The History of Belvedere House

Richard Castle and the Making of a Georgian Masterpiece

When Robert Rochfort decided to build a retreat on the shores of Lough Ennell in 1740, he chose the most fashionable architect in Ireland. Richard Castle (born Richard Cassels, c.1690–1751) was a German-born architect who had established himself as the defining practitioner of Irish Palladian architecture. His previous and concurrent commissions included Powerscourt House in Wicklow, Westport House in Mayo and Russborough House in Wicklow — a portfolio that made him the dominant force in Irish country house design during the Georgian period. (See our guide to Richard Castle and a heritage trail of his great Irish houses.)

What Castle produced at Belvedere was unusually restrained by his own standards. The brief was for a hunting lodge, not a primary residence — Robert already owned the much larger Gaulstown House nearby. Castle gave him a compact, two-storey villa of five bays with a distinctive bow-ended south facade directly facing Lough Ennell. The house was almost certainly the first bow-ended house built in Ireland, and the lakeside orientation — designed so that the principal rooms commanded unobstructed water views — was a deliberate compositional choice that placed the surrounding landscape as part of the architecture.

The interior followed the conventions of Irish Palladian design: a central hall, formal reception rooms with Rococo plasterwork, and a compact private library that survives largely intact. The scale was that of a confident, prosperous country gentleman's second house, not a statement of primary wealth. That statement of primary wealth, made in a rather different medium, would come later.

Who Was Robert Rochfort — The Wicked Earl?

Robert Rochfort was born in 1708, the son of George Rochfort of Gaulstown and Jane Moore. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin and called to the Bar, later entering politics as MP for Westmeath. In 1738 he was elevated to the Irish peerage as 1st Earl of Belvedere.

In 1736 he married Mary Molesworth, daughter of Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth. They had at least four children. By all early accounts the marriage was conventional for its era and class — a practical arrangement between Anglo-Irish aristocratic families, not a love match but not unusually miserable.

What happened in 1743 changed that entirely, and in doing so generated one of the most discussed family scandals in 18th-century Ireland.

1743 — The Accusation Against Mary

In 1743, Robert Rochfort formally accused his wife Mary of adultery with his younger brother, Arthur Rochfort. Whether the accusation was true remains one of Irish history's unanswered questions. Mary consistently and emphatically denied it. Arthur denied it. The servants' testimony — where it survived — was ambiguous.

What is not ambiguous is what Robert did. He had Mary confined to a room in Gaulstown House. Her children were removed from her care. Visitors were forbidden. Letters were monitored. She would remain in those circumstances, under de facto house arrest, for over thirty years — until Robert's death in 1774.

In the same movement, Robert sued Arthur for £20,000 in damages — an enormous sum, roughly equivalent to several million euros today — citing criminal conversation (the Georgian-era legal concept for adultery). Arthur was found liable. Unable to pay, he was imprisoned for debt, his own children dispossessed and his estates forfeit.

"When Mary was released in 1774 she was said to be almost unrecognisable to her own children. She had lived in one room for longer than most people's marriages lasted. Her one recorded act of defiance during those decades was maintaining correspondence through servants willing to carry letters despite their employer's prohibition."

Why Was Robert Rochfort Called "The Wicked Earl"?

The nickname was not invented by later generations — it circulated in Robert's own lifetime among Westmeath neighbours who observed the effects of his behaviour on his family and tenants. Three things combined to produce it.

First, the imprisonment of Mary — sustained for three decades in conditions that amounted to psychological torture — was considered extreme even by the standards of an era in which husbands had considerable legal power over wives. The accusation of adultery did not legally require imprisonment; it required a lawsuit and a separation. Robert's choice to go further was personal, not procedural.

Second, the destruction of Arthur — not just a lawsuit but the ruin of Arthur's entire family, his children included — was viewed as disproportionate even in an era of ruinous litigation. Arthur had nothing to do with whatever had or had not happened in 1743; his children certainly didn't.

Third, the Jealous Wall. The decision to build a monumental Gothic fake-ruin, at considerable expense, specifically to block the view of a third brother's house, struck contemporaries as an act of pure, sustained pettiness elevated to architecture.

1760 — The Jealous Wall

Robert's quarrel with his older brother George Rochfort, owner of Tudenham House (then Rochfort House), produced the estate's most famous feature. George's house was visible from parts of the Belvedere grounds. Rather than plant a tree line or extend the perimeter wall — the conventional solutions — Robert commissioned a structure designed to block the sightline while presenting the appearance of a romantic Gothic ruin.

The result stands 20 metres high, runs wide enough to completely obliterate the offending view, and was designed by Italian architect Barrodotte to resemble the last surviving fragment of a medieval abbey — three tall pointed Gothic windows in a central section, five smaller round-headed windows above, two projecting wings. It was built in local limestone and is the largest folly in Ireland by scale.

