Whether you approach it from the town of Carnew or the village of Shillelagh, the house known as the Game Keeper’s Lodge at Coolattin has a touch of the fairytale about it.
The surrounding countryside is an idyllic sweep of fields and forested hills, and the stylish building itself speaks of a time when the live-in gamekeeper would have played a key role in the glamorous world of shooting parties and hunt balls at the nearby Big House.
That Big House was, of course, Coolattin House, once owned – as were a mind-boggling 90,000 acres of land across counties Wicklow, Wexford and Kildare – by the Earls of Fitzwilliam.
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Built in the 1830s, when the future Queen Victoria was still a child, the Game Keeper’s Lodge sits on an acre of mature grounds just across the road from what, today, is the main entrance to Coolattin golf club.
If the exterior of the house is steeped in history, the interior is a voyage through time. In recent years the lodge has been home to antiques lover Pat Martin, who has carried out interior renovations to the listed building, providing the sort of all-mod-cons kitchen and utility room which wouldn’t have been a priority in the Victorian era.
He also refurbished the granite-faced mews house attached to the property, known as “the butty” because it was where the estate’s game beaters would gather for soup and a sandwich after the hunt: the hounds were kept in a kennels at the back.
Martin’s passion for antique furniture has ensured that the rooms of the lodge are filled with his most treasured pieces. After many years in the trade he is planning to retire and downsize, so the lodge and mews are for sale through Gorey-based Warren Estates for €530,000– and more than 600 lots of antiques and decorative objects are to come under the hammer at a most unusual auction.
Viewing will take place over three days in the lodge itself; the sale, to be conducted by Joe Mullen from Mullens Laurel Park in Dublin, will be held in the capacious surroundings of the Mount Wolseley Spa Hotel and Golf Resort, a 20-minute drive away.
The arrangement gives prospective bidders access to online and telephone bidding as well as the 21st-century comforts of the hotel bar – but also the opportunity to view a carefully-curated collection of antiques in, as it were, their own home.
Grandfather clock
And what a home: from the downstairs reception hall, study, sitting room and dining room to the upstairs hallway and four bedrooms, each room in the lodge has its own character, and is furnished accordingly. Many of the pieces reflect the house’s history. A pair of carved wooden dogs carrying game sit inside the front door, perpetually ready for sporting action; a beaters’ stick from the Fitzwilliam era, discovered during the renovation of the “butty”, is perched in a hallstand.
How, I ask Pat Martin, did he get started in the antiques business?
“From childhood,” he says. “I was born in a Georgian townhouse in Enniscorthy. My father had a flair for old things. I remember as a kid trying to get into the case of a grandfather clock – and a cousin with me, ‘helping’ me in from behind. The whole thing could have come down on top of me, weights and all.”
Young Pat grew up, married and got a job in the meat trade. But his admiration for antiques stayed with him.
"My late wife went out one day and bought some furniture," he remembers. "When it was delivered, I kept looking at it and saying 'That's not furniture'. I bought my first piece at an auction in Lowney's in Wexford for IR£60. It was one of those mirror-backed side cabinets that you wouldn't give away today – but it was solid. That was furniture."
From there on he bought bits and pieces, working in various aspects of the furniture business – secondhand furniture, contemporary furniture and removals – and learning about antiques as he went along.
“Everything I buy, I buy it because I like it,” he says. “I don’t buy it to sell it. At one stage I wanted to keep everything – which physically was an impossibility, and financially wasn’t a good move.”
So he also learned to let go. But not before amassing, at various stages, collections of all sorts. Walking sticks. Boxes. Clocks.
What would he seek out, at auction?
“I like Irish makers, whether it’s furniture or silver or guns or whatever. And I think it’s always a good investment. Because of the size of our country, there wasn’t a huge amount made. Rosewood is probably my favourite, and especially inlaid rosewood. Inlay is an intricate business, so it shows that the craftsman went the extra mile when they were making the piece.”
In Martin’s breakfast room, a slim Regency side cabinet in rosewood with inlaid brass, its frieze adorned with running carved animals (Lot 65, €1,500–€2,000) makes the perfect TV table. On the bright upstairs landing is a mahogany and brass double-ended scroll-armed settee (Lot 218, €1,500–€2,000).
Hunting-shooting theme
The hunting-shooting-fishing theme is echoed by an 1886 oil-on-board mountain landscape by Alfred Gray, In the Glen, (Lot 91, €2,000–€3,000) and a rare 19th-century Black Forest wall clock (Lot 70, €1,500–€2,500), its intricate wooden carving giving shelter to birds, squirrels and even a fox.
A big-bore wildfowl shotgun (Lot 347, €3,500–€4,500) made by Dowling comes with documentation to show it was sold in Dublin in 1888. A rare Irish cased needlefire rook gun made by William John Rigby circa 1861 (Lot 346, €3,500–€4,500) belonged to Thomas Arthur Bellew from Mountbellew, Co Galway, who married Pauline, daughter of the campaigning Anglo-Irish politician Henry Grattan.
Other items include a leatherbound monogrammed travelling case which belonged to HRH the Duchess of Gloucester (Lot 281, €250–€350), a George III steel cash box owned by Mary Robinson (Lot 369, €300–€400) and a silver plate dish ring from the collection of the Hollywood star Maureen O’Hara (Lot 196, €200–€300).
In the peaceful garden, items of statuary and garden furniture are also for sale including a cast iron 19th-century decorative bird bath in the style of Coalbrookdale (Lot 589, €700–€900), and a pair of 19th-century cast iron griffins on cut granite bases (Lot 588, €400–€600).
The Game Keeper's Lodge Fine Art Interior Sale takes place Tuesday, October 23rd at noon. Viewing at the lodge on Saturday, Sunday and Monday: sale at Mount Wolseley Spa Hotel and Golf Resort. mullenslaurelpark.com
