town/city walls

Freestanding town walls, commenced c.1350, latest additions c.1730. Having various subsequent repairs and extensions. Rubble stone wall built to courses, bonded with lime mortar. Wall footing visible to base of north elevation.

Believed to have been commenced during the mid-thirteenth century, the town walls were repaired in the mid-fourteenth century, damaged in the battle of Kinsale in 1601, largely destroyed in the siege of 1690 and subjected to some repairs in the eighteenth century. Lewis, in his Topographical Directory of 1837 notes that 'three of the gates were remaining till near the close of the last century; Nicholas gate was removed in 1794, Friars gate in 1796, and Cork gate in 1805'. This section of wall is one of the few surviving remnants of this historic defensive feature.