Smarmore Castle Hotel, Ardee, LH

Description

A once fine demesne. There were probably early formal gardens for the first house c. 1320, which would have been enlarged for the early 18th century house. By the early nineteenth century, there was a modest landscape park with sinuous approach drive, a small area of parkland and woodland, walled garden, stables and shelter belts, with an ornamental garden near the house. The house lies beneath steeply rising ground to the east and unlike the later houses that were placed within parkland for effect, this earlier house is in a more confined setting. There are ornamental shrubs and trees beyond a wide area of gravel at the house. House now an hotel. A large hotel car park makes an austere entrance. Demesne split up, farmed and tree cover depleted.