Charleville Castle sometimes known as Charleville Forest for its' ancient oak woods was the fantastical creation of Charles William Bury, first Earl of Charleville (1765-1835) who inherited the property in 1785. An amiable dilettante with antiquarian and architectural interests, he had done the grand tour to Italy and sought plans from the Romano-Scottish virtuoso James Byers for a huge Palladian house. However, Lord Tullamoore as he then was, changed his mind and sketched out gothick schemes for a dramatic asymmetrical castle with interiors in the spirit of Walpoles' Strawberry Hill. Lady Louisa Conolly wrote to his wife on November 8th 1800: 'I am very glad to hear that you have begun your Castle for I think there are few occupations more entertaining than building and Lord Tullamoore will enjoy it much having planned it all himself'. The great Irish architect Francis Johnston put these plans into practice and Charleville is certainly the finest gothick castle of its' date in Ireland. The interior with its' Fonthill-like hall, vast fan vaulted gallery, stables with coronetted stalles and the surrounding woods and river made Charleville a most picturesque property. Sir Charles Coote in 1801 described its' fifteen hundred acres of full grown timber continuing - 'the Clodiagh runs with rapidity through the demesne...with several rustic bridges, which with cascades have altogether the most charming effect. The grotto...is finished in true rustic style...'. However, Coote did not mention the catellated farm yard with its' gothick diary shown in the first of Ashfords' paintings (no..). The second (no..) graphicly shows one of the weirs or cascades and the surrounding woodland mentioned by Coote. Two more paintings in the series - one in the National Gallery of Ireland, portray a rustic stone bridge with a fisherman, and in another said to be in a private Portuguese collection, a wooden bridge spans the river with its' rocky river bed. The fifth in the series is today unknown. The battlemented twin-towered complex with the octagonal dairy in (no..) was probably designed by Lord Charleville himself as a number of drawings in his hand of fort-like buildings were amongst the collection of architectural drawings sold from Charleville Castle in 1985. He also employed the Irish architect John Pentland in these schemes before taking up the far better known Francis Johnston.

William Ashford painted this series of five views in 1801 and he was commissioned by other land-owners in Ireland such as the Duke of Leinster and Earl FitzWilliam to do further sets. Thomas Roberts had started this fashion and Ashford must have known his work as the treatment of trees and foliage is indebted to him. Contemporary critics also mentioned the influence of Ruysdael and Waterloo. The theme of the figure pulling in the punt in (no..) is clearly taken from similar compositions in the piantings of Claude Joseph Vernet.

Ashford was self-taught and did not seem to have to paint for a living. It was a signal honour for a landscape painter to have been elevated the first President of the RHA in 1823, for portraiture and history
were considered stylistically very much more important thatn landscape. A critique of his work in 1801 picks on the Charleville series at the
Society of Artists Exhibition in Dublin. The words of this unknown critic could not be bettered in describing these two paintings: 'There is here an abundant scope for an exertion of the artists' genuis in the delineation of foliage. The articulation is perfect and the colouring so beautifully rich, and various, that I could with pleasure have spent hours in viewing them'.