Stormont Castle is a
manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...
on the
Stormont Estate in east
Belfast
Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
which is home to the
Northern Ireland Executive and the
Executive Office. It is a Grade A
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.
History
Stormont Castle was completed c.1830 and was reworked in 1858 by its original owners, the Cleland family, to the designs of Thomas Turner in the
Scottish baronial style with features such as
bartizan
A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging turret projecting from the walls of late-medieval and early-modern fortifications from the early 14th c ...
s used for decorative purposes.
[ The building and of adjoining land was bought by the newly established Government of Northern Ireland for £15,000 in 1921.]official residence
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of th ...
of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
The prime minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland (1921–1972), Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920; however, the L ...
. However, a number of Prime Ministers chose to live at Stormont House, the official residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, which was empty as a number of Speakers had chosen to live in their own homes. It also served as the meeting place for the Cabinet of the Government of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1972.
With the imposition of direct rule in 1972, it served as the Belfast headquarters of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Office
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO; , Ulster-Scots: ''Norlin Airlann Oaffis'') is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for handling Northern Ireland affairs. The NIO is led by the Secretary of S ...
(NIO) ministers and supporting officials. During The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...
, it was also used by MI5 officers. The Good Friday Agreement was concluded in nearby Castle Buildings in April 1998.
A £7.5m renovation was completed in 2001. The work was the most extensive completed since the building's construction and the architect stated that " heobjective was to create a modern, functioning office space while maintaining the historic character of the building."
References
External links
Tours of Parliament Buildings
*
Buildings and structures in Belfast
Government buildings in Northern Ireland
Official residences in the United Kingdom
Grade A listed buildings
Country houses in Northern Ireland
Scottish baronial architecture
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