Designed landscape - formal garden

The National Monuments Service's description

Immediately to the E of the associated fortified house (LF017-009003-) and bawn (LF017-009001-). In 1682 Nicholas Dowdall described the house as 'being very pleasant and well Improved with Orchards, Gardens, Fishponds [LF017-009005-] and a Deer Park [LF017-09004-]' (Gillespie and Moran 1991, 208). The formal garden, rectangular in plan, is depicted on a late 17th-century manuscript plan (NLI, MS 8646 (6)) of the house and its landscaped surroundings as being enclosed by walls that extended off the NE and SE square angle towers of the bawn. Two more similar towers are shown on its NE and SE corners and a projecting gateway, described as a 'redoubt' on the plan, was located in the centre of its E wall. This gateway led to a wooden bridge, which accessed the fish-pond (LF017-009005-) immediately to the E of the garden. Access to the garden was gained through a gateway in the E wall of the bawn and a doorway that was subsequently inserted into the E wall of the fortified house in the late 17th century. Internally a pathway ran around the perimeter of the garden and two intersecting pathways divided it into four quadrants. Another roughly trapezoidal walled area is depicted on the plan (ibid.) adjacent to the S wall of the bawn. Its walls extended off the S face of the SE angle tower of the walled garden and off the S face of the SW angle tower of the bawn. Access to this area was through gateways at the N end of its E wall and W walls. A walled orchard is depicted to the SE of this walled area. Three gateways in its NW wall accessed three long avenues running through it. It was planted with trees in regular rows running from NW to SE.
The walls of the garden have been levelled. However, a linear scarp (H 0.4m) marks the line of the N wall and elsewhere its outline is indicated by barely visible earthworks (approx. dims. c. 69m E-W; c. 59m N-S). The internal walk-way through the garden, which is cruciform in plan, is visible on aerial photographs dating from 2010 (Google Maps). The wall footings of the NE angle tower (ext. dims. c. 4.5m N-S; c. 4.5m E-W) survive but there is no visible surface trace of the SE angle tower. These towers may have been built as flanking towers for defensive purposes or alternatively they may have functioned as ornamental towers associated with the landscaping of the gardens. The wall-footings of a circular tower (ext. diam. 5m) mark the location of the gateway. No visible surface trace of the walled area and its associated gateways to the S of the bawn or the walled orchard survive. (ITA Survey 1944)

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 5 July 2012

References

NLI, MS 8646 - National Library of Ireland, Documents from the papers of Sir George Lane, dealing with the Irish administration in the 2nd half of the 17th cent., including memoranda on the wool trade, together with notes on the services to the Crown of Sir Richard Lane and his father, Captain George Lane, maps of Rathcline, etc. Dublin.

Gillespie, R. and Moran, G. (eds.) 1991 Longford: essays in county history. Dublin. Lilliput Press.

Irish Tourist Association. Surveys undertaken in the 1940s for the Irish Tourist Association (now Fáilte Ireland) relating to ‘Natural features, antiquities, historic associations etc.' Extracts from these surveys were copied into the Topographical files of the Office of Public Works and these have been incorporated into the Sites and Monuments Record files (National Monuments Service).