Terence Reeves-Smyth visits the restored Florence Court in Co Fermanagh, an alluring country house that reflects and sympathises with its surroundings
Nestling in the hills of South Fermanagh and set in idyllic parkland against the backdrop of Benaughlin’s brooding slopes, Florence Court has long delighted visitors as one of Ireland’s most romantic houses. Built by the Coles, later Barons Mountflorence and Earls of Enniskillen, one of Ulster’s most prominent Plantation families, its tall, mid-18th-century block, set between straight arcades and pavilions, has an attractive golden-grey façade, enlivened by a riot of rustications, pedimented niches and lugged surrounds, among other features. For the late Mark Bence-Jones it was a composition with a ‘dream-like Baroque beauty that is all the greater for being somewhat bucolic’ – a beauty more than matched by its interior, noted for its vigorous Rococo plasterwork.
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