Lambay Island - Lambay Castle

Lambay Castle

A small late 16th century fort with battlemented gables, possibly incorporating a 15th. century blockhouse, on Lambay Island, four kilometres off the north County Dublin coast; transformed by Sir Edwin Lutyens into a romantic castle for Hon. Cecil Baring, afterwards 3rd. Lord Revelstoke, who bought the island in 1904 as a place to escape to with his beautiful young wife, the daughter of Pierre Lorriard, the first American to win the Derby; the story of their early life here inspired Julian Slade’s musical 'Free as Air'. Lutyens made the old fort habitable and built a quadrangle of offices and extra bedrooms adjoining it, with roofs of grey pantiles sweeping down almost to the ground. He also built a circular curtain wall or enceinte surrounding the castle and its garden, with an impressive bastioned gateway; this wall serves the practical purpose of a wind break, enabling trees and plants to grow inside it- which would not grow outside. Everything is of a silvery grey stone, bleached pale by sun and storm. The rooms in the castle have vaulted ceilings and stone fireplaces; there is a stone staircase with many attractive curves and an underground gallery in the new quadrangle which might have been conceived by Piranesi. Lutyens also designed the approach from the harbour, with curved step-like terraces reminiscent of the now-vanished Ripetta in Rome; characteristically, having ascended those Baroque steps, one has to cross an open field to come to the curtain wall, the entrance gateway not being at first visible; so there is a wonderful sense of expectancy. Close to the harbour is the White House, a largely single-storey horse-shoe shaped house with high roofs and white harled walls, which Lutyens designed in 1930's for Lord Revelstoke's daughter Hon. Mrs. (Arthur) Pollen. On a hill is an old Catholic chapel, with a portico of tapering stone columns and a barrel vaulted ceiling.