Florence Court

Florence Court was originally a tall, square, early 18th-century house built for Sir John Cole and named after his wife Florence. In c.1750, Sir John’s son, the 1st Lord Mount Florence, partly re-built it and commissioned Dublin plasterers, such as Robert West, to carry out fine rococo plasterwork. Open colonnades and pavilions were added in 1771, probably by the Sardinian architect David Ducart, for William Willoughby Cole, later 1st Earl of Enniskillen. The house is situated in a 600-acre park created in the late 18th century by William King for the 1st Earl. The house and fourteen acres of garden were given to the National Trust by Viscount Cole, eldest son of the 5th Earl, in 1954. Florence Court was badly damaged by fire in the following year, but comprehensive records enabled the Trust to restore it.

Florence Court, County Fermanagh

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The collection includes family portraits including miniatures and Williamite memorabilia; a good small collection of 18th-century Irish furniture; Grand Tour drawings by Ducros and Keisermann; Meissen china and old Waterford glass. The historic library of the Earls of Enniskillen was removed from Florence Court in the early 1970s, but roughly half the books (in excess of 500) were acquired by the National Trust some thirty years later, and returned to the shelves in Co. Fermanagh. Most of the rest of the library is now in Cambridge University Library, which has catalogued it and kept the books together. The books at Florence Court include books with early family provenances, a fine collection of Hibernica, and a significant part of the great collection of scientific books assembled by the 3rd Earl of Enniskillen in Victorian times.

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