#49 NETTERFIELD HOUSE, BALLYCONNELL, CO.CAVAN, IRELAND--PART 2

 

In the 1970s, I had just started my genealogy hobby and knew nothing about my paternal great-grandparents—the Netterfields. Then, just by luck (serendipity), a 10 page type-written report was given to my Dad. The research was by Mary (Netterfield) Cottingham, a 1^st cousin 2x removed. In August of 1961, Mary visited Ballyconnell, County Cavan, Ireland to research the Netterfield family.

Glendoon

  THE NETTERFIELD HOUSE

On her 1963 visit, Mary met Netterfield cousins and had tea with Ballyconnell locals and toured Glendoon, the Netterfield ancestral home. Her description of Glendoon is awesome and thorough.

 

And so, at least I came today to the home of my forefathers. In the grey, misty gloom of this autumn evening, I walked the long avenue between the storied trees of Grandfather William’s [Netterfield] boyish memory…Most of the trees have been cut down—war economy measure—but four gigantic lime trees, two on either side, stand before the sweep of the gravelled driveway before the stone walls…Although it is true that Glen Doon is the well known name we had learned in connection with the family’s home, and which stands on the outskirts of the village of Ballyconnell, and with just the church between it and Hillview, still as I walked up that long laneway, I had a strange feeling. It was no presentiment that I had been there before or anything of that sort, rather it was, as I stood before that dark, heavy door and knocked, I didn’t feel a stranger anymore—and I had been feeling pretty low, what with the rain coming down steadily ever since I landed [in Ireland]…

Today I walked the spacious, high-ceilinged rooms of Glen Doon. The walls are stone, two-feet thick and the deeply-recessed windows are about 12 feet high and 6 feet wide, each having 4 big window panes and folding shutters. The boards of the floor are of deal, four inches wide, beautifully smooth and snowy white.

house with stone wall and monkey puzzle tree

Glen Doon is a manor-style house, set in beautiful, though limited now, grounds. Two monkey puzzle trees in the foreground are dominated by a huge beech tree, well carved in bygone years. (The initials are now over 15 feet above the ground.) Fuchsia trees drop their bloodred drops over the high tone walls that surround the house on two sides and the walls that divide the garden from the utilitarian vegetable garden, and the lines where the linen dries on wash days. There are only 5 or 6 acres left of the estate now. The many outbuildings, well to the rear of the house here, are all solidly built and very clean.

Through the trees, one can look up at the slender spire of the family church, a few hundred feet away.

One enters from the gracefully-curved walk to the front door, once flush with the stone walls, but now inset.  The hall is large and from its centre a gracious stairway leads up in a sweet curve to the second floor.  The six-foot staircase ascends gently in shallow steps and where it curves the solid mahogany railing is exquisitely carved with inverted blossoms, large like tulips—just a single bloom to mark the ascents at top, bottom and curves.

The high ceilings of the hall are found in the huge rooms, one on either side of the entrance hall. There are charming fireplaces in the dining room at the left and the drawing room at the right.  Not large roomy fireplaces like our Canadian ones, but small, cozy, each hooded with a shing brass cowl and the mantle in the dining room was of bog oak with the satiny sheen and texture of ebony. The drawing room fireplace had a pure white marble mantle, while both, it was interesting to note, were tiled with small tiles which looked Dutch in origin. They may been inset in more recent times, of course. Glowing with their peat bricks they send out a warmth rather surprising from their small burning area,  Both of the large rooms were of much interest in the feature each had of a deeply-recessed archway at which one appeared to look directly as one entered either room.

The doorway from the drawing room enters into a passage leading to the kitchen at the rear.  There is also a smaller doorway leading to a tidy little room which appeared to have been an office with an outside door. (This has been boarded up.) Could this have been the door to which the tenants came, hat in hand as tales have it, to pay their rent?

The kitchen was built on and is a step or two lower than the front part of the house. Behind the front door and across the width of the two downstairs rooms is a roomy closet, divided on one side for a spacious pantry and on the other for household cleaning use. It is a big family kitchen, rather dark, with 2 small windows. A door in one corner leads up a narrow staircase to the servants’ quarters at the rear of the house. It is surprising to find in a house which must be 150 years old many similarities to modern house construction. There was a fine bathroom in Glen Doon in those days, and soft water had been ingeniously carried by means of a large vat placed on the lower roof on the kitchen and a huge cast iron tap inserted into the side of the stairwell on the second landing and just opposite the bathroom.

On the bathroom window there is etched a small beautifully executed model of a sailing vessel named “The Kangaroo”. Below are 2 sets of initials; JN and HEN. These might have been Harriet Emily Netterfield (1856), John her cousin (1860) or James a brother (1844). Below these initials is scratched “James 1878”.

This is the window of which Mary wrote. When we visited the house in 2005, I mentioned the window to the new owners. When they renovated the house, they HAD removed and saved the window. Imagine my thrill when we unwrapped it.

Apart from the two rooms used by the help, there are five large bedrooms upstairs over the main house, all with fireplaces, huge closet space and partitions of solid stone are faced so smoothly they look like plastered surfaces.  They are all about 18” thick. From the landing on which I mentioned the bathroom tap and vat were located, the main stairs divide, 3 steps going up to the servants’ quarters, the other stairs curving opposite, with one very large bedroom to the left and four others running off the balcony formed by the open hall from the top of the stairs; the last one along this balcony overlooks the gardens and church. All bedrooms have the recessed archway noted downstairs. No one can say for what this detail was used, if any. There is a fine hot press for linen in the bathroom with a hot water boiler underneath. There is another of these deep recesses in the hallway, although this has been covered with doors and used for storing linen.

