Knockdrin

Knockdrin (Irish: Cnoc Droinne)[1] is a townland and electoral division that is 5.6 kilometers northeast of Mullingar, in County Westmeath, Ireland.

According to a National Inventory survey, parts of a surviving gate structure may be from an "earlier eighteenth century house [that] stood on the site (known as 'High Park')".

[6] The National Inventory considers the castle as "one of finest picturesque castellated country houses built in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century ... retains its early character, form and fabric".

[7] Another reliable source also confirms that the structure is credited to James Shiel, "assistant to Francis Johnston, one of Ireland’s best known Gothic Revival architects ... although elements of the front facade have been attributed to Morrison’s design".

[citation needed] The main part of High Park, the first mansion that stood on the site of the current Knockdrin Castle, may have been built in the early 18th century for Sir Richard Levinge, 1st Baronet, M.P.

The first Sir Richard Levinge was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and a member of the Lords Commissioners, who were appointed by the British Crown to settle all the land questions which had arisen in Ireland after the Cromwellian conquest, the Restoration and the Williamite Wars.

[15] The property was subsequently sold "to the Meath-based entrepreneurial couple", Noel and Valerie Moran, previous owners of Prepaid Financial Services.