Cramps Castle (in ruins) — Crampscastle

Towards the W end of a fairly level E-W ridge in undulating terrain, in rough pasture and within the E quadrant of a D-shaped enclosure (TS070-045001-). Fethard's Holy Trinity church (TS070-040001-) and Augustinian Abbey (TS070-040004-) are visible 1km to the SW. Cramp's Castle belonged to the Earls of Ormond and during the 15th century it was a place of some importance as it was frequently a venue for the monthly sessions of the county court of the liberty (or palatinate) of Tipperary (Empey 1985, 91). The earliest reference to these court sittings, at 'Crumpiscastell', is from January 1410 (COD, II, 289), but it is referred to by name a century earlier, in the rentals of the baronies of Kiltinan and Knockgraffon of 1308-9, as 'Crompescastell' (COD, I, 163). By 1640 it is decribed as 'altogether downe onely the Walls' and as a 'stumpe of a castle... at present wast without impvemt' (Simington 1931, vol. 1, 158, 182). According to local tradition the castle was subjected to cannon fire by Cromwellian forces but did not fall. The castle was intact in 1840, as the OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 2, 157-8) mention that the pointed doorway of the castle was blocked with stones and that there was no way to enter the castle or determine the thickness of the walls as all the openings had been blocked up. The W wall and SW angle collapsed in August 1893 (article in The Nationalist 26th August 1893, reprinted in the Fethard & Killusty Newsletter, 2005 with a hand-coloured photograph dating to c. 1900 from Joe Kenny's collection). This four-storey castle is constructed of limestone rubble, roughly coursed, with a base-batter (average H 1.5-1.75m; Wth 0.4-0.47m). The outer W wall of the castle is gone and the S wall is largely broken out and what survives is ivy covered. The inner W wall and S wall are largely broken out above first-floor level. It has an unusual plan, consisting of a main rectangular block (ext. dims. c. 12m N-S; c. 10.2m E-W; int. dims. 7.58m N-S; 5.23m E-W) with a square garderobe tower (ext. dims. 3.62m N-S; 3.6m E-W; wall T 0.9m) projecting N from the E end of the N wall and a small projection (ext. Wth c. 2.8m W wall is broken out; D 0.35m) at the W end of the N wall to accommodate a spiral stairs. The castle appears to be of two phases of construction, being originally a hall-house surviving to first-floor level, with poor quality quoins and windows have crude limestone and sandstone jambs. The floors above this level have well-cut limestone quoins and late three-centred windows. Also, the original castle appears to have had timber flooring throughout, as evidenced by a beam-hole in the original N wall to support a first floor. In the rebuild, an inner skin was built on to the internal wall-face, supporting an inserted pointed vault over the first floor, probably contemporary with the later phase of elevation. The entrance to the later 16th-century rebuild was roughly centrally placed in the now collapsed W wall. It is likely that the original entrance to the hall-house was also in the W wall but at first-floor level. A limestone jamb of the later main doorway, with external double chamfer and vertical punch-tooling, lies on the S side of the entrance lobby. In the lobby area, the exposed E half of a murder-hole chute is visible, formerly accessed from the now collapsed mural chamber above the lobby. From the lobby a mural stair rises in the W wall towards a spiral stair in the NW angle. The spiral stair is broken out, though there are remains of one flat-headed stair light, at second-floor level, with a slop-stone sill. The ground floor was entered from the lobby in the W wall and this chamber was lit by three windows, two in the E wall and one in the S wall, all with original flat-arched embrasures with evidence of plank-centring. In the N wall there is a large flat-arched recess with a wall cupboard on the W side and there is another wall cupboard in the W wall. The timber first floor is carried on corbels and an offset on the E wall. The first floor was entered from the spiral stair via a doorway built into the vault. It was lit by at least two windows, a flat-headed loop at the S end of the E wall and a flat-headed single-light window in the N wall. There is a joggle-jointed fireplace in the W wall, S of centre. The garderobe chamber was accessed from an awkwardly constructed doorway in the NE angle. The second and third floor are not now accessible. Both were entered from the spiral stairs in the NW angle. At first-floor level the S and W wall are largely gone and only one broken-out window in the E wall is visible. A chamber in the garderobe tower was entered from a broken out doorway at the E end of the N wall. The windows which survive at third floor level are all three-centred and include a single-light in the N wall, a two-light mullion and transomed window in the E wall and two-light window at the E end of the S wall, only the head of which survives. There is a broken-out fireplace in the E wall, the masonry for the flue projecting externally where it is supported on a double row of corbels. At the E end of the N wall there is a doorway into a garderobe chamber and also in the N wall there is a wall cupboard. There are two large corbels projecting from the E wall at the top of the third floor, probably supporting a hammer-beam roof. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of revised upload: 20 November 2014