OPENING the shutters at Glin Castle in Co Limerick of a morning, generations of Catherine FitzGerald’s ancestors would have looked out at the same ring of sessile oaks as her family and guests do today. Descendants of the Killarney forest that once stretched down to the shores of the Shannon river in front of the castle, the gnarly, moss- and fern-covered branches of the oaks protect the 10 acres of landscaped garden from the westerly winds that whip up the estuary. ‘You can see their arms are outstretched and they circle the place to create an embrace,’ says Miss FitzGerald. ‘They are its presiding spirit.’
The family has owned the Glin demesne since the 13th century and this genius loci is of great importance to Miss FitzGerald.
It is something she always seeks out in her work as a landscape designer on large projects, such as Hillsborough Castle near Bel- fast (‘Building for peace’, October 2, 2019), and Glenarm Castle, Co Antrim (2023 Historic Houses Garden of the Year), as well as in private gardens in both Ireland and Britain. She studied horticulture at RHS Wisley in Surrey, after Trinity College, Dublin, then worked for Arabella Lennox-Boyd before setting up her own practice, formally joining forces last year with her long-term collaborator Mark Lutyens, a landscape architect, to become Lutyens & FitzGerald.
Miss FitzGerald is the eldest of the three daughters of the 29th and last Knight of Glin and, together with her husband, the actor Dominic West, she has taken on Glin, which, today, is more of a castellated grand Georgian house than anything that could withstand an attack. Even when her parents, Desmond and Olda, were in charge and running the place as a smart boutique hotel, she was given pretty much a free rein in the garden. It was a generous gift to the nascent designer and one that she has been working on for 25 years.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 07, 2024-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 07, 2024-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
