Castle in Ruins — Castlemoyle North

On a gentle W-facing slope in gently undulating terrain. Ardmayle church (TS052-035005-) and graveyard (TS052-035006-) are located c. 100m to W. The Civil Survey (1654-6) describes this as 'a good Castle' which in 1640 was under the proprietorship of 'Theobald Butler of Ardmayle Esqr. Irish Papist' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 245). According to Davis White (1892, 7) it was 'the residence of the Butlers, and subsequently of the Cootes. Cromwell is said to have attacked it and after gaining possession to have hanged the proprietor'. This four-storey tower house (ext. dims. 10.75m N-S; 8.75m E-W; E wall T 1.3m including base-batter) is constructed of limestone rubble, roughly coursed, with evidence of external harling, well-cut quoins and a base-batter (H 2.75m; Wth 0.3m). The battlement level does not survive. The external face of the N wall and N end of the E wall is ivy covered. The ground floor is entered through a doorway, now broken out, at the W end of the N wall. There is a small lobby area with a murder-hole overhead which is blocked. From the lobby a mural stair rises to W and a pointed doorway gives access to the ground-floor chamber. The internal floor level has been deepened and is c. 0.85m-1m lower than the original level. A foundation plinth projects internally along the W wall. The chamber was lit by four flat-headed windows, the embrasures of which splay both internally and externally. There are two windows in the E wall, both within round-arched arcades, the northernmost window broken out to create a later entrance. The other windows are centrally placed in the S and W walls. There are two wall cupboards in the W wall, one at either end. The first-floor was entered through a flat-headed doorway from the spiral stair in the W wall. It was supported on a wooden floor carried on well-cut corbels on the E and W walls and was lit by three flat-headed windows, one in the N wall and two in the E wall. There are four wall cupboards at this level. A quite narrow, flat-headed doorway at the S end of the W wall gives access to a garderobe chamber which dog-legs into the S wall. In the N wall, above the ground floor doorway, there is an embrasure which appears to be broken out, possibly for re-use as a fireplace, utilising the murder-hole chute as a flue. The murder-hole chute rises through the thickness of the wall and appears to have been accessed from the top floor of the tower house. A splayed wall-cupboard in the NW angle contains a peep-hole overlooking the stairs. The second floor was entered through a flat-headed doorway at the S end of the W wall, from the mural stair. This doorway is cut into the pointed vault which roofs the second floor. This level had a wooden floor which was carried on corbels projecting from the E and W walls. It was lit by two flat-headed windows, centrally placed in the N and E walls. In the S wall, just below the apex of the vault, the wall projects out on a continuous corbel course. The vault is keyed into the S wall, unlike the N wall where the vault was built first and the apex of the wall built up to meet it. The stair rises in the W wall and is lit by loops, with slop-stone bases, opposite the doorway to each floor level. It has several unusual features including a deliberately cut peep-hole (Wth 0.13m x H 0.165m) in the stair lintel overlooking the NW angle of the stair which could be accessed from the splayed wall cupboard in the NW angle at first-floor level. Near the top of the stairs there are two pairs of opposing draw-bar holes in the E and W stair wall which appear to relate to a recess in a stair lintel which may have housed some form of gate/stair yett (H c. 1.6m; Wth of stairs 0.7m), with a hinging mechanism above, to block access to the floors above the vault. When in position the base of the gate may have been secured to a step where a well-cut hole (Wth 0.1m; H 0.075m; D 0.1m) mid-way along the base of a step is perfectly in line with the hinge in the roof of the stairs and the draw-bar holes. At third-floor level the stair turns at the SW angle into a small lobby which is overlooked by an internal loop in the garderobe chamber. The third floor is entered through a flat-headed doorway at the W end of the S wall. The walls at third floor level survive to a height of c. 2m and are heavily overgrown with ivy, with saplings establishing themselves on the roof of the vault. Though broken out, there appear to have been centrally placed windows in the N, E and W walls and an ogee-headed single-light window survives in the S wall, with window seats in the high embrasure which is raised above the garderobe chamber which runs along the S wall. There are four wall cupboards. A doorway at the E end of the S wall of the third-floor chamber gives access to a lobby which leads to an oubliette trapdoor straight ahead, with slop-stone in the wall above, a garderobe chamber in the S wall and a stair in the SE angle which descends to a chamber at second-floor level along the E wall and ascends via a spiral stair at the E end of the S wall to the battlements. The garderobe is lit by two loops in the S wall and an internal loop, mentioned above, in the N wall. Roughly mid-way along this chamber there are opposing put-logs (H c. 0.8m) in the N and S walls which may have supported some form of internal screen. The garderobe chute exits near the W end of the S wall where the external face is broken out. The oubliette chamber (H 1.45m; Wth 0.72m) runs E-W beneath the garderobe chamber and appears to have no windows though a small square hole, visible externally, appears to have served as an air vent. The second floor mural chamber is lit by two loops in the E wall both with slop-stone sills and there is a large wall cupboard at the W end of the N wall. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 26 August 2011