Remnants of a Moorish Tower

Yesterday I went for walk around Castlewellan Forest Park. This Moorish tower is marked on one of the trails so we decided to have a look.

Castlewellan Forest Park and much of the village were built by the Annesley Family. The family acquired the estate over 250 years ago. This tower was built for the family’s enjoyment, a great place to appreciate the views over the estate. The roof and windows are gone but the walls have been there for over 200 years.

The tower has interesting openings in the stone walls with stone lintels above them. I wasn’t sure if these have been used to slot timber beams into or if they have another function? Would you know anything about what these would have been for Lisa?

The fireplace is still remains which is also built into the walls.

This photograph shows the views from the tower looking over the lake... really lovely place to visit.

So deadline approaching, guess I better actually start polluting the inter-web here.

Below are some interesting examples of terraces in Belfast, focusing on the North and West so far, seems to quite an interesting variation of type and material, as hoped for from reading material, The Antrim road area quite distinctively uses a yellow brick for detailing not found in the rest of Belfast, definately not made here so probably scottish or welsh.  The other example are more reserved two-up, two-downs but show rather intriquing brickwork.  Building was obviously built on a far more conservative approach but the delicate detailing of rubbed and shaped brick and rather reserved use of architectural motifs indicate the same sense of craftmanship and awareness of materiality, which would make sense with the sheer number of brickyards in the West at that time,

possible case studies??






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A day out - Carrickfergus Castle

Today I took a visit to Carrickfergus castle. The typology of castle seems to mark a rough beginning of domestic stone architecture in Ireland so it seemed an appropriate place to visit.

I could probably write an entire dissertation on the massacre that has been wrought on the keep tower all in the guise of 'health and safety' fire extinguishers everywhere, cheap emergency lighting, fire doors, industrial staircases... I found it very difficult to capture the atmosphere of the space - a real shame seeing as it is one of Ireland's best preserved castles of its time. Anyway...

Still alot of interesting things to see.

Interesting window detailing, with slate arch

Large arch in great hall, situated on the top floor. Note: right hand door accessed through window reveal into a spiral stair enclosed within the wall thickness

Small windows were used as a defence mechanism. Splayed reveals and rough texture help to fiffuse the light and make it more beneficial for the internal space 

King John.... on the John. A single garderobe built into the wall thickness

Opening to external door showing full 5m wall thickness

Spiral staircase built into the wall thickness complete with trip step - one step with a larger riser than the rest that would trip an invader.

This was the most atmospheric space within the whole castle grounds, it is a small room sized tower that protrudes towards the sea - the waves crash off the wall about 5m beneath the openings.. It has arrow openings on three sides and the wind blows through from all directions. When I was there I sat in a window on the land side. Out of the direct wind the room was surprisingly warm considering that it was open to the elements on all sides. It's not really relevant to my dissertation as it isn't a domestic space, however the proportions were similar to a domestic 'room' and the resulting atmosphere was so nice that I decided to give it a quick survey.

Sir John Soane and J.M.W. Turner

Art Critic Jonathan Jones describes in a film for the Guardian how the “different optical atmospheres” Soane creates resemble the expression of light in the paintings of artist Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Image from http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/british-watercolours-turner-and-ruskin/

Robyn Nelson Dissertation Abstract

How can structure (domes) create beautiful internal domestic scale spaces?

Abstract

  

Guided by my personal interest in interiors, and a particular curiosity of interiors created by domed structures, I have elected to make this the topic of my dissertation. 

The quality of interior space is appreciated through its illumination. Therefore in order to study the dome I must always analyse the lighting conditions. As light falls on a surface it gives it form... fundamentally this is architecture. Josep Quetglas writes for Elias Torres’s book Zenithal Light,

“As we often instinctively, associate light with its source -the sun- and shadow with its limits -darkness-, we assume that light is a phenomenon of the exterior, and that shadow is a phenomenon of the interior.

The opposite is closer to the truth: only in interiors does light materialize and allow itself to be seen; the shadows are outside. The light has a presence and gives form only to what is inside, while shadow has a presence and gives form to what is outside.

Light is a phenomenon of the interior.”

In order to make this topic more tangible I will study the architecture of Sir John Soane in England around the turn of the nineteenth century. I will use No.13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London as a lens through which to explore Soane’s understanding of the interior and in particular the dome. 

Soane a master of both light and space and free from Classical restraints would manipulate classical orders to achieve wonderfully intriguing and diverse rooms. The manner in which the museum was built informed much of how it came to be as it is. The museum, made up for three adjoining town houses acquired at different stages throughout a forty year period meant that the museum was an ever evolving project for Soane, deeply personal to him.

For research purposes I hope to visit the Sir John Soane Museum, No. 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. There I will document the rooms within the museum in order to achieve comparable data each space. I will also undertake archival research where I hope to discover evidence of the people and buildings that influenced Soane’s architecture.