Artistic endeavour

ART CLASSES:Newtownbarry House has found a new sense of purpose as a gallery and weekend art school, writes ROBERT O'BYRNE

THERE CAN SCARCELY be a householder in the country at the moment who isn’t concerned over how best to manage the family home. And those anxieties are likely to be more acute when the home in question is a heritage property and somewhat larger than the norm. Hence the proliferation in recent years of historic homeowners opening their doors to the public, most often to offer guided tours or a better class of bed and breakfast.

Clody Norton has come up with a variation on the theme by using her Co Wexford home as a centre for art courses. The Newtownbarry estate is outside Bunclody, a town which, for several hundred years, was known by the same name of Newtownbarry, following the purchase of the lands on which it stands by James Barry, sometime MP for Naas, at the beginning of the 18th century. He handed on the estate to his daughter Judith, following her marriage to Cavan landowner John Maxwell, later lord Farnham.

The Maxwell-Barrys laid out the centre of Bunclody in the form it retains, and on the opposite side of the river Slaney they built a fine house, called Woodfield. By the mid-1840s, however, they had gone, and after standing empty for some time, Woodfield was bought by Clody Norton’s great-great-grandfather Robert Hall-Dare. Although he died only a few years after making the purchase, work had already begun on demolishing Woodfield (Clody Norton has a photograph taken in the mid-1860s showing the last section of the old house) and replacing it with a new residence designed by fashionable Belfast architect Charles Lanyon and, it is generally assumed, his pupil WH Lynn.

The house, with its exterior clad in austere cut granite, broken by wide sheets of plate glass, is intended to impress as much as welcome visitors and to suggest a greater permanence than that enjoyed by its predecessor on the site. Both outside and in, the proportions are substantial, even the bedrooms being larger than is usual for country houses. Beyond the vast arched entrance porch, Lanyon and Lynn created a series of spaces that flow one into the other, allowing ease of movement through the building and softening the overall impact.

The dominant feature of the house is its double-height staircase hall and upper landing, the latter treated as a top-lit picture gallery, not dissimilar from that designed by Lanyon around the same time at Stradbally Hall in Co Laois. Below is a suite of spaces for entertaining that encompass diningroom, salon, library and drawingroom.

By the time Clody Norton assumed responsibility for Newtownbarry in 1972 after the death of her father, another Robert Hall-Dare, much of the house had fallen into serious disrepair.

Fortunately, her late husband, Jim Norton, was an architect and although money was never plentiful, the couple managed to rescue the house from further dereliction and engaged in a certain amount of modernisation, such as the installation of a kitchen in what until then had been the dining room. Today, the main block of the house is structurally sound and an admirable example of high-Victorian style.

As a young woman, Norton spent some time at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin and later won a scholarship to the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. Both she and her daughter Alice, who in turn attended NCAD, are keen painters, and so in 2002 they converted part of a wing of the house into an art gallery.

Painter David Begley is a resident in Newtownbarry’s stable yard, and he and the Norton family organise an annual summer exhibition featuring their own work and that of other artists, some of whom, including Maria Levinge and Moira McCaffery Robertson, live locally.

Five years ago, Newtownbarry provided the venue for a drawing course run by the New English Art Club (NEAC), which once counted William Orpen among its members. Inspired by the NEAC’s visit, Clody Norton has begun to host a number of other events. Classes are held in an airy, bright studio created in what had been the old kitchen. Focusing on traditional skills such as life drawing and portrait painting, each course is taught by an acknowledged expert in the field. Some, including Una Sealy and Mick O’Dea, are Irish, but there are others from overseas.

With no more than 12 students in a group, the atmosphere is relaxed, but at the same time with serious intent on improving technique. This is definitely not just an excuse for a country house weekend, even if accommodation is provided within the main part of Newtownbarry, where home-cooked fare is provided by Alice Norton. Clody Norton’s experience shows it is still possible for historic properties built as family homes to remain just that – yet, at the same time, discover a new sense of purpose.

Art courses take place in Newtownbarry House, Bunclody, Co Wexford in September, October and November. For further information, see newtownbarryhouse.com