The Saddle House, No 5 The Adam Yard, Castle Upton, Templepatrick, Co Antrim, BT39 0BE

The Saddle House, No. 5 The Adam Yard, Castle Upton, Templepatrick, County Antrim

The Saddle House is a former stable building of exceptional architectural and historical significance, designed by Robert Adam and built around 1790. It occupies the north-west corner of the south yard within the Adam Yard complex, a rigidly symmetrical, detached quadrangular stable range set to the east of Castle Upton and accessed by a long tree-lined avenue running perpendicular to the main street of Templepatrick (the Belfast Road). The complex was converted to twelve private dwellings between 1988 and 2000, with The Saddle House specifically forming part of that conversion.

Overall Layout and Setting

The Adam Yard is arranged as a symmetrical quadrangular plan of two-storey, multi-bay stone former stable buildings. The layout is defined by a main arched entrance clock tower to the south, a further arched rear entrance block to the north, and a central range running on an east-west axis with its own arched tower flanked by a pair of square-plan blocks. Six square-plan towers with chamfered corners mark the corners of the two yards. The two yards are surfaced in gravel. The rear north yard contains a flower bed formed in stone setts laid out in the form of a Prussian iron cross, with a carved stone pedestal and iron sundial on a moulded redbrick base. Stone flags surround the east, north, and west elevations. To the north is a lawned area with a stone ha-ha and a small stone bridge, with a bitmac driveway providing vehicular access to the north yard. To the north-east stands a seven-bay, single-storey stone-clad garage built around 2000, which abuts the wall of the Upton graveyard.

Roofs

The roofs are finished in natural slate with lead to the ridge rolls. They are pitched over the linear sections — with several skylights — hipped over the towers, and hipped over the north and south arched entrance blocks. The main south entrance clock tower has an octagonal-plan spire with lead ridges, natural slate to the lower half, and metal louvres to the upper half, surmounted by a lead globe and weather-vane. The central arched tower has a square-plan lead spire added around 2008.

Parapets and External Walling

The south and central arched towers, and all six corner towers except the one to the north-west, have crenellated parapet walls with sandstone coping resting on a redbrick corbelled course. This parapet treatment is also used along the front south elevation of the two linear ranges, which feature slender arched recesses with redbrick heads. The central arched tower has four bartizans at its corners, formed in redbrick with sandstone corbelling and replacement sandstone capstones.

The walling throughout is coursed and snecked rubblestone with lime pointing, set above a projecting rubblestone plinth course. Eaves courses are also projecting rubblestone, with replacement cast-iron rainwater goods carried on iron drive-through brackets, some lead hoppers, and redbrick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots and lead flashing.

The south entrance tower is flanked on both elevations by a pair of full-height projecting stone piers, each with a parapet wall and sandstone coping on a redbrick corbelled course. These piers carry blind balistrariae to their upper stages and blind loopholes to their lower stages on both elevations. Balistrariae also adorn the outward-facing chamfered corners of the four outer towers. The south-facing elevations of the two front corner towers each have a double-height round-headed recess. The rear entrance block has a series of balistrariae to the ground floor of its south elevation, some glazed to the interior wall, while its north elevation has loophole openings to the ground floor, also glazed to the interior wall.

Windows and Doors

Windows are generally square-headed with rendered reveals, concrete sills, and timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes, installed around 2000. Between the paired piers flanking the arched entrance tower there is a slender round-headed window opening to the ground floor with 4/4 timber sash windows, and slender 4/4 timber sash windows to the first floor. The window openings facing into the two yards are 6/6 timber sash windows to the ground floor, with oculi openings to the first floor formed in redbrick and fitted with circular timber casement windows. Some large round-headed window openings occupy former carriage arch openings to the central linear range, formed with voussoired stone arches and multi-pane timber windows with integrated fanlights. The linear east and west ranges each have a lucarne opening to the centre of the range facing into the yards, with timber weatherboard to the gable and timber casement windows. Some tripartite sash windows have been inserted into the outward-facing elevations, with a central 6/6 sash flanked by 4/4 timber sash windows. To the first floor of the outward-facing elevations are 3/6 and 6/3 timber sash windows.

The main south entrance clock tower has a large round-headed carriage arch with a sandstone architrave surround, plinth blocks, and impost blocks. Above impost level there is a timber panel with glazing, while a pair of 19th-century vertically-sheeted timber doors on iron hinges give access to the yard. The walls and soffit within the arch are smooth lime rendered, with a small square-headed door opening to either side fitted with replacement timber panelled doors. Door openings generally are square-headed with multi-paned glazed timber doors, some double-leaf. To the corner towers of the front south elevation, within the double-height recess, there is a round-headed door opening formed in voussoired stone with double-leaf, multi-paned timber glazed doors incorporating Gothick tracery fanlights, and an oculus to the upper stage with circular timber casement windows.

Interior

While the conversion involved heavy remodelling of the stable interiors, the majority of the roof structure and some original joinery have been retained.

Historical Context

According to Lady Kinahan, the former owner, the Stable Yard is an exact replica of the old Fish Market in Edinburgh, which was demolished in 1930. Original plans for the yard are held in the Soane Museum in London.

The Adam Yard forms part of the Castle Upton estate, which is thought to contain fragments of a 13th-century fortified priory of the Knights of St John. The late medieval castle, of which a significant portion survives today, was built by Sir Robert and Humphrey Norton around 1610. The Plantation Commissioners of 1610 recorded their observations as follows: "we beheald materialles sufficient to finish a faire castle already built two stories high with two greate Towres of flankers the worke of Humfrey Northon Lieutenant of the Lo: Deputies foot companie, at a place called Tymple Patricke upon the said Sir Arthur Chichester's lande by the River of Sixmylewater. He means to build a stonge bawne of lyme and stone about it towards w'ch said Sir Arthur gives 100 li ster and a lease of the lands for many yeares at a small rent." The castle was sold in 1625 to Captain Henry Upton of Cornwall, later Viscount Templeton, in whose family it remained until the early 20th century.

Clotworthy Upton, the first Lord Templeton, and his son, later the first Viscount, commissioned Robert Adam in 1783 to remodel the house "with a castle air." Original drawings are held in the Soane Museum in London. Adam never actually visited Ireland and many of his proposed works were not carried out; however, the asymmetrical castellations are notable. Although the picturesque castellated style was only just becoming fashionable at this time, classical symmetry was still highly regarded. The works included raising the two round towers, which were finished with conical roofs, and the addition of a wing with a further round tower. The stable complex is entirely Adam's work and is rigidly symmetrical, as is the neo-classical mausoleum on the estate, which displays typical Adam detailing. The Griffith's Valuation of 1860 valued the estate at £207.

When the Kinahan family purchased the estate in 1963, the yard was in a state of advanced decay and housed a number of pigsties. The conversion to housing, carried out between 1998 and 2000, involved remodelling and sympathetic renovation. The complex retains its original format with many appropriate replacement features — including the lead spire to the central arch — which have contributed to the long-term sustainability of this architecturally significant 18th-century complex. The building is also recorded as a monument.