Castle Strange, Athleague, Co Roscommon- ruin
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 291. Castlestrange: “Mitchell/LG1875) A square house, now ruined. Imposing U shaped stables; long medieval bridge over river Suck near gate. Ormamental ritual stone in demesne.”
Ruin of three-bay three-storey over basement former country house, built c.1830. L-plan range of two-storey outbuildings to east of house, U-plan coach house and stables and gate lodge to the estate. L-plan outbuildings now in use as a private dwelling with rear of house facing onto courtyard. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and stone chimneystacks. Random coursed walls, rendered to north-facing elevation. All square-headed window openings with replacement aluminium windows. Adjacent outbuilding with half hipped slate roof and random coursed limestone walls now in use as farm building. Pedimented bellcote to yard and fuel store with pointed-arched openings. Derelict U-plan coach house and stables with squared limestone walls and tooled limestone cornice and quoins having family crest set into wall. Limestone surrounds to carriage arch and door openings and red brick surrounds to window openings. Additional coach house to east accessed through wrought-iron gate piers flanked by ashlar gate piers. Three-bay single-storey with attic storey former gate lodge to south of main house.
Appraisal
Although the main house is now in ruins, the Castlestrange estate, the outbuildings adjacent to the ruined house continue in use, as a private dwelling. While this outbuilding has been saved from dereliction by its change of use, the coach house and stables have succumbed to that fate. These remarkable buildings are a display of the opulence of the estate and the central arrangement of five carriage arch openings is a striking composition. Although greatly diminished, Castlestrange survives as a living estate where buildings of architectural and social importance remain. Castlestrange is also the home of a Celtic La Tène stone known locally as the Castlestrange Stone.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2020/10/05/castle-strange/
Very Strange
The former Castle Strange in County Roscommon derived its name from a family who held this land in the late Middle Ages, called L’Estrange. There seems some confusion about whether they were of Norman origin, or whether this was an Anglicised version of an old Irish name. In Edward MacLysaght’s Surnames of Ireland (1969) the author proposes that the L’Estranges in County Westmeath had originally been called Mac Conchoigcriche, meaning border hound. Was this also true of the family of the same name in Roscommon? In any case, by the second half of the 17th century the L’Estranges, like so many other old families, had been driven out of their territory, the land in this instance passing into the hands of one Thomas Mitchell, a Scottish soldier sent to Ireland by General Monck in 1659 and seven years appointed by then-Lord Lieutenant James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, to serve as Cornet to a troop of horse under the command of Captain Nicholas Mahon. Mitchell subsequently settled in this part of the country and married, producing a large family, generations of which would live at Castle Strange. In the 19th century, successive members served in the British army, John Wray Mitchell rising to the rank of Major-General, while his son Edward became a Colonel. But further information about them, and their home, is not easy to find.
The first two photographs shown here show what remains of Castle Strange today: little other than sections of the two gable ends with portions of their chimney stacks. Seemingly built in the 1830s (after the estate was inherited General Mitchell’s father, another Edward), there appears to be nothing on record about its appearance when still intact and occupied, nor how it came to be in its present state (should anyone have such material, do please share). Meanwhile, the nearby yard to the east is in much better condition, in that at least the outer walls and sections of the roof remain in place. This very large, U-shaped block is constructed of limestone ashlar and, older images indicate, features a carved coat of arms above the central carriage arch, now impossible to see due to the thickness of ivy covering the building. The scale of this development indicates the affluence of the Mitchell family at the time, as do further ranges of farm buildings to one side. The other building of architectural interest is the now-derelict east lodge, again thought to date from the early 1830s and an exercise in romantic Gothic, with arched windows on either side of a central two-bay canted projection with a door on one side. Like so much else on this site, information about the building is scarce, making it another instance where a place’s history has been almost entirely obliterated. All very strange.
Irish Historic Houses 