Tranarossan House
"A witty holiday home"
TypeHouse
LocationCarrigart, County Donegal, Ireland
Coordinates55°13′45″N 7°48′13″W / 55.2292°N 7.8037°W / 55.2292; -7.8037
Builtc.1907
ArchitectEdwin Lutyens
Architectural style(s)Vernacular
Governing bodyAn Óige (Irish Youth Hostel Association)
Tranarossan House is located in Ireland
Tranarossan House
Location of Tranarossan House in Ireland

Tranarossan House is an early 20th century building in Carrigart, County Donegal, Ireland. It was designed by Edwin Lutyens for Lucy Phillimore, wife of Robert Charles Phillimore. The Phillimores had bought the land on the Donegal coast in the 1890s and commissioned Lutyens to build a holiday home. The house is little documented and is not recorded in most studies of Lutyens. After her husband's death, Lucy Phillimore handed the house over to An Óige, the Irish Youth Hostel Association, in 1937. It still operates as An Óige's most northerly hostel and is a protected structure.

History and architecture

Robert Charles Phillimore came from a family of successful and prosperous lawyers and politicians. He and his wife Lucy bought land at Carrigart in the 1890s and later commissioned Edwin Lutyens to design them a holiday home.[1][2] By 1907, the year Tranarossan was completed,[a][7] Lutyens had established himself as one of England's leading architects of country houses. In his study of English domestic buildings, Das englische Haus, published in 1904, Hermann Muthesius had written of him, "He is a young man who has come increasingly to the forefront of domestic architects and who may soon become the accepted leader among English builders of houses".[8]

Robert Phillimore died in 1919. After retaining the house for nearly 20 years, his widow donated it to An Óige in 1937. The house remains a youth hostel, the most northerly in Ireland.[9] The house is little documented and is not referenced in most of the major studies of Lutyens and his work.[b]

In his North West Ulster volume of the Buildings of Ireland series, Alistair Rowan describes Tranarossan as “two gabled granite blocks…the roofs huge unbroken slopes of heavy local slate”.[12] The building is of one main storey, with attic bedrooms in the gables.[13] Rowan, noting a “typical Lutyens joke” - a pier rising from the veranda stops just short of the roof beam it purports to support - calls the house a “witty holiday home”.[12] Tranarossan is listed by Donegal County Council on its Record of Protected Structures.[13]

Notes

  1. ^ The exact date of the house’s construction is unclear. The Museum of Ireland ascribes it to 1907, while the Lutyens Trust describes it as “the last house Lutyens designed in Ireland”, which would date Tranarossan later than Costelloe Lodge in Connemara, the house he built for J. Bruce Ismay in around 1922.[3] The record of the building in the Dictionary of Irish Architects does not provide a date.[4] In their entry for the Winter House, Rawros, County Donegal, which it dates to c.1900, the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH) notes design similarities between the two buildings and suggests that they were "built around the same time".[5] Another NIAH document describes the house as "Edwardian" and built at the "start of the century".[6]
  2. ^ Christopher Hussey’s official biography, The Life of Sir Edwin Lutyens,[10] does not include mention of the house. It is recorded, as undated, in the catalogue for the 1982 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery which did much to restore Lutyens’ reputation.[11]

References

  1. ^ Oram, Hugh (22 November 2016). "Hostel Climate: An Irishman's diary on the rich history behind An Óige's hostels". The Irish Times.
  2. ^ Richiero, Roberta. "Lucy Phillimore and Trá na Rosann Youth Hostel". anoige.ie. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  3. ^ Oram, Hugh. "Lutyens' Commissions in Ireland". The Lutyens Trust. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  4. ^ "Co. Donegal, Tranarossan House". Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1940. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  5. ^ "Winter House, Rawros, Co. Donegal". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  6. ^ "An Introduction to the Architectural Heritage of County Donegal" (PDF). National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  7. ^ Gallagher, Angela (18 May 2020). "The Phillimore Legacy at Tra na Rossan Co Donegal". National Museum of Ireland.
  8. ^ Muthesius 1979, p. 55.
  9. ^ "Tra na Rosann Hostel". An Óige - Ireland. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
  10. ^ Hussey 1989, index.
  11. ^ Amery, Richardson & Stamp 1981, p. 197.
  12. ^ a b Rowan 1979, pp. 169–170.
  13. ^ a b "Record of Protected Structures" (PDF). Donegal County Council. December 2018. p. 21.

Sources

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