Peter Pearson makes a plea for re-roofing Kilmacurragh, the Queen Anne house set in an arcadian parkland in County Wicklow
For many years the abandoned ruin of Kilmacurragh stood at the centre of an equally neglected parkland of specimen trees and overgrown rhodedendrons – but happily no more. The desmesne and arboretum which is located just off the main Dublin to Wexford road, near Rathdrum, contains many rare trees and flowering shrubs of great size and has been rescued by the staff of the National Botanic Gardens and lovingly brought back into order, with new paths, lawns, cleaned out ponds and much replanting. In spring a crimson carpet of petals from the giant Rhodedendron ‘Altaclarense’ covers the broad walk which ascends from the back of the house (Fig 7). Flowers cascade down from the tall thirty-foot high Rhododendron ‘davidsonianum’ nearby.
John McLaughlin assesses heneghan peng’s dramatically sited but elegantly unobtrusive visitor centre for the Giant’s Causeway in Antrim
Peter Murray finds similarities between the fictional character Kim and 19th-century photographer John Burke, whose path in Afghanistan, has been retraced by Simon Norfolk