Couple gets arrested building an Irish mansion

(CNN) – As far as the initial houses are concerned, a three-story Georgian mansion on an 820-acre estate is not bad.

When Neil Watt and his partner Kris Reid moved to the top floor of Castle Ward in Northern Ireland in March 2020, it was their first home together as a couple.

Watt landed a new permanent job as a collections and home manager at the property owned by the UK heritage organ, The National Trust, and they were preparing, alongside a large team of colleagues and volunteers, to welcome crowds of visitors. daily.

Like the 18th century house and landscaped gardens, people come to see the Victorian sawmill and corn mill, the coast where seals sometimes heat up and the tower of the 16th century house better known as Winterfell in the “Game of Thrones “from HBO.

Then, of course, the pandemic happened. The mansion’s powerful doors had to be closed, the public left.

This corner of Down County, where the Ward family made their home between the 1570s and 1950s, has become – in fact – a private residence once again.

And as new lords of the mansion, Watt and Reid decided to make a renovation.

Lords of the feud

Castle Ward is the two-sided Janus of country houses.

Get closer to the landscaped gardens and it is an 18th century mansion in the classic Palladian style. But go around the corner as far as its pointed windows and battlements look out on Strangford Lough, and it’s a Georgian Gothic style.

This bold fusion of styles divides this building of more than 40 rooms in half, inside and out.

“Whenever this house was built, it would be one of the grandest in Ireland,” says Neil Watt, manager of the house and collections at Castle Ward. “And certainly in times of style and architecture he was the most avant-garde.”

Like many of us, when we found ourselves locked in the house last spring, the couple went on to do odd jobs around the house first.

In their case, that meant tasks like scrubbing hundreds of pots and pans, taking apart Victorian chandeliers and cleaning them piece by piece, as well as cleaning and cataloging some 2,000 old books.

‘We want this house to shine’

“We always said to ourselves: whenever we can open again, whenever it is, we want this house to shine,” says Watt.

Both are seasoned conservationists – Reid is currently studying for a doctorate in heritage – so restoration work is not new to them.

What was unusual, however, was how much time they were able to dedicate to the renovation, when they would normally be busy with visitors.

A new dehumidification system was installed, carpets and rugs were knocked over, floors were waxed and silver and brass were polished, from fireplaces to knockers.

And when colleagues and volunteers were able to return during the summer, they rolled up their sleeves and were also arrested. “As a charity, we are nothing without people,” says Watt.

“We did a lot of tasks that require a lot of work, but he was very careful and gave us something to work with,” said Watt.

Real connections

In parallel with conservation work, Watt used the blocking period to further investigate the property’s history and reconsider how it is presented to the public.

“Fresh blood is very important,” says Watt, “because sometimes we tell stories because that’s what was told before”.

Castle Ward was built in the early 1760s by Bernard Ward, first Viscount of Bangor, and his wife Lady Ann, a well-connected descendant of the Stuart royal family.

The duo traveled extensively around the world and co-designed their modern and ambitious home.

Watt’s PhD is in women from the Irish country house and Lady Ann’s story is one that he particularly enjoyed revisiting.

“She showed an independence of mind that was perhaps not appropriate at the time,” he says. She was rich, aristocratic and “she really did what she wanted”.

She was very sexually liberated, “he adds.” Before marrying Bernard, she had a love affair (for years) with a woman, Letitia Bushe. ”

‘Family madness’

Lady Ann, her brother Lord Darnley and their son Nicholas faced accusations from their colleagues that they were subject to “family madness”. It is not clear whether this was due to what we can now recognize as mental health problems or just that their behavior violated the social norms of the time.

One of the most sinister claims about Darnley, whose home in London’s Berkeley Square was until 2018 the legendary Annabel’s nightclub, was that he believed himself to be a pot of tea and was afraid of a sexual congress so his spout would not fall over night.

Bernard and Anne’s eldest son, Nicholas, was a British MP, but he ended up being declared crazy. The estate would later pass to his nephew, after the intervention, says Watt, of the brothers “very enterprising of the 2nd Viscount of Bangor who thought the Viscount would be better in his hands”.

There were also rumors that his brothers had loosened the banisters in Castle Ward to hasten his brother’s demise, but Nicholas lived to an old age and this idle gossip is unfounded.

‘Open and honest’

“History is revisionism; history is a discourse,” says Watt, who used time in the block to create a new narrative from home to accompany travel.

This revisionism is part of a broader trend of the National Trust, which last autumn sparked controversy by releasing a report on the links between its properties and colonialism and historic slavery.

John Orna-Ornstein, the fund’s director of culture and engagement, told CNN in September: “Our role is to be as open and honest as possible, to tell the full story of the places and collections we care for.”

Today, the island of Ireland is divided into the Republic of Ireland, an independent country, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. However, before the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), the island was under British rule.

The big house ‘

The “big house” was a powerful symbol of the British establishment in Ireland and these large houses of elite families were sometimes targeted during the periods of civil unrest in the 20th century known as “the problems”.

Although there are relatively few “big houses”, particularly in the Republic, “not as many houses were burned during the troubles of the 1920s as people think,” said Watt.

The cost of maintenance in the 20th century, when the days of large families with many employees are gone, meant that “many more were simply demolished”.

Although those kept in private families often fell into disrepair, “Castle Ward was very lucky because it was a gift to the nation,” says Watt.

‘We really turned the corner’

“The big house was just part of a bigger structure,” he explains. “All of these big houses were attached to a property, like their sister houses in England, Wales and Scotland. In those places, there was a society and there were many interconnections.”

Watt regularly receives letters from people whose ancestors worked on Castle Ward’s estate.

And while the legacy of the “big house” is sometimes a politically sensitive issue in Northern Ireland, Watt says, “I think we really round the corner. I think people are starting to appreciate these places as the shared spaces that they used to be.”

Although Castle Ward could open in part by 2020, it is now closed indefinitely as part of the latest blockages in the UK and Ireland.

Watt says that while it was a novelty at first, walking through the big empty rooms, “on the second weekend you really want to open the doors and let people in. I think it really shows how important people are to historic places. ”

The two live in Northern Ireland – Watt is from County Tyrone, while Reid is from nearby Ballynahinch – but they have barely seen their families this year due to restrictions.

But says Watt, they comfort themselves by looking from the top floor of the house’s Gothic façade, over the waters of the lake, where boats sail and people stroll and ride along its banks.

Looking at Portaferry at night, the town across the lake, “you never feel alone,” says Watt. “Every night the lights flash.”