A curious house in Lichfield with links to Philip Larkin

Duart House at 31 Saint John Street … once a home of the Larkin family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

It is easy while walking around Lichfield to pay attention to the timber-framed Tudor buildings and the Georgian and baroque buildings. But sometimes it is the curious and the unusual that catches my eye, that stops me in my tracks, and leads to uncovering interesting historical or literary associations.

One of the curious and unusual houses on St John Street, for example, is Duart House at No 31, one of the many houses in Lichfield with associations with the family of the poet Philip Larkin.

At first, this appears to be two houses, with a two-storey section set back from the rest of the street line, and a three-storey section that is flush with the rest of the buildings on this part of the street.

Duart House is a Grade II listed building under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (List entry Number: 1218204), and was first listed in 1975.

This house, which is now in divided into apartments, once had a number of offices, and had been a family home before that. The attractive front door is in the two-storey section, set back slightly from the street front, and the matching front windows at the ground floor level show how this was designed as one building.

This is an early 19th century building. It has interesting stucco work and ashlar dressings, and a 20th century tile roof.

It is built on a T-plan in a Georgian style, but I wonder whether the building includes part of an earlier structure on this site. It is two storeys, with a three-window range and with a three-storey, two-window, double-depth wing to the right.

The first floor has a sill band. There is a top parapet, but a top frieze, cornice and blocking course to the wing, and there are coped gables.

The segmental-headed entrance to the right end has an interesting doorcase with long brackets to the modillioned cornice. There is an over-light above the four-panel door.

A segmental-headed window to the left end has a brick sill and a 4:16:4 pane horned sash window. A similar window to the wing has an ashlar sill and a 4:12:4 pane tripartite sash window, with panelled pilaster strips, and there is small segmental-headed window to the right end with a plate glass horned sash window.

The first floor has windows with brick sills over the band and 12-pane horned sashes.

The wing has windows with 12-pane sashes, while the second-floor window has four-pane sashes, although the lower glazing bars are missing. The wing has truncated lateral stacks.

I am not sure where the name of Duart House originated, but the house was known as Duart House when Gilbert Warren Larkin (188-1939) died here on 14 August 1939. This branch of the family had also lived for many years at both No 7 and No 10 St John Street.

Gilbert Larkin was a son of Councillor Herbert Larkin (1846-1924) of 7 St John Street, and was a first cousin of Sydney Larkin (1884-1948), who was born at 49 Tamworth Street, and was the father of the poet Philip Larkin (1922-1988).

Gilbert Larkin’s son was Alfred Larkin (1922-1974), who was born in Lichfield on 29 December 1922. He was also living at Duart House in 1947 when he married Pauline Clements of 49 St John Street in Saint Michael’s Church on 7 June.

The Lichfield Mercury reported on 13 June 1947 that the wedding reception was held in Duart House. Alfred Larkin worked in a tobacconist’s shop in Lichfield and died at 7 St John Street, Lichfield, on 7 August 1974. His widow Pauline died in 2001.

But for my search for Philip Larkin’s roots in Lichfield, I might have continued to pass this house, noticing its architectural curiosities and delights, but without asking questions about its place in Lichfield’s history.

Three bandstands on three Victorian seafronts

The Victorian bandstand on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire was restored in time for last year’s bicentenary celebrations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Patrick Comerford

We are still within the ’12 Days of Christmas,’ and in the past few days I have had a few post-Christmas strolls along the piers and promenades of Dún Laoghaire and Bray, where the Victorian bandstands are reminders that seafront strolls have been a popular way of getting back into shape for almost 200 years.

The East Pier in Dún Laoghaire, which is popular with walkers from throughout South Dublin, and the Victorian bandstand and shelter are important features of this pier.

The harbour dates from 1817, and the bicentenary celebrations last year included art, theatre, architecture, food, literature, the spoken word and sailing, with President Michael D Higgins opening the celebrations last May.

The Victorian shelter above the bandstand on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The harbour was built over a 42-year period from 1817 to 1859. As part of the preparations for last year’s celebrations, the bandstand and shelter were restored to their original condition in 2010 by the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company.

