Fota House, Co. Cork

RESTORATION

Fota House, Co.Cork Fota House stands at the centre of an internationally renowned arboretum and garden. The original demesne, which now also includes a golf course (based around the original farm buildings) and a wildlife park, formed an island separating Great Island, with Cobh as its port, from the mainland. This island location in the estuary gives Fota a magical timeless charm and provides a wonderful amenity on the doorstep of Cork. Fota House is owned and managed by The Fota Trust, which includes representatives of Cork City and County Councils, University College Cork, and DĂşchas, The Heritage Service, of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. The arboretum and gardens were acquired by the State.

Fota House was designed for John Smith Barry by the renowned Irish architect Richard Morrison and his son William. The house dates from 1825 though it incorporates an earlier hunting lodge which was altered and adapted by the Morrisons.

Lighter in style than their work at Ballyfin, it still contains a wealth of interior detailing, rich plasterwork, elegant doorcases and architraves, Ionic and Corinthian scagliola columns, marble fireplaces and fine external stone detailing. The interiors are complemented by a painted and stencilled decoration scheme from the 1890s by the firm of Sibthorpe. The house had previously been opened to the public in 1983 but closed after a short number of years.

The current restoration of the house commenced in 1999 with EU, Government and Fota Trust funding and was completed in 2001. The work concentrated on reopening the principal rooms on the ground floor to the public and restoring a remarkably well-preserved suite of kitchen rooms ‘beyond the Green Baize door’. The value of the contract totalled over ÂŁ2.5m.

Externally, prior to the restoration, the house presented an uneven appearance with little of its original render which had been fully removed in some areas and was detached elsewhere. The architectural treatment of the exterior relies on the contrast between the white natural render and the grey stonework of its details. These stone elements, such as window architraves, cornice, string-courses and quoins, are of Cork limestone, a very lively stone, quite light in colour and with a nice veining. Rusting of iron bars behind the stonework of the portico meant that sections had moved and delaminated. This movement also caused water ingress onto the ends of the timber beams of the entrance hall directly behind the portico supporting the first floor of the house. The deterioration of this timber in turn led to the transfer of considerable weight onto the scagliola columns in the hall, causing them to crack and damaging the decorated plasterwork band of wreaths, crests and oak leaf decoration. The portico, timber beams and related areas were carefully restored using Irish and English specialists.

The major problem which led to the closure of the house to the public was the collapse of a portion of the ceiling in the drawing room. Within the thickness of the floor, approximately 250mm in depth, considerable conservation work had to be undertaken.

Initially the ceiling’s plaster was consolidated and repaired. It was then strengthened, using a steel cable to introduce compression in the floor, to reduce the tension in the bottom of the floor joists. This catenary wire was attached close to each end of pairs of floor joists and hand-tensioned to introduce the load, while a laser level above and split rod measuring below ensured that there was no springing of the floor. The missing section of the ceiling was then repaired with new riven lath plaster, a jig-saw of the many damaged fragments was made and these were pieced in to the new plaster work and joined with decoration and gilding.

Destroyed sections of plasterwork were modelled or cast so that elements such as the rose garland, which contains approximately twenty different flowers, could be restored. There were also problems with dry rot in parts of the ante-room, drawing-room and diningroom and these were all carefully treated, retaining the existing details.

The exhibition approach, devised by Robin Wade and Partners, is quite unique, treating the lack of a full complement of period furniture as an asset rather than a problem. The principal rooms are left largely unfurnished, allowing for a variety of functions, conferences, etc., and concentrating, during tours of the house, on the architectural detailing. There is a high-tech installation in each of these rooms allowing touch screen access by the visitor to a sequence of themed images. Furnishing is limited to minor rooms with the original kitchen fully restored and stocked, its adjoining octagonal meat larder brimming with (stuffed) pheasant, rabbit and hare and with sides of bacon protruding from the larder’s lead-lined curing baths.

A separate Orangery on the axis of the main house, visible from the main staircase, was also restored.

The house has already hosted a number of functions and conferences and the interior exhibition will open to the public early in 2002. The gardens and Orangery have been used for an open-air performance of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Future phases of work will include opening rooms on the upper floor to the public. These rooms are quite domestic in scale but have beautiful decorations, particularly the lady’s boudoir which has fine plaster detailing of feigned drapery.