Castlebaldwin (in Ruins) — Bellanagarrigeeny OR Castlebaldwin

In undulating pasture. The ruin of an L-shaped house (see plan in Waterman 1961, fig. 14.8; plan and reconstruction drawing in MacLysaght 1969, f. 96; photo M. A. Timoney 2002c, 272) consisting of a gable-ended main block (int.: 10m N-S; 5.9m E-W) with a square stairway projection at the S end of the W wall (int.: L 2.85m). The main block is two storeys with an attic over a semi-basement. It is built of rubble limestone, harled externally and plastered internally. The walls stand to full height but the structure was repaired by the OPW c. 1940 when breaches were blocked up and concrete lintels inserted over some window and fireplace opes. The main elevation faces E with an off-centre ground-floor doorway near the S end, and centrally placed in two bays are two ground- and two first-floor windows. Only the S side of the doorway survives, with a return socket for a drawbar and an angled slot through the side which probably housed the chain for a yett. The windows are identical plain rectangular embrasures, missing their covering wooden lintels (ibid., 272) and wooden lights. The interior ground level is now higher than the original giving the basement a very squat appearance. Along the base of the E wall is a footing (projecting c. 0.35m) which may be the remains of an earlier structure. Just above it is a shallow scarcement which carried a wooden floor over the basement. The basement has a rebuilt fireplace in the centre of the N wall flanked by two small splayed window embrasures with single rectangular stone lights. A wall-press in the W wall is flanked by two blocked-up opes. Judging by a corresponding plaster gap in the W and E walls, there was a wooden partition on the ground floor between the entrance doorway and the southernmost window. As well as the pair on the E wall, the ground floor also has a similar window in the W and E walls, as well as two small splayed windows flanking the central fireplace in the N wall. The first floor has a similar arrangement of windows with the addition of a second window in the W wall, and a very small window on the E side of the central fireplace in the S wall. The N wall fireplace is set W of centre to allow space for the flue from the fireplaces below (the stack projects on the inside of the wall-face). There is also a partition gap in the plaster in the first floor, but it is located further N than the one below. The attic has two small windows either side of the central chimney stack in the W wall, and a small central fireplace in the S wall with a window on its W side. Except for both gables there is a shallow internal oversail just below the top of the walls (c. 0.2m). A series of drip-stones along these walls suggest that the side walls and those of the stairs may have been topped by battlements with a wall-walk. The inside faces of the stairway projection show the 'ghost' of a wooden stairs with a landing at each corner (scale-and-platt), rising the full height of the house. At ground-floor level in the N wall are two small splayed opes which are probably gun loops; there is another in the S wall. Otherwise the stairs is lit by four rectangular window opes in the W wall. The walls of the projection rise only to the level of the side walls of the main block. According to local tradition the house is named after Captain Baldwin, a soldier of Cromwell, who on returning from a hunting trip found the house burned down by his servants. This folklore is without foundation (Pers. Comm. Conchubhar ÓCrualaoich, Sep. 2018), as in the seventeenth century Bellanagarrigeeny – Béal Átha na gCarraigíní ‘the approach of the ford of rocks’ is sometimes also known as Coylemore – Coill Mór ‘Big Wood’ in the early seventeenth century. The land was granted to Edward Nicholson during the Cromwellian era, and Baldwin only becomes associated with it from 1711 through the marriage of a Sarah Baldwin to an Edward Nicholson. There is a fulacht fia (SL034-245----) c. 40m to E. This is a national monument in State care (no. 373). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo' compiled by Ursula Egan, Elizabeth Byrne, Mary Sleeman with Sheila Ronan and Connie Murphy (Dublin Stationery Office, 2005). Date of revised upload: 20 September 2018