three, five and seven. There is symmetry here, but it is an idiosyncratic, irregular, poetic symmetry. An octagonal oriel window springs from the corner of a three-storey gable, the tip of which is embellished with a polychrome brick pattern. The main tower is adorned with a roof that would look at home on a French chateau. A large music room adjoins the main house. The side of the house is as heavily ornamented as the front. No surface, that could be adorned with boss, roundel, crest or knob, is left plain. While the windows in the oriel turret have straight lintels, others are crowned with trefoils and arches. The patterns on the roof are equally varied, with triangular and rounded slates alternating with plain rectangular slates. The presence of monkeys, bats and owls in the carved capitals of the entrance pilasters is reminiscent of the Shea brothers, whose carvings on the Kildare Street Club and Oxford Museum are similarly spirited, although this work at Bessmount is attributed to the equally talented Fitzpatrick brothers of Belfast.
IGS Grants — 2001: external rendering and brickwork repairs; 2004: rainwater goods repairs; 2020: external repairs to Music Room
Pictures & text by Peter Murray from his exhibition ‘Saving Graces’ (2021)
The work of the Irish Georgian Society is supported through the Heritage Council’s ‘Heritage Capacity Fund 2022’.
https://archiseek.com/2009/1868-bessmount-monaghan-co-monaghan
1868 – Bessmount, Monaghan, Co. Monaghan
Architect: William Barre
Originally a relatively conventional Georgian residence, Bessmount was redesigned by William Barre (architect of the Dawson Monument in the centre of nearby Monaghan town) for William Henderson around 1869. The redesign involved building a separate music room, adding another floor to the building and the addition of the many ornate Victorian features seen in the photograph. These features were designed to distract attention from the low ceilings that the original house had. Apart from the addition of the corner turret, the other main feature added was the tall water-tower and ornate porch. In the porch are lavish carvings of animals including squirrels, owls, monkeys, pelicans, dogs, fish, lizards and many others. Also on the porch are two roundals featuring the owner (the builder) and his wife.
https://www.geni.com/projects/Historic-Buildings-of-County-Monaghan/29819
Bessmont House Detached three-bay three-storey irregular-plan house, mainly remodelling of c.1868 of earlier house of c.1722. Originally a relatively conventional Georgian residence, Bessmount was redesigned by William Barre (architect of the Dawson Monument in the centre of nearby Monaghan town) for William Henderson around 1869.
Detached three-bay three-storey irregular-plan house, mainly remodelling of c.1868 of earlier house of c.1722. front elevation having stepped plan, south end bay gabled and having octagonal-plan oriel window to corner at first floor level supported on engaged carved limestone octagonal-plan column. Middle bay topped with tower, latter incorporating water, and fronted by gabled projecting porch. North end bay to front has canted bay window, and half-dormer. Gable-fronted music room to north having three-bay long sides and connected to house by short link. South elevation is four-bay four-storey, with projecting gabled bay fronted by bowed two-storey glazed projection, with lean-to glazed corridors to flanking bays, and gable-fronted projecting bay to south. South elevation is arcaded at lowest level. Three-bay three-storey west elevation has projecting middle bay. Hipped slate roofs, having pyramidal spires to oriel projection and to half-dormer window to north bay of front elevation, with decorative metal finials. Sprocketed truncated pyramidal roof to tower to entrance bay, with decorative cast-iron railings to top, and having decorative gargoyle rainwater spout. Pierced terracotta ridge tiles, polychrome brick chimneystacks with clay pots, cast-iron rainwater goods having decorative edging, and moulded red brick eaves brackets, cut-stone copings, and with sculpted foliate finial to gabled front south bay flanked by doves. M-profile slate roof to music room and connection, with decorative timber bargeboards to front, terracotta ridge cresting and finials. Dormer windows to north elevation of music room, with timber bargeboards, and terracotta ridge cresting and finials. Harl-rendered walls, red brick block-and-start quoins and string courses to front, polychrome brick detailing and polychrome blank arcades to water tower, brick detailing to apex of projecting bays to front, north and south elevations. Rendered panels to corner oriel. Harl-rendered plinth course to front and side elevations, having tooled limestone coping. Cut limestone porch