Such features, whether a planted avenue, an ornamental pond, a walled garden, or a carefully positioned stand of trees, were the visible grammar of the landed estate, arranged to suggest both taste and permanence.

Designed landscapes of this type became fashionable in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when landowners drew on English and continental ideas about the relationship between a house and its grounds. The intention was rarely purely aesthetic. A well-laid-out demesne communicated wealth and social standing, and the labour required to create and maintain it was itself a statement of means. Features were often positioned to be seen from particular windows or approached along routes calculated to impress.