Castle

Situated on a flat built up urban site to the W (c.200m) of Dublin Road and the coastline. The earliest mention of a castle at this site is in a deed of 1334, the castle was built by Sir John Cruise (Ball 1900, 312-16). It came into possession of a branch of the Fitzwilliam family in the early 1400's and was made seat of the family by Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam c. 1550's serving as the country ancestral home until the early 18th century. The building as depicted on a manuscript map by John Barker 'A Map of the Old Merrion and Simmonscourt' (NAI, Mss. 2011/2/2/2) was shown as a pair of adjacent crenelated castles one of which was three storeys high, the adjacent one two. It was damaged in the 1641 rebellion but was afterwards restored. In 1710 the castle was abandoned by the 5th Viscount Fitzwilliam being replaced as the country seat of the family by a new Merrion House in Mount Merrion (DU023-006----) in 1711. In the Down Survey (1655-6) Parish terrier it is described as a 'faire stone castle and a grove of trees'. A drawing by Beranger dated 1766 shows a long hall-like roofless building with stepped battlements above a wall-walk, with a roofed corner tower at the N end (Harbison 1998, 38-9). The three-storey over semi-basement sea-facing facade is pierced by both flat-headed and round-headed windows some with over-sailing hood mouldings with the landward elevation pierced through by closely spaced large openings. In 1780 when Austin Cooper inspected the remains; the ground floor had been used as a cow-house and part of the outlying buildings as a stable (ibid.316). Duncan's map (1821) shows the castle as still standing. On Barker's map an unusual feature depicted as a d-shaped enclosure bound by a curving earthwork with one edge bound by the shore. At this location on the first edition of the OS 6 " maps a serpentine Fish Pond is indicated (DU023-001005-). An armorial plaque (DU023-001003; L 0.33m; Wth 0.44m) with the Fitzwilliam Coat of Arms is built into the S gable of a new building called 'Fitzwilliam Hall' on the site of an older coach house. A carved stone head (DU023-001004-) and a house 18th/19th century (DU023-001002-) are also located within the grounds. Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy Revised upload on: 21 May 2018

Built by Sir John Cruise in the 14th century, this tower house is significant as the earliest recorded castle in the area, mentioned in a deed from 1334. Its construction reflects the expansion of Anglo-Norman influence in the region during the medieval period.