Clock Tower Flat, No 2 The Adam Yard, Castle Upton, Templepatrick, Co Antrim, BT39 0BE

Clock Tower Flat, No. 2 The Adam Yard, Castle Upton, Templepatrick, County Antrim

The Clock Tower Flat forms part of the Adam Yard, a detached, symmetrical, quadrangular stable complex built around 1790 to designs by Robert Adam. It is a Grade A listed building of exceptional architectural and historical importance, representing one of Adam's finest works in a rural Irish setting and demonstrating outstanding late 18th-century stonemasonry. The flat itself occupies the west piers of the south entrance tower and a further bay to the west.

Background and Historical Context

The Castle Upton estate is thought to contain fragments of a 13th-century fortified Priory of the Knights of St John. The late medieval castle, a significant portion of which survives today, was built by Sir Robert and Humphrey Norton around 1610. A Plantation Commissioner's report of that year recorded: "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, and remained in that family 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." Adam never visited Ireland in person, and many of his proposed works were not carried out. Nevertheless, the asymmetrical castellations he designed are notable: although the picturesque castellated style was only just becoming fashionable at the time, classical symmetry was still highly regarded. Adam's works to the house included raising the two round towers, finishing them with conical roofs, and adding a wing with an additional round tower. The stable complex, by contrast, is entirely Adam's work and is rigidly symmetrical, as is the neoclassical mausoleum on the estate, which displays typical Adam detailing. Original drawings for both the house and stable yard are held at the Soane Museum in London.

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. 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 complex was converted to twelve dwellings between 1998 and 2000.

Overall Form and Layout

The stable complex is a multi-bay, two-storey building of coursed and snecked rubblestone with lime pointing and a projecting rubblestone plinth course. Its quadrangular plan incorporates a main arched entrance clock tower to the south, a further arched rear entrance block to the north, and a central range on an east-west axis with an additional arched tower flanked by a pair of square-plan blocks. Six square-plan towers with chamfered corners define the corners of the two yards. The yard retains its original format with many appropriate replacement features where necessary.

Roofs and Spires

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 south entrance clock tower is crowned by an octagonal-plan spire with lead ridges; the lower half is clad in natural slate, the upper half fitted with metal louvres, and the whole surmounted by a lead globe and weather vane. The central arched tower has a square-plan lead spire, added around 2008.

Parapets and Decorative Stonework

The south and central arched towers and all six corner towers — with the exception of the northwest tower — have crenellated parapet walls with sandstone coping resting on a corbelled course of red brick. This same parapet treatment is applied to the front (south) elevation of the two linear ranges, which also feature slender arched recesses with red brick heads. The central arched tower has four bartizans at its corners, formed in red brick with sandstone corbelling and replacement sandstone capstones.

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 red brick corbelled course. These piers carry blind balistrariae to the upper stage and blind loop-holes to the lower stage 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 the north elevation has loop-hole openings to the ground floor, also glazed to the interior wall.

Rainwater Goods, Eaves and Chimneys

Replacement cast-iron rainwater goods are fixed on iron drive-through brackets to projecting rubblestone eaves courses, with some lead hoppers. Chimneys are in red brick with octagonal clay pots and lead flashing.

Windows

Windows are generally square-headed with rendered reveals, concrete sills, and timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes, dating from around 2000. Between the paired piers flanking the arched entrance tower 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. Window openings facing the two yards are 6/6 timber sash to the ground floor, with oculi openings to the first floor formed in red brick and fitted with circular timber casement windows. Some large round-headed window openings occupy former carriage arch positions in the central linear range, with voussoired stone arches and multi-pane timber windows with integrated fanlights. The linear east and west ranges each have a lucarne opening at 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 to the outward-facing elevations, with a central 6/6 sash flanked by 4/4 timber sash windows. The first floor of the outward-facing elevations has 3/6 and 6/3 timber sash windows.

Entrance Archway and Doors

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 is a timber panel with glazing. 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, each fitted with replacement timber panelled doors. Door openings generally are square-headed with multi-paned glazed timber doors, some double-leaf. Within the double-height recesses of the front south elevation corner towers, there is a round-headed door opening formed in voussoired stone with double-leaf multi-paned timber glazed doors, Gothick tracery fanlights, and an oculus to the upper stage with circular timber casement windows.

Yards, Grounds and Setting

The two yards are surfaced in gravel. The rear (north) yard contains a flower bed formed in stone setts taking the form of a Prussian iron cross, with a carved stone pedestal and iron sundial on a moulded red brick base. Stone flags surround the east, north, and west elevations.

The stable complex, now known as the Adam Yard, is set to the east of Castle Upton and accessed by a long tree-lined avenue running perpendicular to the main street of Templepatrick (Belfast Road). To the north of the rear is a lawned area with a stone ha-ha and a small stone bridge, with a tarmac driveway providing vehicular access to the north yard. To the northeast is a seven-bay, single-storey stone-clad garage, built around 2000, which abuts the wall of the Upton graveyard.

Conversion

The complex was renovated and converted to twelve dwellings between 1988 and 2000. While this involved heavy remodelling of the stable interiors, the majority of the roof structure and some joinery were retained. The conversion also saw the insertion of new timber sash windows, an increase in the number of window and door openings, and the use of concrete sills with historically appropriate fenestration. The conversion has resulted in the long-term sustainability of this architecturally significant 18th-century complex.