Both buildings boast cast-iron filigree bracketing their columns. The bandstand has an ornamental dome, while the sun shelter has a slim, tough truss. Both structures have been restored between 2007 and 2010 to bring them back to their Victorian glory.

The detailed ornate brackets, dainty roof crests and ornamental features painted in crisp white make for a visually stunning centrepiece on the East Pier and they give the harbour an appearance more like a seaside resort than a bustling, busy port town.

The bandstand and the pier in Dún Laoghaire feature in the 1996 movie Michael Collins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Both the bandstand and the pier feature in the movie Michael Collins (1996), in a scene where Liam Neeson (Collins) and two of his co-stars walk along a seaside promenade that is Dún Laoghaire East Pier, and a band is playing on the bandstand.

Today, many people find the bandstand is a perfect spot to take a rest during a walk along the pier and to take in the views of the harbour and the bay. During holidays and summer festivals, the bandstand is often a venue for local musicians to entertain people.

The Victorian bandstand in Bray … originally there were three bandstands on the Esplanade (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

The bandstand on the garden side of Esplanade in Bray is the only bandstand from three that has survived through the changes of time. Like many Victorian bandstands, it is octagonal in shape and has decorative cast-iron columns that support a copper clad roof.

The Esplanade in Bray was laid out in 1859-1861 by William Dargan. It includes a concrete path that is four metres wide and that separates and protects the gardens from the beach and sea, with a number of openings to and from the beach and the gardens.

The other surviving buildings on the garden side include a small rectangular plan shelter built in cast-iron and timber and with a metal deck roof, and small kiosks wit copper clad roofs.

As the last surviving member of a group of three, Bray’s bandstand is a valuable, useful and decorative Victorian legacy that fits in with the 19th century buildings along the promenade.

The Victorian-style bandstand in Kilkee, Co Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

Earlier in the year, I also became familiar with the bandstand on the seafront promenade in Kilkee, Co Clare, on the Wild Atlantic Way. This bandstand, which is a protected structure was only built as recently as 1940. But it looks like other Victorian bandstands with its octagonal shape and design. Its felted octagonal roof is capped with a cast-iron spike.

Paul Conway architects carried out a project of conservation and refurbishment of the bandstand on behalf of Kilkee Civic Trust in 2014. The work included replacing the roof structure and finishes, and repairing the ironwork structure.

Despite its more recent date, the bandstand reflects Kilkee’s rich Victorian heritage, and a recent report suggested the bandstand as an ideal starting point for an interpretive trail of markers and footpaths leading visitors on a Victorian Heritage and Local History Trail around the town and the west end.

The sea wall and embankment around the bay began on the west side as part of famine relief work in 1846 and were completed in the 1860s. Kilkee has had a number of famous visitors over the years; the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson visited in the 1840s, and Charlotte Bronte spent most of her honeymoon in Kilkee in July 1854. In 1896, the Crown Princess of Austria visited the town.

At one stage in the Victorian era, the beach in Kilkee was divided into three parts, the middle part for men and the two outer ones for women. This arose when local magistrates heard complaints that men were bathing naked. Women were more modest, they entered the water by means of bathing boxes or machines that were towed out into the sea so that a lady could dip in the sea away from prying eyes.

The first bathing box erected in the West Clare resort in the 1830s was known as the Lady Chatterton, after the traveller and writer Georgiana, Lady Chatterton (1806-1876), later Mrs Dering, whose Rambles In The South Of Ireland During The Year 1838 was published in two volumes in 1839.

Lady Chatterton wrote at a time when tourism was beginning to develop, and her writing is marked by her high moral tone and her earnest desire to do good. She bubbles with enthusiasm as she discovers the hidden delights of Kilkee and West Clare, but she avoids the scenes of squalor and destitution.

These bathing boxes, used for changing until the 1950s, have disappeared, but the bandstand still stands on the seafront. Last month, the bandstand was the venue for an evening of carols organised by Kilkee Chamber of Commerce.

The Victorian bandstand on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)