Castle — Oxpark

The original tower house is to the SE of the later adjoining dwellings in a flat, landscaped garden, on the NE edge of the present town of Cloughjordan (TN016-001----). A three-storey tower house (ext. dims. 9.32m NE-SW; 8.78m NW-SE; wall T 2.2m) rendered in plaster and covered in ivy, with dressed limestone quoins and a slight base-batter. In the Civil Survey of (1654-6) the tower house is referred to as 'the ruins of an old castle & Bawne' owned by Charles Carroll (Simington 1934, vol. 2, 288). The tower house was formerly higher, the roof level having been lowered and altered to form a gable-fronted building, balancing the eighteenth/nineteenth-century building NW of the central seventeenth-century house (TN016-001003-). The original entrance was probably in the NE wall at ground level where a modern timber-frame doorway has been inserted, a 'french' door has been inserted above this at first-floor level and a twelve-pane sash window inserted at present gable level. In the SW wall a large window has been inserted at ground-floor level with another above it at first-floor level. There is a small window in the SW wall at ground-floor level; its embrasure has an internal splay though the window itself has been slightly enlarged. A 'moat' surrounding the house on almost three sides is shown on the OS 6-inch maps. This survives in part as a deep, partly water-filled fosse, particularly wide at the NE corner. It disappears under farmyard buildings to the N, reappears NW of the house, and finally runs into a stream on the W side. Until recently the remains of the moat could be detected around much of the tower house (FitzPatrick 1985, vol. 2, part 4, 86). It may be contemporary with the tower house or the later seventeenth-century house (TN016-001003-). The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary. Vol. 1 - North Tipperary' compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2002). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 September 2008