Tudenham House eventually became a genuine ruin through neglect. The view Robert was so determined to block no longer exists. The wall he built to block it has been professionally restored by Westmeath County Council, internally reinforced with steel rods, and now stands in better condition than the house it was constructed to conceal. Read the full story on the Jealous Wall page.

13 November 1774 — A Fractured Skull

Robert Rochfort died on 13 November 1774 at the age of 66. His body was found with a fractured skull. There was no inquest of substance. The official conclusion was accidental death — a fall, a stone, a misstep in the dark.

The historical record preserves enough contemporary scepticism to make the question genuinely open. Robert had accumulated enemies methodically over thirty years: a wife he had destroyed, a brother he had ruined, a third brother whose view he had literally walled out, tenants who feared and resented him, and servants who had lived for decades under the tension of a household built on cruelty.

Whether he was killed or simply died is unknown and probably unknowable. What is certain is the immediate consequence: Mary was released. After thirty-one years of confinement, at approximately 54 years of age, she returned to society. Her surviving children — now adults — received her.

Mary Rochfort — What Happened After 1774

Mary Molesworth Rochfort lived until approximately 1791, which means she had seventeen years of freedom after her release. She moved in with her son George (the 2nd Earl of Belvedere), who had inherited the estate. By contemporary accounts she struggled to readapt to normal social life after more than three decades of isolation — the psychological damage was extensive and visible.

She is buried at the Church of Ireland church in Mullingar. Her story attracted considerable contemporary notice: she became one of the more frequently cited examples, in 18th-century Irish writing, of the legal vulnerability of women under Georgian marriage law — specifically the gap between the legal grounds for separation (adultery) and the practical power husbands retained to imprison wives who disputed their accusations.

The Estate After Robert — The Rochfort and Marlay Families

Belvedere passed to George Rochfort, 2nd Earl of Belvedere, on Robert's death. The 2nd Earl had grown up watching his mother's imprisonment and his uncles' ruin, which gave his tenure a rather quieter character than his father's. The estate remained in the Rochfort family through the late 18th century.

By the early 19th century the estate had passed to the Marlay family through marriage, and remained with them through much of the Victorian era. The Victorian period added the walled kitchen garden (created approximately in the 1850s) and various improvements to the estate's agricultural and domestic infrastructure. The Marlay tenure lacked the dramatic character of the Rochfort era but maintained the estate in reasonable condition.

The 20th century brought the gradual decline common to Irish country houses: rising maintenance costs, reduced estate income, and the demographic collapse of the Anglo-Irish class that had sustained properties of this size. By mid-century Belvedere was at risk of the fate that had claimed dozens of comparable Irish country houses — demolition or dereliction.

State Acquisition and Restoration

Belvedere was acquired by the Irish state and placed under the stewardship of Westmeath County Council, in partnership with Heritage Ireland. The restoration programme that followed over several decades addressed the house interior — the Rococo plasterwork, the Georgian library, the formal reception rooms — and the estate's outdoor features: the Jealous Wall (stabilised with internal steel rods), the two Thomas Wright follies, the woodland trails and the lakeside landscape.

Fáilte Ireland's subsequent involvement, funded partly through the EU Just Transition Fund, expanded the estate's visitor infrastructure: the Visitor Services Centre, the Lakeside Café, the children's play areas and the interpretive elements that now contextualise the Rochfort story for a contemporary audience.

In 2026 the estate is in the final phase of a major conservation programme. Phase 3 works — covering the mechanical and electrical systems, internal painting and furnishing of the house — are expected to conclude with the house interior reopening to visitors later in the year. See the visitor information page for current status.

People of Belvedere — Who's Who

Name	Role	Dates
Robert Rochfort 1st Earl of Belvedere	Commissioner of the house; "The Wicked Earl." Imprisoned wife, ruined brothers, built the Jealous Wall.	1708–1774
Mary Molesworth Rochfort	Robert's wife. Confined for 31 years on accusation of adultery. Released on Robert's death. Lived until c.1791.	c.1720–c.1791
Arthur Rochfort	Robert's younger brother, accused of adultery with Mary. Sued for £20,000, imprisoned for debt, family dispossessed.	?–c.1780
George Rochfort (1)	Robert's older brother, owner of Tudenham House. The view of his house prompted the Jealous Wall.	?–1761
Richard Castle	German-born Palladian architect. Designed Belvedere (1740) alongside Powerscourt, Westport and Russborough.	c.1690–1751
Thomas Wright	English astronomer-architect. Designed the Gothic Arch and Octagonal Gazebo at Belvedere (c.1760–65). Also first theorised the disc shape of the Milky Way.	1711–1786
George Rochfort (2) 2nd Earl of Belvedere	Robert's son. Inherited the estate in 1774. Took in his mother Mary after her release.	?–c.1814