Welcome to Castle Ward here on the glorious, beautiful banks of Strangford Lough
here in County Down in Northern Ireland.
I'm Neil and it's my pleasure to take you on a guided tour
of our beautiful 18th century mansion house.
Castle Ward has always been intriguing being a house of two halves,
one side Classical the other side Gothick.
The story has concentrated on Lady Anne and her husband Bernard, the pair who designed and created this house.
The division in styles was meant to be indicative of the division in their relationship
but I would like to take you inside now
and show that rather than being a Frankenstein's monster created by a warring couple,
that instead it is a contrived piece of wonderful 18th century architecture.
This was never a straightforward house.
When Bernard Ward set about building the new Castle Ward
with his co-architect wife Lady Anne in the early 1760s
both husband and wife felt that their new house must be of the latest classical taste
but also both Anne and Bernard
wanted to show off the antiquity of their bloodlines.
They were both aristocrats coming together to form a new dynasty
which would have a modern and civilized classical outlook to the world
but also with bloodlines running deep into the history of both Britain and Ireland.
So on this tour I thought it would be lovely and very fitting
to bring you to the Morning Room here at Castle Ward.
This room has been closed to the public for some time
and so it's a real treat to get to see this architecture and to see the room as it should be.
This ceiling is importantly inspired by the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey.
Why you might ask would the family want to try and copy something from Westminster Abbey in London?
Well Lady Anne was connected to the royal family
both through the Dukes of Lenox but also importantly
through the Duke of York, later King James II.
We're now very much in the the centre of the house
and seeing the family's lineage and antiquity played out in the most fantastical architecture.
Above me we have the most amazing billowing tent of plaster work
It's dreamlike, it's fantastical and it's representative
of, I think, Bernard and Lady Anne's whimsical tastes.
To me it almost feels Islamic.
This isn't just a Gothick room alluding to Lady Anne's Stewart ancestry,
this is also a room which alludes to Bernard's family's role during the crusades.
I would like to take you to our library.
Our library is really significant
and this room has been closed for conservation work for quite some time.
During the last year and a half
this important library has been closed to the public.
Now that was due to a poor environmental condition that had taken over our house
and our library and our books were the first thing to suffer
which meant our conservation team and our volunteers
with little brushes like this one and this one,
had to come in and take every single book of thousands which we own, down,
and single-handedly brush off mould which had accrued due to poor environmental conditions.
Now that just isn't a one-time job which you might think,
so what we have to do every single day is look after our temperature in this room
we have to look after our relative humidity or moisture in the air
and we have to look after the dust and the light
this has been made possible by environmental equipment that has been put into place this year in Castle Ward
which is very exciting because it means that we can now monitor and care for our collection well into the future.
Now that you've seen the library, let's get you back to Neil
and help you discover more of the secrets of Castle Ward through our secret door.
So here we are upstairs in Castle Ward in the bedroom known as His Lordship's Bedroom.
and behind me you will see the most amazing piece of 18th century furniture.
It was a clothes press but also a desk, a secretaire,
and it mirrors the architecture of the outside of the house.
So on a normal tour of this bedroom you would certainly see this wardrobe from the outside
but you wouldn't see its marvellous and extraordinary interior
and you can just imagine Bernard or Lady Anne
sitting here writing their correspondence at this little secret desk
hiding everything away in these little secret drawers.
Of course whilst writing their correspondence
they didn't want to be in the dark or in the gloom or miss the wonderful views of Strangford Lough
so instead they would just raise this little sash window
and enjoy the daylight and the view of the lough.
I hope you've enjoyed this different glimpse into Castle Ward
I would also like to thank you very much for your support
and I hope that you will continue to support us in the coming months and years.