Europe Was Once Obsessed With Fake Dilapidated Buildings
If you walk through Belvedere House Gardens and Park in Westmeath, Ireland, a dramatic sight rises through the trees: an enormous, shattered abbey, a staircase of broken stones climbing to the sky. Visitors often wonder what imposing building once stood here, but the whole thing is a deception. The ruin, which is called the Jealous Wall, was constructed in this dilapidated state in the 18th century by Robert Rochfort, a man known to history as “the wicked earl.” On either side of the ruin stands a country house: One is beautiful and well maintained, the other a ruin in its own right, overgrown with ivy.
The story of how this strange situation came to be offers a glimpse into the tortured mind of a real-life Gothic villain—and highlights a bizarre architectural fad
