Lough Eske Castle

Walled garden on sub-rectangular-plan associated with Lough Eske Castle (see 40909401), erected c. 1800. Now in use as garden associated with hotel with modern single-storey buildings to site, including rebuilt glasshouse. Walls partially rebuilt c. 2007 using salvaged brick and stone. Random rubble stone boundary walls, roughly coursed in places. Flush roughly dressed quoins to a number of the corners. Lined with red brick (English Garden Bond) to interior faces. Modern concrete coping over in places. Square-headed openings having red brick voussoirs and red brick relieving arches over to interior faces and roughly dressed stone voussoirs and surrounds to exterior faces; modern metal gates to some openings. Located to the north of Lough Eske Castle (see 40909401) in extensive shared grounds.

Despite recent restoration works and the construction of a number of buildings to site, this former walled garden retains much its original form and character. Parts of the walls have been rebuilt, c. 2007, using brick and rubble stone salvaged from site. It was originally-built to serve the Lough Eske Castle estate (40909401) and its scale provides an interesting historical insight into the extensive resources required to run and maintain a large country estate in Ireland during the eighteenth- and the nineteenth-century. It would have been originally used to provide a range of produce for consumption in the main house. The exterior walls are robustly constructed using rubble stone masonry, while the interior faces are lined with brick to retain heat to aid the cultivation of various produce. The brick lining is in the English Garden Bond, a commonly found brick bond used in the construction of walled gardens in Ireland. This walled garden predates the construction of the present Lough Eske Castle in 1859-61, and was originally associated with an earlier house or houses to site, probably a house built in 1751. This walled garden forms part of a group of structures associated with Lough Eske Castle, and adds considerably to the historical context and setting of this fine estate.