to front has trefoil-arch opening with billeted surround, inset stone medallions to spandrels depicting William Henderson and his wife, carved foliate capitals and frieze to impost course on square-plan piers with corner columns. Three shield devices to apex of porch gable, with carved panel above and blind arcaded balustrade. Tooled limestone canted bay window has five trefoil-headed lights with chamfered surrounds, fixed timber windows, moulded brick cornice and diagonally set hipped slate roof. Paired windows to first floor front and south elevations, set within trefoil-headed recesses, with cut-stone block-and-start surrounds, mullions and transoms, with linked polychrome brick arches above. Pointed-arch window openings to second floor to front, north and south elevations, arranged in groups of three to north and middle bay and five to south bay, with brick voussoirs and tooled limestone block-and-start surrounds, mullions and transoms. Square-headed openings to tooled limestone oriel window and to openings in ground and first floors of north elevation, with triple window to ground floor of north elevation. Pointed-arch window openings to south bay ground floor to front, in group of five, with raised chamfered tooled limestone surrounds, mullions and transoms. Pointed-arch window opening to second floor to south elevation, with yellow brick jambs and red brick voussoirs, and traceried margined timber window. Square-headed window openings to rear, west elevation, and to north elevation of music room, lacking articulation. One-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows throughout (except where already specified), with timber fixed or casement frames above transoms of the more complex windows, with stone sills. Triple lancet window to front gable of music room, with trefoil heads, in tooled limestone surrounds with transoms. trefoil light in oculus to apex of same gable. Tripartite arrangement of shouldered window openings to front of entry porch to music room, with tooled limestone chamfered surround, sill and mullions. Trefoil devices to dormer hoods of north elevation of music room. Variety of single, double and triple window openings to returns to rear. Projecting double-light bay window to rear with hipped slate roof and timber surrounds. First floor level of south elevation has timber posts between groups of four trefoil-headed lights, and glazed roof. Square-headed door opening to house proper, comprising double-leaf timber panelled door with over-lights and sidelights opening onto mosaic tiled platform approached by two steps. Flight of limestone steps to front of porch to garden level, flanked by cut-stone parapets. Square-headed door opening to front of glazed south end of glazing to south elevation, with double-leaf half-glazed timber panelled door with sidelights and over-lights, opening on to nosed render steps. Square-headed door opening to front of music room with raised render surround and half-glazed timber panelled door, opening onto two
render steps. Square-headed door opening to rear at basement level, with timber battened door and tripartite over-light. Gauged-brick three-centred door opening to rear of music room, with timber battened door. Square-headed door opening to rear of music room, with timber panelled door. Random rubble wall enclosing yard to rear of house.
A modestly-proportioned Georgian house was built here about 1722, but was remodelled in a dramatic Ruskinian Gothic style by W.J. Barre in about 1868, incorporating elaborate additions such as projecting gables, gargoyles, a turret-like oriel window, an ecclesiastical-themed ‘music room’, pyramidal spires to the roof, and intricate polychrome brick detailing indicative of the later nineteenth-century date of this remodelling. The building displays naturalistic carvings in stone, probably undertaken by the Fitzpatrick Brothers of Belfast, one of which depicts William Henderson, the owner of Bessmount Park, who was High Sheriff in 1876. Bessmount Park is notable for the intricacy of its design, a rare example of such a high degree of ornamentation in Ireland.
https://theirishaesthete.com/tag/bessmount/
24 August 2019 10:00 – 17:00
HERITAGE WEEK – Tea & Tour of Bessmount Park
Date: 24 August
Times as follows:
- 10am – 11am
- 12pm – 1pm
- 4pm – 5pm
Venue: Bessmount House, Drumbrutagh, Monaghan
For further information contact:
Tel. 047 71984 or email: info@clogherhistory.ie
Tour one of Monaghan’s hidden gems – a house with a three hundred year history from Georgian to Gothic revival. The Montgomery family are happy to welcome visitors on this rare opportunity during Heritage Week to enjoy fascinating stories of families, architecture, local and social history. Booking is essential as tour numbers are limited.
