Kildevin House, Boherquill, Co. Westmeath

The bows rise through three storeys at the front and four at the rear, each finished with a balustraded parapet, and the whole structure is built of squared coursed limestone rubble worked to a quality that borders on ashlar, the fine dressed masonry usually reserved for a building's showiest faces. The effect is imposing rather than welcoming: projecting towers, a hipped slate roof with paired eaves brackets, and ashlar chimneystacks topped with decorative terracotta pots all combine to make Kildevin feel less like a comfortable country residence and more like something built to be watched from, and to watch with.

That impression may not be far off. The house was built in 1833, a date carved into the limestone lintel above the front door along with the name of its builder and original owner, Robert Sproule. Sproule served as a magistrate in the Streete area during the mid nineteenth century and was, by local account, an authoritarian figure of considerable notoriety; he is said to have used the basement as a temporary prison, and cast-iron chains and restraining devices reportedly remain in place there. An 1837 Ordnance Survey map shows a police station within the grounds, just west of the house and beside the main road, reinforcing the sense that Kildevin was built with an eye to control as much as comfort; the balustraded towers, positioned to command wide views over the surrounding land, would have suited surveillance and intimidation as readily as ornament. The house later passed to the Tyndall family and then to Edith Wise, a cousin of William Butler Yeats, who is understood to have stayed at Kildevin on several occasions. The property forms part of a wider group of related structures, with outbuildings to the rear and the main entrance gates set to the west, all contributing to the architectural character of the estate as a whole.

The house stands back from the road within mature grounds, approached through those western gates and framed by curved screen walls that sweep away from the entrance front on either side, their balustrades echoing the parapets above. Long derelict, Kildevin is currently undergoing careful restoration as a private dwelling, so its condition and access are likely to change; for now it remains a distinctive presence in the landscape, its bowed fronts and dour towers hinting at the temperament of the magistrate who commissioned them.