SNIPPET: Altamont House, located eleven miles southeast of Carlow town, just off the road to Bunclody and close to the village of Ballon, was featured in the Nov-Dec 1988 issue of "Ireland of the Welcomes." Shared with the readers at that time was some of the interesting history of this beautiful house and grounds in the gentle Carlow landscape where only the fashions and horse-drawn carriages have changed compared to photographs taken of the house a hundred years earlier. The view from the front door leads on over the lush grassy fields of Carlow to the distant Blackstairs Mountains, crowned by the gentle peak of Mount Leinster. The earliest part of the house is circa 1600, and over the years generations of owners have added and adjusted to suit expanding families or current tastes. Mr. and Mrs. NORTH were the current owners in 1988 and the drawing room appeared to have hardly changed in appearance since the middle of the 19th century. A glimpse through the double doors leading to the garden revealed a rectangular lily pool down the long walk lined with yews planted in 1850 which at one point had become "deliciously bulgy" with age, prompting Mrs. NORTH's mother, who died in the 1980s at age 102, to say that they "needed corsets." One of the NORTHs' favorite roses is "Celeste", with its shell-pink flowers and blue-grey leaves. There are breath-taking flowers seen everywhere and carefully tended including the old surviving Irish primrose "Guinevere" bred in Ireland in the thirties, forming several robust clumps of bronze leaves and pink flowers with lemon eyes. Still heard were the calls of the chiff-chaff, willow-warbler, blackcap warbler, cuckoo, heron, wild duck, rook, pheasant and fantail dove, and on the premises were found three elegant peacocks. Stories and memories attached to many of the trees at Altamont include a balsam popular, now a hundred feet tall, brought back in a spongebag from Dame Flora MacLEOD in Skye, a silver fir, the tallest in the county. Rolling lawns lead to the back of the house down to the lake created by Mrs. NORTH's ancestors which she has been restoring almost single-handedly. The lake was excavated during the famine to give employment and has three islands, Pearl Island, so-called as it was originally planted with Rhododendron "Pink Pearl" and "White Pearl," Swan Island where swans sometimes nested and the third island, which used to be Mrs. NORTH's secret garden as a child where she would whistle for otters and they would come. The ever-changing light and ever-moving reflections on the water all add to the tranquility of the scene. One can follow the Nun's walk back to the house; in the faint gloom one can imagine the nuns who lived here in the 17th century, gliding under the arch of the trees, past the periwinkles, lent lilies and cyclamen. Mr. and Mrs. NORTH shared that her father, Fielding Lecky WATSON, had planted the "Rhododendron augustinii" (found in China by the Irish plant collector, Augustine HENRY) on the west wing of the house. He had been one to exchange seeds with the great Irish gardeners of his day, including Sir Frederick MOORE, the curator of Glasnevin, and LORD HEADFORT. The rhododendron, whose gnarled stems unfailingly display its lavender-blue flowers each year, is fully twenty feet tall. Luxuriating wisteria and Virginia creeper are seen to soften the angular contours of the house facade and one can hear the lowing of cattle in nearby fields and the resonant bell of the angelus coming from afar. In the elegant surroundings of her 18th century drawing-room, Mrs. NORTH relaxed with her dogs after a hard but enjoyable day's work among the plants. A dedicated gardening enthusiast, she has been restoring life and beauty to the landscape transformed by her forebears.