Castle Upton, Antrim Road, Templepatrick, Co Antrim, BT39 0AH

Castle Upton is an important country house in Templepatrick, County Antrim, with a late medieval core dating from at least the early 17th century. It stands as one of only two buildings in Ireland worked on by Robert Adam, and is a good and early example of the Romantic eclecticism that was beginning to supersede the more rigid classicism of the 18th century. The house has been well preserved, retaining original fabric and features from most periods of its continued occupation. Together with the Adam stable yard, mausoleum and gate lodges, it forms a key group of buildings of national significance that has been central to the development of the local area.

The house dates in part from around 1600, was remodelled around 1780 to designs by Robert Adam, and remodelled again around 1840 to designs by Edward Blore. It is a multi-bay, split-level country house over an exposed basement, L-shaped on plan and facing south. Full-height towers survive from around 1600 at the north-east and south, with a further tower added at the north-west in the 1840s. The house occupies a parkland setting to the north side of Templepatrick village.

The roof is hipped natural slate with conical roofs to the towers, roll-top clay ridge tiles, and foliated terracotta finials to the south tower. Chimneystacks are rendered with corbelled caps. Rainwater goods are ogee-profile cast iron on deep moulded eaves. External walling is roughcast throughout.

Windows throughout are side-hung timber casements, transomed and mullioned to the principal floors, with sandstone blocked surrounds, lintels and sills unless otherwise noted.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrical, with a raised ground floor set on two levels. The 17th-century south tower is offset to the left. To its right the original north wing rises three storeys over basement; to its left it is two storeys over basement. A projecting entrance porch is attached at the internal angle between the tower and the main block. The porch is smooth rendered with mock machicolations, tourelles, and a stepped parapet incorporating a Maltese Cross motif. It is entered through a round-headed opening with a moulded archivolt on plain sandstone pilasters, reached by eleven stone steps. The entrance door within is wood-grained and six-panelled, fitted with a lockbox and brass fish knocker, set within a painted moulded masonry architrave carrying the date 1611 at the head.

The west elevation of the main block has two windows to the ground floor with label moulds and a single window to the first floor, all with smooth rendered surrounds. The remainder of this elevation to the left consists of a single-storey-over-basement ballroom extension with a circular tower at its right end; three windows serve the principal floor, while the basement has a central replacement door flanked by windows on either side. The four-stage tower to the right is detailed to match the house, with string courses, a machicolated parapet and a tourelle on a corbelled base; musket loops are present at ground-floor level.

The rear elevation of the ballroom extension is built in snecked basalt rubble stonework and has a single window to the principal floor set in a projecting bay corbelled out over mock machicolations. The parapet contains an open stone transomed and mullioned window surround, with a brick tourelle and musket loop to the left. The east elevation of the ballroom extension is detailed in the same manner as the rear; at its right end it is abutted by a stair tower with spurs, roughcast to the second stage and exposed rubble stone above.

The north elevation of the main block features a bowed bay slightly offset to the right of centre. The section to its right projects slightly and is abutted by the ballroom extension. The exposed section has 1-over-1 and 2-over-2 timber sliding sash windows to the first floor. All windows on this elevation have chamfered stone reveals. The bowed bay has a tall transomed and mullioned window, a tall projecting rubble stone plinth, and a four-panelled door to the basement flanked by a window to either side. The left section is terminated by a circular tower, the roof of which is not visible. There is an eight-panelled, pointed-arched-headed door to the basement with a chamfered stone reveal. The east elevation of the main block has two windows to each floor and is abutted by a tower at the north corner.

Setting

The house is set in lawned gardens with a gravel forecourt immediately to the south. To the rear is a small paved stone courtyard — formerly containing kitchens, which were demolished around 1960 — enclosed by a castellated roughcast wall with a tower at the north-east corner and accessed from the east through a round-headed arch with a sandstone surround. The house is located within a demesne entered from Templepatrick Main Street via the east lodge and the Main Gate to the south. To the east is the stable yard, designed by Robert Adam and now converted into housing. To the north-east is an estate graveyard containing the Templeton Mausoleum, also by Robert Adam.

Historical Background

Research drawing on the Preliminary Survey of the Ancient Monuments of Northern Ireland, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, and a booklet by Lady Kinahan suggests that remains of a 13th-century fortified priory of the Knights of St John — who settled at Templepatrick under the command of John de Courcy — may be incorporated into parts of the rear courtyard wall. Research conducted by Sir John Campbell indicates that the chief portion of that castle consisted of a room of seven arches, which was later subdivided by the Upton family into a servant's hall, a boot room and a pantry. According to this account, the Knights retained the castle until 1598, during the Reformation. However, Girvan and Rowan argue that no parts of the St John's refectory survive.

The late medieval castle, a significant portion of which remains today, was built by Sir Robert and Humphrey Norton around 1610. The Plantation Commissioners reported in 1610: "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 lister 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 1782–83 and again in 1788–89 to remodel the house with what Adam described as a castle air. Original drawings are held in the Soane Museum in London. Adam never visited Ireland in person, and many of his proposed works were not carried out; nevertheless, the asymmetrical castellations are notable. Although the picturesque castellated style was only just beginning to gain favour at this time, classical symmetry was still highly regarded. Adam's works included raising the two round towers, which he finished with conical roofs, and adding a wing with an additional round tower. The stable complex is entirely his work and is rigidly symmetrical, as is the neoclassical mausoleum, which displays typical Adam detailing.

In 1837, Edward Blore was commissioned by the second Viscount Templeton to further remodel the house. He added mullioned windows and remodelled Adam's interiors, redecoratingthem throughout in Tudorbethan style. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1838, written almost contemporaneously with Blore's work, describe the castle as follows: "The Present Castle originally consisted of a quadrangular building with a larger circular tower at its NE and SW angles, and in 1798 an addition of a wing containing some very fine apartments was made by Lord Templetown on the north side of the Castle — the appearance is somewhat baronial and interesting and its extent rather considerable. Of three floors and basement the towers, four storeys with conical roofs with vanes, and with ornamental little machicolated towers at its other angles, give to the building a singular and pleasing effect — which however is not increased by its having been roughcast and whitened. Current improvements to the Castle, which is let, are by an architect Mr Blower of London."

The 1860 Griffith's Valuation valued the estate at £207. In 1963 the castle was bought by Sir Robin Kinahan, and the ruined Adam wing was rebuilt. The Doric frieze in the ballroom is a copy of a surviving fragment of Adam's work in the round tower. The main building was re-roofed in the mid-20th century. A number of restorative works were carried out in the ballroom between 1977 and 1981, including roof repairs by Isherwood and Ellis.