Rossmore Castle

Rossmore Castle in County Monaghan lost its roof after the Second World War and its walls in 1975, leaving five grassy step flights cut into the hillside above Castle Lough. The mansion had stood since 1827, but the terraces appeared later when Lanyon and Lynn extended it in 1858, shaping stone and slope into a stage for the water below. What is gone can still be handled: each step, coping and empty pedestal remains exposed to rain, marking the line where a private house once trained its owner’s eye toward the lake.