Ballindoney Castle

In gently S sloping terrain. The tower house is incorporated in an old farmyard, but most of the old farm buildings are gone or in a ruined state. The old farm house is situated immediately NE of the tower house, running E-W. The County juror for Ballindoney in 1551 and 1561 is Maurice English (COD V, 61, 121). According to the Civil Survey (1654-6) the 'walls of the castle'of 'Ballendonny' were, in 1640, the property of 'Richard Butler of Kilkash Esqr Irish Papist' (Simington 1931, vol.1, 319-20). The tower house (ext. dims. 12.7m N-S; 10.4m E-W; wall T 2.11m) is four storeys high with two-storey turret blocks running the length of the N and S walls, constructed of cut limestone blocks, roughly coursed, with cut and dressed quoins and a base-batter (2.67m H x 0.3m Wth). The main entrance, a pointed doorway at the N end of the E face, is protected externally by a covered machicolation at fourth-floor level supported on finely cut corbels and internally by a murder-hole over the small internal lobby. This lobby leads straight-ahead, through a doorway, into the main chamber, while a doorway to the S gives access to a mural stairs. These stairs rise through the E wall to access the first-floor chamber. At the SE angle a spiral stairway continues upwards, giving access to the upper floors. The stairs are lit by a number of flat-headed loops and there is a spy hole overlooking the stair from the first-floor mural chamber. The ground floor is lit by flat-headed windows in the N, W and S face, the N ope now blocked. There are wall cupboards at every floor level. The first and second floors were wooden, carried on wall-plates supported on corbels, while the third floor is supported by a barrel vault. The first floor is lit by an ogee-headed single light in the S wall and single light with a caernavon head in the N wall. There is a centrally-placed fire-place in the W wall, with lintel robbed. At the E end of the N wall a narrow, round-headed doorway leads into a mural chamber containing the murder-hole chute. At the W end of the S wall a narrow, flat-headed doorway gives access to a garderobe chamber which was lit by at least one single-light window. The garderobe chute exits at ground level at the S end of the W wall. The second floor is lit by a flat-headed single light window in the N wall. A breach in the S wall gives access to an oubliette originally only accessed from the S window embrasure on the third floor. There is a lot of intact plaster at this level, noticeably on the vaulted ceiling and the N wall. Between the second and third floor there is a pointed doorway from the spiral stairs giving access to a lobby. From this five steps lead down to another small lobby area with a flat-headed doorway which gives access to a vaulted mural chamber running along the E wall with a dog-leg at the N end. It contains three wall cupboards and is lit by two single-light windows, one flat-headed, the other with a caernavon arch. The third floor had a high-pitched gable roof, the line of which is visible on the N and S walls, together with traces of slate. Steps project above the line of the pitched roof to give the only access to the W wall-walk. The third-floor hall is lit by a two-light, cusped, ogee-headed window in the N and E wall, a caernavon-headed single-light in the S wall and an ogee-headed single light in the W wall. All, except that in the S wall, have external hood-mouldings. The S window embrasure has a wall cupboard on the W side and a square hole in the floor of a recess on the E side, lit by a small loop, accessing an oubliette below. Above the window embrasures on the N and S wall there is blind arcading; two arches with one central corbel support on the S wall and three arches with two well cut and dressed corbel supports on the N wall. On the E and W wall there are two continuous rows of corbels supporting the parapet and the base of the roof. There is a narrow, flat-headed doorway in the S wall of the W window embrasure which leads downwards to a small mural chamber. This vaulted chamber has three wall cupboards and is lit by two loops in the W wall, one lighting the bottom of the stairs, the other lighting the chamber. Back in the main third-floor chamber, towards the S end of the E wall, there is a narrow, pointed doorway which leads to a mural stairs in the E wall. The base of this stairway, opposite the doorway, is lit by a flat-headed loop with slop-stone beneath the sill. The stairs rise up to battlement level, where there are remains of the crow-stepped parapet, and gives access to mural and turret chambers on the N and S walls. Before reaching the wall-walk, a doorway off the stairs accesses a mural chamber running the length of the south wall to a garderobe at the S end of the W wall.