Grange Castle — Grange (newcastle By.)

Attached to a farmhouse in flat, low-lying ground. Shown as a castle on the Down Survey (1655-6) map. This is a rectangular tower house with a square tower that's projects to the N in the NE corner. The tower house is three storeys high. The walls are plastered but where stonework is visible it is coursed limestone with roughly dressed quoins. The windows are all later insertions. Entrance is in the N wall through a round-headed doorway. There is a murder hole over the entrance lobby which leads into a vaulted ground floor (int. dims. L 7.08m; Wth.5.2m). Access to stair turret is off the lobby through a round-headed doorway. First floor not accessible. Second floor is accessed through a two-centred arched doorway. There is a garderobe chute in the SE corner which is supported by corbels and entered through a narrow round-headed door to a small circular chamber lit by a single ope. The jambs are hammer-dressed. There is a square stair tower or cap house which rises above parapet level (Healy 1974, 22; Mc Dix 1897, XXXIX, 22). A drawing by Beranger in 1773 shows stepped crenellations at parapet level (Harbison 1998, 168-9). In 1997 monitoring and excavation were undertaken in the vicinity of the castle, in advance of the construction of an access road and the excavation of foul sewers for a Business Park at Grange Castle. A curving ditch was identified orientated north-east/south-west. It was 30m in length, 0.8-0.9m deep, and 1.2-2.4m wide. The upper fills contained charcoal, mortar, flint and animal bones, and were aceramic. A decorated bone comb, stick-pin and knife gave the later ditch phase a terminus ante quem of from the 12th to the 13th century AD. A stone causeway, 0.5-0.6m wide and 0.06-0.1m deep, crossed the ditch. The evidence suggests that extensive early medieval and post-medieval activity survives in this area; the ditches can be interpreted as medieval field boundaries (O'Brien, R. 1998, 26-7). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout Date of upload: 26 August 2011