The Bridgerton effect: Stately homes are having a moment

From castles to country manors, Jen Stevens meets the people keeping our historic properties alive

James and Joanna Fennell outside one of the holiday aparrtments t for rent on the grounds of thier home at Burtown House near Athy, Co Kildare. Photograph Moya Nolan

Sun, 07 Aug, 2022 - 11:01

Jen Stevens

Whether you long to live in the grand mansions of Bridgerton with their beautiful occupants and dramatic floral arrangements, or you love the upstairs, downstairs relationships of Downton Abbey, you have probably had a couple of daydreams over the last few years about living in a magnificent ancestral home.

While the National Trust in the UK maintains over 500 historic homes, castles, and gardens, the OPW’s Heritage Services looks after just 93, including Castletown House in Kildare and Doneraile Estate in Cork.

The rest of Ireland’s great country houses are left in the hands of the families that own them. Maintaining a house that dates back centuries is no mean feat and takes passion, drive, and an uncanny business acumen.

Burtown House

Burtown House, in Co Kildare, is a beautiful place to visit. The gardens are magnificent, the house stunning and the Green Barn Restaurant is a gorgeous spot for brunch, lunch or dinner. But it wasn’t always so. James Fennell, who runs Burtown with his wife Joanna, remembers his childhood home as a crumbling ruin.

When his father died in 2008, he was only three years out from paying off huge death duties on the property and James says he never got to enjoy the place or see what they had done.

James, a successful photographer, never considered selling for one moment, he was determined to return the house to its former glory and has created a both a wonderful home for his family and a beautiful visitor attraction.

“When I started I was putting all my photography money into it. I was travelling 70% of the year making a decent wage from being a photographer and all of that was going into it.

James Fennell's home Burtown House near Athy, Co Kildare. Photograph Moya Nolan

“I married Joanna, who also came from an Irish country home, the Red House in Ardee, and she had a tiny bit of money that she put into Burtown too. We converted the stables to a house that we lived in for 10 years and the ethos was that we’d start down there, which was 150 metres away, and work our way up to the main house.

“We started hosting Woofers, which is a programme by the World Organisation of organic growers. People come to live and learn on an organic farm, you feed them and house them and in exchange they do X number of hours of work per day. We hosted about 70 people over maybe 10 years and that’s how we started the regeneration of the kitchen gardens and the food production here.”

There came a point where all of James’ travel became untenable and he decided to stop and work fulltime on the estate.

James and Joanna Fennell in their cottage garden . Photograph Moya Nolan

“I was away, coming home late, doing postproduction, and then getting up early again to get on another plane. The day it hit me clearly that I couldn’t keep going was when my eldest daughter Bella said, ‘Daddy, great, you’re back, let’s go do this tomorrow’ and I had to say, ‘ooh I’m sorry, I’m going again tomorrow.’

James and Joanna Fennell in the walled cottage garden in the grounds of thier home at Burtown House near Athy, Co Kildare. Photograph Moya Nolan

“So I decided to back away from photography. Everybody was very anti me doing that, but I knew that if I got hit by a bus then the whole place would get sold. I wanted to put my youth and my energy in it. We have this amazing place now, it’s 180 acres which is much smaller than it was but still enough to do amazing things with.

“We’re rewilding the whole farm, we’re putting in contemporary cabins that are something different from anything anyone else is doing in Ireland and we have the Green Barn.

James Fennell in one of the gardens at his home at Burtown House near Athy, Co Kildare. Photograph Moya Nolan

“We sold a field to finance that because I didn’t want to pay €2000 a month to the bank to be able to do it. We sacrificed a field that was across the other side of the road and wasn’t going to affect the aesthetic of the estate. So that’s how we did it, it’s been a struggle, but we do it all with cash flow.”

Bantry House

In Cork, Bantry House is a magnificent stately home that is firmly on the tourist map but it’s also the family home of Julie Shelswell-White who grew up there with her siblings and is now managing the property with her brother.

She was only 28 when she came home to help run it.

“It was an easy decision for me. It was like a penny dropped. There was no pressure from family or anything, it was just that whatever stage it was in my life, it really made sense for me to come home to do it.