- Not suitable for U12
- No wheelchair access
- Parking available
As the picture above shows, until the late 1860s Bessmount, County Monaghan was a fairly standard, medium-sized country house, of two storeys over basement and with a five-bay façade onto which the box-like porch had been added. With a Wyatt window on the first floor being the only feature of interest, it looks to be of indeterminate date, both 1722 and 1807 having been proposed as when originally constructed. Either or indeed any time in between are possible, since the building gives the appearance of being solid but unimaginative in its design. In the 18th century the land on which it stands belonged to a branch of the Montgomery family and in 1758 an eldest daughter, Mary Montgomery married Alexander Nixon of the now-demolished Nixon Hall, County Fermanagh. The couple’s second son, Alexander Nixon Montgomery, inherited Bessmount where he lived until his death in 1837.
Although Alexander Nixon Montgomery and his wife Eliza (nee Stanley) had no less than nine children, Bessmount was sold a few years after his death. The purchaser was John Hatchell, a wealthy Monaghan brewer who a few years later married Elizabeth Anne Speer from nearby Glaslough. Their daughter Frances Maria in turn married William Henderson whose own family were associated with the linen industry and it would seem that the couple, having sufficient funds from their forebears’ respective businesses, decided to recast Bessmount, transforming what had been a rather staid residence into something completely different.
Despite its extraordinary appearance, and relatively late date, we do not know who was the architect responsible for Bessmount’s makeover. Two names have been suggested, one being the Newry-born William Barre who worked mostly in the Ulster region and whose Danesfort House in Belfast has a very similar entrance tower. But Barre died in 1867 (that is, before work began at Bessmount) so the other architect proposed is John McCurdy, then working nearby on Monaghan’s District Lunatic Asylum (now St Davnet’s Hospital), the largest such institution in the country. Whether one of these gentlemen or another party, whoever received the commission clearly had a field day with the project, no doubt encouraged by his clients whose carved portraits can be seen in medallions on either side of the entrance porch (Mrs Henderson being tricked out to look like Queen Elizabeth I: perhaps a play on the house’s name?). Bessmount metamorphosed from a dull Georgian block into an extravagance of Ruskinian Gothic, thanks to the use of certain devices such as bands of yellow and red brick especially in the aforementioned tower (which originally served the practical purpose of holding the house’s water tanks). Asymmetry rules across the intentionally stepped façade, so that the eye is constantly moving from one feature to the next, whether the large gable featuring crests of the Hatchell and Henderson families, the trefoil-headed canted bay window that lights the drawing room or the first-floor oriel turret on the opposite side of the house. Meanwhile the south-facing garden front is enlivened by a Gothic conservatory raised on arcades, while to the immediate north a short link leads to the only major extension to the property, a large ‘music room’ that both inside and out resembles a Victorian village hall.
The interiors of Bessmount are not as remarkable as the exterior, perhaps because funds – and imagination – ran low. To a considerable extent they retain their pre-refurbishment appearance, albeit here and there tricked out in gothic finery. The majority of chimney pieces, for example, were in the original house, but their interiors now lined with pretty Minton tiles. Really the fun is on the outside, not least the porch where whoever received the commission to carve the capitals (the late Jeremy Williams proposed the Fitzpatrick brothers of Belfast) didn’t hold back. The ornamentation is lavish in the extreme, a bestiary of animal life ranging from bats and monkeys to frogs and rabbits, many of them peeking out of the undergrowth to pull a face as though determined to ruin a staid animal kingdom portrait. It is all rather droll, conveying the impression that the earnest intentions behind Ruskin’s advocacy of the Gothic mode are here being guyed. Fortunately the opportunity to relish this architectural humour remains since Bessmount still stands intact and in good order. The property changed hands in the last century when it once more became a Montgomery house, as is the case to the present. The owners are well aware of the building’s importance and have undertaken repair work where feasible. A cheering note with which to approach the year’s end.
Irish Historic Houses 