What is recorded here

Bawn in Monkstown Castlefarm is an L-shaped granite wall connecting a tower house and gatehouse, preserved from the Cistercian grange of St Mary's Abbey. Sir John Travers received the lands after the sixteenth-century dissolution, while later owners like Ludlow Cromwell are said to have repaired the castle and laid out gardens. The wall still marks the boundary between medieval monastic use and later noble display, waiting for human hands to remember what it held.

Situated to the SE of the junction of Monkstown Avenue and Mounttown Road Upper the site is located in grassland on the road edge. A bawn wall is built of coursed granite blocks. Remaining section is L shaped (SE-NW c. 26m; SW- NE c. 17.5m). The site was associated with the Cistercian grange of St Mary's Abbey. After the dissolution in the sixteenth century the lands at Monkstown were given to Sir John Travers, Master of the Ordnance of Ireland. Walter Cheevers had it in 1641, then Ludlow Cromwell, Master of the House, who is said to have repaired the castle and laid out the gardens (Ball 1906, I, 1-12). A drawing by Beranger dated 1766 shows two towers placed either end of a courtyard flanked by a multi-chimneyed mansion on the one side and a show wall on the other (Harbison 1998, 60-1). The bawn wall (DU023-014003-) connects a tower house (DU023-014001-) and gatehouse (DU023-014002-). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy Revised upload on: 22 May 2018

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.