The present owner and I sat in the kitchen—it was warm there—and talked. She was very kind and when she asked me “How does it feel to sit here in the home your people once worked and played in so long ago”, I had no answer. These forebears have left no sign, other than their solidly-built homes, of the kind of people they were. Perhaps we must be moved and thrilled by the fact that these houses were built truly and well and have survived to show succeeding generations that these were men who knew how to build for posterity; perhaps this is the heritage they have left us; that through the troubles that beset them, through the deadly years of the potato famine, through change and a century and a half, these homes of theirs have stood four-square to the world around them and look as though they will be there for a long time to come. Records in the little church close by show their joy and their grief in the marriages, births and deaths of the families of Netterfields that once populated the area. Deep below the moss of the churchyard they lie at rest and there is now no trace of where they lie.

 

OUR VISITS TO BALLYCONNELL: Mary’s account of the Netterfield home inspired me. In 1996, Steve and I took a trip to Ireland; our first stop was Ballyconnell. We arrived there mid afternoon, parked on the main street to look for a B&B. The next morning, armed with Mary Cottingham’s research, we went looking for Glen Doon. Imagine our surprise when we realized that we had parked right in front of Glen Doon the day before! Unfortunately, the house had been sold and no one was living there.  We took many pictures and walked around the church yard next door which was carved out of the Netterfield property.

James & Trish who invited us in to tour Glendoon, theNetterfield House, 2005

We visited Ballyconnell again in 2005, this time on a Saturday. I looked over the stone fence to see a couple working in the yard; when she learned that my ancestors had lived in the house 150 years ago, she invited us into the home for coffee and a tour. James and Trish had bought Glen Doon and were meticulously restoring the home. (For instance, they found a church in Northern Ireland about to be demolished and bought the flooring as it matched what was in Glen Doon.)

    the parlour

 

oven, restored

revealed on wall during renovations  

a highlight of my visit to Glendoon....a portrait of my relative...Uncle Moses Netterfield.

In 1876, Moses Netterfield owned 555 acres in the county.

 

HISTORIC HOME: In 2012, Glendoon House was listed on Ireland’s National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.

Description: Detached three-bay two-storey house built c 1829 with shallow projecting porch. Two-storey bow extension to the north c 2000, I the same style as the original house. Shallow artificial slate hipped roof with pair of symmetrical rendered chimneystacks, wide projecting eaves with timber soffit on paired decorative timber brackets, and recent pressed aluminum rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walled with smooth bands to top and bottom. Render pilaster and entablature surround to door opening. Two over two timber sash windows with stone sills. Timber door with centre bead, eight raised bolection panels and fixed-glazed side and overlights. Single-storey outbuilding to north, recently renovated, having raised roof, sandstone random rubble walls, south gable incorporating part of former brick chimney stack and line of former roof profile. Additional outbuilding to the north-west with recent slate roof, squared and coursed sandstone walls, segmented-headed carriage arch and recent lantern with clock and weather vane. Rubble stone boundary walls with chamfered piers having elongated caps and spherical finials, c.1765.

The appraisal: A well maintained early nineteenth-century house of simple Italianate design which is a good example of a type built for professionals, gentlemen farmers or as glebe houses. The 1836 Ordnance Survey map records a house with a T-plan and a adjoining building to the west in line with the existing outbuilding. The entrance gates predate the existing house which was built to replace an eighteenth century house on the site, that was apparently destroyed by fire.

 

 

CHURCH OF IRELAND, BALLYCONNELL

On our 2005 visit, the grounds keeper told us to go across the street to get the keys to open the church. How trusting to allow us freedom to check out the church, take lots of photos and contemplate how my ancestors had sat in these same pews over two hundred years before. The next day, a Sunday, we attended church service and were introduced to the congregation as Netterfield descendants. 

There was only one worn Netterfield stone in the church graveyard.

The Tomregan Church of Ireland, Ballyconnell is also on the Ireland National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Built in 1756, it is appraised as a: Noteworthy Church of Ireland church that is rich in interesting detail and furnishings, which are the result of an interesting layering of building phases and style. Built under the patronage of George Leslie Montgomery, it is one of the principle features of the historic town of Ballyconnell. The composition, of tower set behind an elongated symmetrical elevation that is articulated by a shallow apse, is of great visual appeal. The church has an interesting mix of classical and later Gothic Revival features. The west elevation retains its interesting classical features such as the bow section and entrance. The interior is striking for its completeness, with impressive arched openings and shallow apses dressed in classical motifs, creating a fascinating counterpoint to its otherwise Gothic style. The seating, pulpit and reading desk are thought to be additions…

Descriptors include: Freestanding Church of Ireland Church, built 1756, extended and refenstrated in Gothic style, c. 1820. Unusually orientated T-plan layout with three-stage bell tower and steeple to the north, shallow apses to east transept containing the sanctuary…hipped artificial slate roof…octagonal spire with lead pinnacle and castellated parapet to tower..squared course and random rubble sandstone walls..pointed twin-light timber tracery windows with multi-pane clear glass in nave and transepts and stained glass in south apse….ornate classical plasterworks panels flanking sanctuary window framing later religious texts…double-leaf timber doors leading from vestibule and tower, having coat-of-arms in plaster shield above west doors…Historic pews throughout, timber wall seat in southern apse, panelled box pews on north gallery…octagonal timber pulpit…set in graveyard and enclosed by rubble stone boundary wall with double cast-iron gates..pedestrian stile beside gate…