5. Chattels from Mount Stewart The offer consisted of a mixed group of over 700 items and sets from Mount Stewart House, County Down, the Irish seat of the Vane-Tempest-Stewart family, later Marquesses of Londonderry, who played a leading role in British and Irish social and political life. The house and its celebrated gardens were acquired in 1744 by Alexander Stewart and rebuilt by his son and grandson, the 1st and 3rd Marquesses of Londonderry, in the early 19th century. The 1st Marquess (1739–1821) employed James ‘Athenian’ Stuart to build the Temple of the Winds. The west wing was built in 1804–5 to designs by George Dance. The celebrated Irish architect, William Vitruvius Morison, added the rest of the main block, including the huge entrance portico and two-storey central hall, in the late 1830s. In 1922 the 7th Marquess and his wife, Edith, decided to make Mount Stewart their home rather than merely a summer residence. Edith, Lady Londonderry, was one of the great political hostesses of her day, socialising with aristocrats, writers, artists and politicians. From the 1920s to her death in 1959 she created the famed gardens at Mount Stewart which she gave to the National Trust in 1957. The house was also transformed into a place of comfort and relaxation and much of the interiors remained untouched, rendering the house a rare survival of pre-and post-War interior decoration.
Below: A Greek marble stele, c. 450 BC. Mount Stewart, Northern Ireland. Photo: Sotheby’s
In 1976 the house and many of its contents were given to the National Trust together with an endowment. The present offer incorporates the bulk of the previously loaned contents of the house including De Laszlo’s depiction of Edith with a Deerhound, Lavery’s portrait of the 7th Marquess and two pairs of prehistoric giant Irish deer antlers dug from the bog on the estate, all in the Smoking Room, a Greek stele (circa 450 BC) in the Central Hall and all the contents of the Chapel which remains a consecrated space. The National Trust will now open additional rooms and show the whole collection for the first time. The Panel considered the majority of the chattels to be associated with a building in National Trust ownership and that it was appropriate that they should remain so with 11 items being considered individually pre-eminent under the fourth criterion. It considered the overall total offer valuation to be fair with the exception of one item which it proposed should be increased by 50 per cent, which was accepted by the offerors. All the chattels have been permanently allocated to the National Trust for retention at Mount Stewart in accordance with the condition attached to the offer.
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