A Future for Irish Historic Houses - Irish Heritage Trust

Belvedere, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.
Belvedere is located near Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Originally the home of the
Rochfort family, it is now owned by Westmeath County Council:
- Belvedere has been described as ‘an architectural gem’. It is a 1740s villa
designed once again by the highly influential Richard Castle and may
possibly be the earliest bow-ended house in Ireland. Originally it was
probably intended to function as a hunting lodge.
- The house is noted for its delicate rococo plasterwork ceilings especially in
the drawing-room, library and dining-room. The ceilings were possibly the
work of Barthelemij Cramillion, a renowned French stuccodore who
designed the ceilings of Mespil House in Dublin (which after its
demolition in 1952 were removed to Aras an Uachtarain.) These ceilings
have recently been restored.
- One of the main architectural attractions of Belvedere is the sham Gothic
ruin or folly, the largest in Ireland, built by Robert Rochfort, the so-called
‘wicked earl’, to block out the view of Rochfort House which belonged to
his brother with whom he had quarrelled. It is locally referred to as ‘the
jealous wall’.
- The park survives relatively intact and has been described as ‘one of the
most charming planned landscapes in Ireland’, probably having been laid
out by a professional landscape artist in the 1740s. In the late 1850s,
Ninian Niven, curator of the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, was
commissioned to draw up the plans for the further embellishment of the
grounds.
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