Regency associations

Entrance to concealed compartment in the Library, Westport House.(https://www.westporthouse.ie/2021/12/09/a-secret-room/)

The Library in Westport House, County Mayo, contain a secret compartment which was only re-discovered by staff in 2020. A low-level removable panel at the back of this bookcase opens into a small space measuring 20 by 55 by 80 inches. To access this, you will have to bend double and crawl - when you are able to stand up there is barely room to move. If you have remembered to bring a torch or your phone, you will, however, be rewarded by the sight of a well-preserved section of historic wallpaper from the Regency period ( circa 1795-1837). This is a subdued all-over foliate pattern, printed in shades of grey with a pin-dot ground, enlivened with a striking border, printed in black flock on a lemon yellow ground. The black flock leaves are overprinted with veining in vermilion, or red lead pigment. The wallpaper covered the entire room before the bookcases were installed following a fire in 1826.

Wallpaper and border by Patrick Boylan, 1817, Westport House, the Library (D.S.)

Paper and border are probably the work of the leading Dublin wallpaper maker and country house decorator Patrick Boylan, who we met recently in Newbridge, County Dublin (see previous post ‘Newbridge: flock of ages’). A second paper and border of similar date found recently beneath the Chinese wallpaper upstairs in Westport bear the trade stamp of Patrick and John Boylan, so it is reasonable to assume that the Library paper was supplied by the brothers around the same time. The paper in the Chinese Room also bears a tax stamp showing it to have been made in 1817.

Wallpaper by Patrick Boylan, 1817, Westport House, the Chinese Room (D.S.)

Border by Patrick Boylan, 1817, Westport House, the Chinese Room (D.S.)

Until the fire of 1826 the Library was located in a large, double-height room in the south wing of the house. A huge number of books (and a painting by Joshua Reynolds) were destroyed in the blaze, and what remained was relocated to the new Library in a smaller room off the Entrance Hall. This room had previously served as a kind of waiting room, where visitors would be shown until the Marquis or his spouse would be ready to greet them. Boylan’s wallpaper – restrained and yet showy – was entirely appropriate to this function.

The border’s striking combination of lemon yellow, black flock and vermilion was not unusual for the time. A few years ago, I was commissioned by historic wallpaper specialists Hamilton Weston Wallpapers to copy a border in exactly those colours for the Jane Austen House in Chawton, Hampshire, where the writer lived with her mother and siblings from 1809. The border was found in the family’s Dining Room, used in conjunction with a remarkable pattern of dense, green foliage. A second Regency wallpaper, found in the Drawing Room at Chawton, has a pattern of vine-like leaves against a pin-dot ground, which is noticeably similar to the pattern in the Westport Library. Clearly, Boylan’s wallpapers were very much à la mode.

Chawton, Hampshire, Dining Room wallpaper and border, circa 1809. (https://janeaustens.house/)

Flock border, reproduced for Jane Austen House, Chawton (D.S.)

Chawton, Hampshire, Drawing Room wallpaper, circa 1809. (https://janeaustens.house/)

Boylan’s patrons at Westport were the newly-wed couple Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquis of Sligo, and Hester Catherine de Burgh, who employed the English architect James Wyatt to carry out a major re-modelling of the house. Before his marriage, Howe Peter had led a somewhat picaresque life, which included an archaeological cruise of the Mediterranean in a private yacht. The voyage had the consequence of landing him in Newgate goal for four months on his return to England, on a charge of enticing a British seaman to desert the navy. (The sailor was bribed by Browne to load his archaeological spoils onto the vessel.) In a twist to the story which might be dismissed as incredible in one of Jane Austen’s novels, Browne’s mother became enamoured of the trial judge, eventually marrying him.

The full extent of Boylan’s work at Westport is really a matter of guesswork, in the absence of surviving accounts. On the opposite side of the Entrance Hall to the Library, the Drawing Room’s painted sky ceiling and Parisian block-printed frieze of dancing classical figures are likely to be part of his contribution, and no doubt evoked in the Marquis pleasant memories of his seafaring adventures.

Boylan is known to have imported high-quality wallpapers from Paris, at a time when English wallpaper manufacturers were doing their best to keep them out. A good example, also bearing Boylan’s trade stamp on the reverse, survives in the Library Building of the King’s Inns, on Dublin’s Henrietta Street.

The Drawing Room, Westport House. (Dara McGrath)

The Drawing Room, Westport House, block-printed frieze. (Dara McGrath)

French wallpaper and border, 1830s, supplied by Patrick Boylan to the Library of the King’s Inns, Dublin (David Davison)

I hope that further traces of Boylan’s career come to light among the country houses of Ireland. He was far ahead of his Irish competitors, and the only one based in Dublin who could compete with the great English decorating firms such as Gillows of Lancaster or the Craces of London.