In the 18th century it was perfectly acceptable to lock up your wife for allegedly having an affair with your brother. That's what Robert Rochfort, Lord Belfield, did to his young spouse, Mary, who admitted (but later recanted) having a fling with his younger sibling, Arthur. With loaded pistol, Robert went after Arthur - but he had already prudently fled the country. Lord Belfield, according to the diary of one of his contemporaries, planned to prosecute Mary "as an adultress, and. . . she will be transported to the West Indies as a vagabond."
He changed his mind about the West Indies (too much scope for fun for a woman in her early twenties?), and instead kept Mary incarcerated at the family seat in Gaulston Park, Co Westmeath for over 30 years (she escaped after 12 years and returned to her father, Lord Molesworth, who dispatched her back immediately).
Lord Belfield, meanwhile, repaired to Belvedere House, about five miles away, a hunting and fishing lodge overlooking Lough Ennell, designed by Richard Castle, architect of Russborough, Carton, Powerscourt and Leinster House. There, in the elegant, bow-ended villa, he entertained lavishly and fashioned a remarkable 18th century landscape on the 160-acre property. He remained wifeless, but amused himself by building follies - and spending all his money.
Among the follies was the so-called Jealous Wall, a phantasmic Gothick ruin dating from about 1760. It was built, so the story goes, to mask the house of another brother, George, with whom the irascible Robert was also supposed to have quarrelled. (Or, it may be simply that - like all proud householders to this day - Robert had no desire to see a neighbouring building so close at hand, and as he couldn't wait years for a screen of trees to grow, he chose instead to fill the gap with a highly fashionable mystical folly.)
Three gloomy storeys high and pierced with numerous windows, the largest sham ruin in Ireland still scowls jaggedly against the skyline, while ironically, the house it was meant to shield is now also a romantic shambles.
Up until a couple of years ago the Jealous Wall's dangerously-crumbling, ivy-clad stones were haunted by legions of darkly sinister rooks, cawing dolefully among its desolate hollows. Now, the rooks are nowhere to be seen. They cleared off indignantly at the start of a massive renovation: part of a £5.7 million project to restore Belvedere - house, gardens and landscape park - to its former glory (and to augment it with latter-day features such as interpretive centre, carpark and playground). Nearly £700,000 is being spent on gardens and landscape, as part of the EU-funded Great Gardens of Ireland Restoration Programme.
The amount of £265,000 went into the Jealous Wall, whose melancholy fabric was invisibly pinned together with hundreds of stainless steel rods. The rooks have not signalled their approval yet, but perhaps they will when the heavy machinery moves out in a couple of months.
Another of the fantastical follies is a Gothick arch designed by Thomas Wright of Durham, an astronomer and philosopher who moved through the Irish landscape like a soothsayer to the 18th century landed gentry. The arch, embellished with worm-holed, river-worn limestone, is now restored and cleared of encroaching vegetation. Standing on a distant hill, its white-lichened, eerie form reflects the light, creating another "eye-catcher" to arrest the Belvedere visitor.
The arch, the Jealous Wall, an octagonal gazebo and a 19th-century ice-house are threaded along several kilometres of walks that dip through woods, over Belvedere Stream (famous for spawning trout), along the lakeshore and around the parkland. It's a credit to the originators of the restoration, Westmeath County Council, that the newer paths are discreetly placed so that brilliantly-raingeared strollers don't impinge on the centuries-old poetic landscape. Grazing livestock are to be brought in, to give a sense of scale and a pastoral atmosphere to the green bits.
Also being refurbished is a Victorian walled garden, an odd, long and thin, one-and-a-half-acres of sloping ground. A new greenhouse (in the style of the 1880s) will contain a collection of orchids and African violets.
The garden will "become a centre for horticultural excellence" according to Micheal Condren, project manager for the landscape restoration. There will be collections of plants from China and the Himalayas, in deference to one of the last owners, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, an enthusiastic traveller and plant-hunter. The white-flowered Primula buryana was named after him.
The walled garden is now at that exciting stage where the ground is waiting to receive hundreds of plants nestling in a big polytunnel nearby. Between now and Belvedere's opening at the end of April, the tools of head gardener Theresa McCormack (and all the other workers) are going to be exceedingly busy. Which is why the people at Westmeath County Council have asked me to remind this paper's readers that the house, gardens and landscape are not yet receiving visitors - except for the odd prodigal rook.
Belvedere House, Gardens and Park, Mullingar, Co Westmeath are scheduled to open after Easter. Until then the site is closed to the public. Telephone enquiries: 044-49060, e-mail: info@belvedere-house.ie