One side of the main street through the village of Templepatrick
in Co Antrim consists of the demesne wall of Castle Upton. It
is relieved by a fortified gateway at the centre of the village
which leads up to the Castle itself. Closer inspection of the
tower reveals that one of the turrets is actually a chimney, and
that there are narrow slit windows near the gateway. Discreetly
positioned behind the wall is a gate lodge consisting of two rooms,
one on either side of the gate. Over the years it had been extended
to make a larger house, but it was still necessary to cross the
gateway to get from the living room to one of the bedrooms - not
a very satisfactory layout, although one which was very common
in 19th century gatehouses.
The gate lodge, its tower and the demesne
wall of which it is part are all the work of the distinguished
architect Edward Blore, but they are only part of the much larger
complex of Castle Upton.
The core of the main house is a tower
house with walls up to five feet thick, erected in 1611 by Sir
Robert Norton and originally known as Castle Norton. It was purchased
in 1625 by Captain Henry Upton, who became MP for Carrickfergus
in 1634 and renamed the building. His descendants, the Viscounts
Templeton, who owned Templepatrick, added a wing of fine apartments
to the north. The resulting mass was described in the Ordnance
Survey Memoir of 1837 as "somewhat baronial and interesting,
and its extent rather considerable". The memoirs also mention
a "handsome battlemented wall has been built [by the 3rd
Viscount Templeton] along that side of the demesne bounded by
the village and turnpike road" that is obviously the wall
in which the present Tower is set. Indeed it must be the "magnificent
entrance, somewhat resembling a barbican, in the Saxon style of
architecture" which the Memoirs describe, although they say
it is of "punched granite, with white porphyry quoins, mouldings
and pinnacles". The architect is recorded as "Mr Blower
of London", obviously Edward Blore.
Robert Adam was responsible for two
earlier phases of building at the castle - for the 1st Lord Templeton
he extended the house, and for his son the 2nd Viscount he added
the faintly Gothic stables in 1788. The classical Templeton Mausoleum
near the other entrance to the estate, now owned by the National
Trust, is also by Adam. Blore added oriel windows to the castle
and designed much of its present interior as well as the arched
gateway of the lodge. His drawings for work at the house, while
not exactly as executed, are in the Victoria & Albert Museum
(A.182.S. 8731-9).
Hearth negotiated a lease of the lodge
from the present owner of Castle Upton, and has extended each
of the original rooms to become the core of a separate house,
so that two houses rather than two rooms share the entrance. The
gate still serves Castle Upton itself, although its main entrance
is now elsewhere.
Since the houses are screened from
the street by the demesne wall, there is no external evidence
of the extension work, and inside the grounds they building is
screened by trees. Nevertheless the extensions were built in rubble
basalt to match the original lodge, and window openings were framed
in cast stone with exposed aggregate to match the weathered granite
of the original windows. There were no original windows left in
the building, but cast iron lattice casements were made, in keeping
with the style of the building, and secondary glazing was provided
to reduce possible condensation problems. A culvert below the
building was diverted and extensive restoration carried out on
the tower.
The view from the road is unchanged...
..but there are now two lodges
behind the tower
Client: Hearth Housing
Association Architect: Hearth
Main Contractor: JS Dunlop, Ballymoney.
Restored: 2003
Accommodation: Two two-bedroom houses
Assisted by loans and grants from: Heritage Lottery Fund, Housing
Association Grant, Historic Buildings Grant and own capital.
For more details of the restoration of this building,
click here.
