The house itself is a handsome Georgian country residence, built around 1810 and possibly incorporating parts of an even earlier structure from the 1740s. According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, it’s a five-bay, two-storey building with a basement to the rear and modern extensions; a typical example of the kind of country house that dots the Irish landscape.

What makes this site intriguing is what might have stood here before. An estate map from 1804 labels one field as ‘Castle Field’, suggesting a medieval fortress once occupied this spot. Yet no castle appears on any of the historical maps, including the detailed Ordnance Survey editions from 1837 and 1913. When researchers visited in 1983, they found no visible surface remains in the area locals still called Castle Field, and modern aerial photography hasn’t revealed any telltale cropmarks that might indicate buried foundations.

The phantom castle of Wardenstown remains elusive. It’s possible that Wardenstown House was constructed directly atop the ruins of an earlier castle, though no medieval stonework has been identified in the current building or its outbuildings. The 1655 Down Survey map of Farbill Barony shows no castle in this townland either, deepening the mystery. Whether Castle Field earned its name from a long-vanished structure or merely from local legend, the truth about Wardenstown’s medieval past remains buried, quite literally, somewhere beneath the peaceful fields of this Westmeath estate.