Kilhile Castle

Kilhile Castle was a fortified tower house belonging first to a Cistercian abbey and later to the Devereux and Etchingham families, its pointed entrance and murder hole built to keep unwanted visitors out. The surviving north wall still rises beside a valley stream, preserving a staircase, a possible hidden chamber and the bare bones of rooms where firelight once moved through narrow passages. What happened inside those walls is no longer certain, but the shape of the building makes the danger and daily life easy to imagine: a small, watchful house where occupation and defence were the same act.