Castlerea House & Sandford Estate

The Cromwellian Theophilus Sandford received a large allocation of land at Castlerea in County Roscommon. The lands came from those confiscated from O'Connor Don family. The "good lands" belonging to Hugh Oge O'Conor were awarded to Captain Theophilus Sandford: the town and castle of Castlereagh on the east side of the river. Built by the Sandford family adjacent to an earlier O'Connor castle, CASTLEREA HOUSE was a large 17th-century block of three storeys over a basement, with 19th-century wings of two storeys over a basement. The central block of the house was destroyed by fire in 1895 and replaced with a rather crude looking pre-fabricated single-storey structure. What remained of the original building was demolished in the 1960s and the demesne now serves as a public park.