Coming to the rescue of a plain, handsome house

Ballinderry Park in Co Galway, was nearly derelict when new owners revived it using everything from original materials to MDF, writes Robert O'Byrne

TWO LARGE estates used to dominate the countryside to the immediate west of Ballinasloe, Co Galway: Clonbrock and Woodlawn. Both the grand houses lying at their centres have sunken into a state almost beyond salvation. Yet lying between them is a fine 18th century property that has somehow managed to survive and has recently undergone meticulous restoration.

That Ballinderry Park should stand at all is little short of astonishing. When the Land Commission bought the place in 1947 it displayed its customary disinterest in architecture and proceeded to break up the acreage with no thought of the effect this would have on the house that had been there for the previous two centuries.

Only for a considerate farmer who acquired the immediate fields, Ballinderry might now be as much a memory as is its long-vanished, tree-lined avenue. Today the former main entrance to the estate, still guarded by a tiny gate lodge is surrounded by unappealing new bungalows.

Beyond these winds the way to Ballinderry; after several twists, there remains a final corner to round before the house swings into view with all the charm of an old-fashioned doll's house.

It must have taken quite a feat of imagination on the part of George and Susie Gossip to visualise the building they chose to buy in 2001. Nature appeared ready to reclaim whatever had been left by the Land Commission, with foliage covering the north gable and the west-facing rear in places exposed to the elements.

Inside vandals had also done their best to hasten the house's demise, with chimneypieces ripped out and windows smashed. The staircase was unsteady, ceilings in the principal ground floor rooms had partially fallen in and woodworm was rife.

Rather than deterring them, this appalling spectacle seems only to have incited the Gossips to take action. Both were familiar with living in old houses: Susie spent much of her childhood in this part of Co Galway, while George grew up outside Waterford City. From 1989 until 2000, they lived in Tullanisk House in Birr, Co Offaly, which they ran as a Hidden Ireland property.

Now it was time for fresh challenges, the first of which was to find the right house. "We looked all over Ireland," says George Gossip. "We nearly bought in West Cork and were negotiating to buy somewhere else when Ballinderry came up."

Surrounded by 40 acres of parkland, the house itself is not especially large, running to approximately 418sq m (4,500 sq ft). Nor is Ballinderry particularly 'grand'. Standing on land once owned by the Franciscan Friary of Kilconnell, the present structure dates from the first half of the 18th century and was most likely built for a family called Stanford. By 1786 it had been rented to a Catholic farmer called Lewis Ward whose descendants would eventually buy Ballinderry and remain in ownership until the 1940s.

Inevitably over the course of a couple of centuries, various alterations took place - not all of them beneficial. Windows were blocked up, plateglass installed, chair-rails removed; all the usual evidence of changes in taste. But the basic plan of Ballinderry survived: a solid block of two storeys over sunken basement with seven-bay front, the three centre bays taking the form of a projecting bow. A two-storey extension was added later.

The building is made of rough fieldstone and was originally covered with lime render. It is plain, handsome and unpretentious.

Only the main entrance makes any claims to grandiosity: approached by a flight of five wide steps with low cut-stone walls to either side is a pedimented doorcase of cut and chamfered limestone.

Internally, the plan is a basic tripartite grouping with two comparatively small rooms - the drawingroom and diningroom - on either side of a central hall, with the staircase at the back of the hall. This arrangement is repeated on each of the upper levels, though the bow has been divided off on the upper landing. The scale of the entrance hall and its upper landings convey the impression of a larger house; they take up more than a third of Ballinderry's interior.

Given these dimensions, and the Gossips' desire to offer Hidden Ireland hospitality in the property, one challenge was how best to utilise the space.

This has been accomplished by designating the rear extension as the owners' private quarters and leaving the original house for guests. Even so, every tiny corner has been put to maximum use thanks to an ambitious scheme of refurbishment embarked upon by the Gossips with architect, Jeremy Williams. The main block now contains four bedrooms over two floors. Each of these has been given a tiny antechamber as well as its own bathroom.

LIKE THE drawing- and diningroom below, the walls are covered in panelling that seems to date from the period in which the house was constructed. In fact, none is more than a few years old; beneath the Farrow & Ball paint lie sheets of MDF with moulding on top.

George explains that the house was so badly neglected that almost none of its original decoration remained. On the ground floor were some sections of simple Victorian cornicing and other precious survivals included a few of the original window frames and panelled doors with their shouldered cases. But almost everything had to be replaced, permitting the Gossips to recreate the ambience of an early Georgian building. By the way, the new panelling also serves a highly practical purpose: there is a thick layer of insulation between wood and wall.

The installation of deep, shuttered window embrasures allows for cosy additional seating in the drawingroom. Throughout the house what looks like a door leading to further rooms usually turns out to conceal practical storage space. Ballinderry is full of illusion, making it near-impossible to tell which of the handsome bannisters are old and which are among the 50-plus turned by hand by Ray Walsh.

Similarly, the windows with their chunky glazing bars give the impression of having been in-situ for the past 250 years rather than carefully designed to replace anachronistic plate-glass. The Heritage Council provided funds for this work, while the Irish Georgian Society also gave financial assistance.

The ugly Victorian fireplaces have gone; the drawingroom has been given a splendid early Kilkenny marble chimneypiece from a house in Co Waterford while the diningroom has an 18th century slate chimney piece.

Ballinderry now exudes refinement, purity and simplicity. "When most people think of Georgian architecture," says George, "they imagine neo-classical style and rather grand taste. We didn't want that here because it's seriously over-done and there was nothing to indicate the approach was right for Ballinderry." He might have added that the scale of the house would have made such a decorative scheme less suitable.

The house possesses an air of confident solidity quite at odds with the vulnerability so apparent when first seen by the Gossips in 2001. After all their labour, they were finally able to move in last year and have started to receive paying guests.

As with any project of this magnitude, more work remains to be done, especially in the basement where there will be a breakfastroom, laundry and other service spaces. The grounds also demand further attention but already Ballinderry shows how much can be accomplished, even on a restricted budget, with enough flair and imagination.

Unlike the once-grander houses of Clonbrock and Woodlawn, there's now every prospect that Ballinderry Park will be around for another couple of centuries.

Ballinderry Park, Kilconnell, Ballinasloe, Co Galway, Tel 0909-686796