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Bantry House, County CorkToday, Bantry House remains much as the second Earl left it, with an important part of his great collection still intact. The rooms also retain their Victorian clutter and no where more so than in the hall where visitors will find an array of bric-a-brac, including a mosque lamp from Damascus, an Arab chest, a Japanese inlaid chest, a Russian travelling shrine with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century icons, a Friesian clock and a sixteenth-century Spanish marriage chest. There is also a fine wooden seventeenth-century Flemish overmantel, rows of family portraits on the walls and the original standard of the 'Bantry Cavalry' which was raised in 1780 to defend the area against the French. The hall was created by combining two rooms with the staircase hall of the original house and consequently has a rather muddled shape, though crisp black-and-white Dutch floor tiles lend the room a sense of unity. Incorporated in this floor are four mosaic panels collected by Viscount Berehaven from Pompeii in 1828 and bearing the familiar inscriptions 'Cave Canem' and 'Salve'.From the hall visitors enter the Rose and Gobelins drawing-rooms which offer magnificent vistas across the bay. Large windows and floor-to-ceiling mirrors have a marked regency appearance, though much of the furnishing actually comes from pre-Revolutionary France. The main features are the tapestries, which in the Rose drawing-room comprise four panels from the Royal Aubusson works, said to have been made for Marie Antoinette on her marriage to the Dauphin; the main subject is fêtes champêtres with insets apparently designed by the painter François Boucher and decorative surrounds by Tessier. The Gobelins tapestries in the adjacent room include one panel reputed to have been the property of Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, cousin of Louis XV and grandfather of Louis Philippe of France at whose sale in 1851 this tapestry was bought. The deteriorating condition of these tapestries may sadden many visitors, as will the condition of other significant items in these rooms, such as the fragmenting Aubusson tapestry settee and chairs, the eighteenth-century Savonnerie carpet and the seventeenth-century Spanish leather wainscoting. Undoubtedly the most spectacular room in the house is the dining-room, dominated by copies of Allan Ramsay's full-length portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte whose astonishingly elaborate gilt frames are well set off by the royal blue walls. The ceiling was once decorated with Guardi panels, but these have long since been removed and sold to passing dealers at a fraction of their worth. The differing heights of the room are due to the fact that they are partly incorporated in the original house and in the 1845 extension, their incongruity disguised by a screen of marble columns with gilded Corinthian capitals. Much of the furniture has been here since the time of the second Earl, including the fine George III dining table, Chippendale chairs, mahogany teapoy, immense sideboards made especially for the room and the enormous painting of 'The Fruit Market' by Snyders revealing figures reputedly drawn by Rubens - a wedding present to the first countess. The first flight of the staircase from the hall belongs to the original early eighteenth-century house, as does the half-landing with its lugged architraves. This leads into the great library, built around 1845 and the last major addition to the house. The library is over sixty feet long, has screens of marble Corinthian columns, a compartmented ceiling and Dublin-made marble mantelpieces at each end with overhanging mirrors. The furnishing is now rather spartan but retains a fine rosewood grand piano by Bluthner of Leipzig, still occasionally used for concerts. The windows of this room once looked into an immense glass conservatory, but this has now been removed and visitors will gaze out upon the recently restored gardens and the steep sloping terraces behind. The imposing stable range with its pediment and cupola to one side of this garden has also been reconstructed and houses an exhibition entitled '1796 Armada Trust'.
Located on the outskirts of Bantry on the N71. From the Appletree Press title: Irish Country Houses.
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