“I mean, I grew up here. I watched my parents do what I’m essentially attempting to do now and I’m very lucky in that my mom is still very much involved in the overall bigger picture side of things in terms of the conservation of the building and the estate.

Julie Shelswell-White in the Blue room at Bantry House in Bantry Co. Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

“She is actually a picture restorer by trade and she is a wealth of knowledge. I’m always looking to her for advice, it’s a family business and my brother and I are able to manage that with a small team.”

Bantry House has been open to the public since 1946, one of the first Irish Houses to open up to visitors.

Julie Shelswell-White of Bantry House and gardens in Bantry Co. Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

“I can’t say for sure that we were the first but we were definitely one of the first to open its doors to the public and it was opened by my grandmother. She was very forward thinking really and I suppose I relate to her. Funds were already running out even towards the end of the 19th century, when the fourth Earl died, so opening the doors was an attempt to create a revenue stream.”

Julie Shelswell-White and her brother Sam of Bantry House in Bantry Co. Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

In terms of finance, it costs a lot to keep a grand estate like Bantry House going but Julie believes they have a good mix now.

“You are always thinking of new ways for revenue but that said we already do an awful lot. We’re open for

tourists, we have a B&B, the music festival and we do weddings. You can have a wedding one day and then you’re trying to put the house back together at 1am so that it’s open the next morning for tours.

“It can be a lot. But that’s what a house like this needs. It needs to be flexible, to adapt and to open its doors but you always have to bear in mind that this is our home too, so we want to do what we’re comfortable with and what suits us as a family and suits the house.”

Julie Shelswell-White, manager of Bantry House in Bantry Co. Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

Living and working in a stately home is a lot to take on, especially when you’re young but Julie wouldn’t change anything.

“Every year I love it more, I do, and that surprised me, I didn’t expect that when I come home. I was 28, I was so young and I’m still really young, but I’m really lucky because my family are here too, and we always want what’s best for the place and for each other. I just want to make sure that we’re happy and that there’s a balance and a life outside the estate too.”

Killruddery House

Fionnuala, Lady Aston-Ardee, of Killruddery House in Co Wicklow agrees with Julie on that. She and her husband, Anthony, run the house and gardens, and a cafe and restaurant, and host arts festivals, weddings, private functions and much more at Anthony’s ancestral home.

Like all the large country houses, Killruddery requires constant maintenance but Fionnuala has moved away from viewing that as a burden and operates the estate as a thriving business.

“I mean, the maintenance is huge, and it always has been but it is also a full on business and needs to be treated as such in a business like way. I work as CEO, my husband is CFO and farmer, and we have just been joined by a COO. There is a head gardener and an estate office manager with the COO.

The Brabazon family in Killruddery House, County Wicklow. Pictured are Lady Ardee (Fionnuala) and Lord Ardee (Anthony). Photo: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

“There is a constant churn of work but in order to make it operate as a successful business we really need to view it as that.

“Right from the beginning my husband and I said that if we were to take it on and do this, our mission was always to do it in a way that remains enjoyable or life enhancing for ourselves and for our family as well as for visitors and the people who work here.

“We want to run a successful business and have no intention of being busy fools just for the sake of it. We wanted to be able to do all the other things that interest us in life, to be able to step back and take holidays and enjoy both living and working here.”

The Brabazon family in Killruddery House, County Wicklow. Left to Right. Son Aldus (12yrs), Lord Ardee (Anthony), Lady Ardee (Fionnuala), daughters Aileen (8yrs on lap), Norah (15yrs), and Evelyn (6 yrs on lap). Photo: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Fionnuala’s way of working is very forward thinking, and she shares her knowledge and experience with other families who are considering doing what she and her husband do in Killruddery. It is clear that she values every single person who works on the estate.

“For me, I try thought a lot about how we would run things here. I not only wanted our family to thrive but to prioritise our team to ensure that other people thrive here and have fulfilling careers too. I think that’s really important. It’s something I tell others too if I am talking to other people who are considering, you know, developing their family home.”

www.killruddery.com

www.burtownhouse.ie

www.bantryhouse.com

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