Shane's Castle Northern Ireland

[mark smyth]

Yesterday I spent a very warm two hours in Shane's Castle that is a private estate on the north shore of Lough Neagh. It is no longer open to the public. The house was never open but the RSPB used to have hides here. It also has a narrow gauge railway in the 80s. It faces south with views, on a good day, of 4 or 5 counties.

The camelia house is stunning and even better since its face lift last year. It is fully of camelia trees. The bottom edge of all panes of glass is curved

The canons still stand in place between the crenulations. The gravel area they stand on is the roof of what local people would have called the dungeons. These are 40 alcoves 20 on each side of a central walk way. This is the home for 250 Daubenton's bats Myotis daubentonii.

[mark smyth]

This tunnel leads from the castle to the graveyard

The old castle - what's left of it

Inside here has a huge fireplace and ovens built in to the wall

some of the external alcoves

All the lambs on the estate wear rain coats that fall off after a week or two. It was very odd to see their clear, white, yellow and orange coats

[mark smyth]

I should have photographed the information sign. Can you read it?

the benfits of taking large sized photos

This ancient site has been built on over many years. A village ...

[mark smyth]

I phoned and asked if they would open the Camelia house for 5 people to have a look. The answer was yes so we went for a look today with Lord O'Neill. There were many oohs and ahhs while we looked at the 150 year old trees.

[mark smyth]

now some photos

The Camellia house was built to be an orangery but 150 yers ago Camellias were planted. The steps lead under the planting area where fires were lit to hear the house. When the house had a face lift a few years ago they found soot in the under floor heating. There are many covered holes n the floor that also let heat in to the house. Rabbits live in there now and are very capable of pushing off the covers.

[mark smyth]

After 150 nearly all the Camellias have very desireble sports

[mark smyth]

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[Maggi Young]

What a treat for a March day that was. Lucky people !

[mark smyth]

last 2

[mark smyth]

Maggi, nobody gets to see these except through the windows when events are on and that is during the summer. I think they could charge £5 per person and have it open in early April every year.

[Richard Green]

That trick with curved panes of glass is neat.  It makes the rain run down the centre line of the window rather than down the edges, and this is said to avoid too much water running behind the putty and causing freezing and rotting problems.  I tried it when building my cold frames a few years ago after seeing them at Heligan.  I was surprised at how easy it was to cut curves with a decent glass cutter.  I am less convinced by the results, as putty on both the square and curved lights still needs to be replaced now - all at the same time.  But it is certainly aethetically pleasing and draws comments from impressed visitors.

[Houseslippers]

They've got them (curved glass, I mean) at West Dean as well. They are beautiful - in their repetition like an armadillo's scales or some such.

Mark, those Camellias are rather lovely. Not sure about the white blotches, though, this being a possible sign of virus infection (which blotching the Americans like & foster, according to Jennifer Trehane's Camellias encyclopaedia, a really great book). Love the anemone centred red bloom. I had to give up my fascination for Camellias, having a garden only 10m square (!) and not acid (!!).