Carrick Castle

Prominently sited on the upper, S-facing slope of Carrick Hill. A medieval church (KD002-010002-) and graveyard (KD002-010003-) stand 40m to SE. The monument comprises the poorly preserved remains of a possible late-13th/14th-century hall-house with a later tower attached at SE. The remains consist of the short, conjoined portions of the NE wall (int. L 6.8m; T 1.3m) and SE wall (int. L 3.3m; T 1.7m) of a three-story hall-house (the upper story a later addition) built of unbattered, randomly coursed, rounded granite blocks, on a plinth visible at the NW end of the NE wall (traceable L 1.5m; projects 0.3m NE), and orientated on a NW-SE axis; with a later, four- story rectangular tower (int.dims. L 8.2m NE-SW; Wth 3.2m NW-SE; wall T 1.5m) abutting at SE and built of more regularly coursed, rounded granite blocks with a substantial base-batter on its NE ,SW and SW walls. A low, grassed-over, almost square platform of collapsed rubble (dims.L 12.5m NE-SW; Wth 11m NW-SE; H 0.6m at SE- 1.2m at NW) extends NW from the surviving hall-house walls and may overlie original foundation course walling. The ground floor of the hall-house was lit by a loop in the NE wall and by a double-splayed loop in the SE wall which looks into the adjoining tower. The hall-house was entered at first- floor level through a doorway near the SE end of the NE wall. The doorway was subsequently altered; its top and NW-side were infilled to reduce its height and width and its external jambs and sill-stone are gone, but a fine round-headed rere-arch is original. Second-floor-level is marked by a rough corbel-stone in the NE wall and a change in masonry to regularly coursed rectangular blocks suggesting that it was a later addition. The upper portions of both the NE and SE walls are stepped inwards and their internal angle carries the remains of a squinch which may once have facilitated access from the later tower to a wall-walk above the hall-house? There is no obvious external access to the later tower and it was probably entered through a doorway in the destroyed SW-half of the hall-house's SE wall. The ground floor of the tower is partially filled with rubble and its NE and SE walls are featureless, while the SW wall survives to just above base-batter height. The first floor is lit by three broken loops in the SE wall, set in tall, narrow, flat-arched embrasures with traces of wicker centring, and the wall-face has been robbed to provide niches for pigeon nests, as has the wall above on the second floor. There is a robbed-out fireplace and flue in the NE wall. The second floor is lit by a robbed rectangular window in the NE wall, a robbed loop in the angle with the SE wall and two robbed windows in the SE wall which also contains a robbed-out fireplace. Its chimney was carried externally at the top of the third floor by two closely spaced, finely dressed corbel stones. The scar-line of a vault (orientated NE-SW) over the second floor is visible in the NE wall. The third floor is lit by a fine, single-light, ogee-headed window in the SE wall and the sill and lower jamb stones of a similar window survive, and this wall also contains a small, square cupboard. Portion of a recess survives near the top of the NE wall via which the hall-house wall-walk may have been accessed from the tower. O'Leary (1899-1902, 331) lists an 'evil eye stone', possibly a Sheela-na-gig, from Carrick Castle as part of the Murray Collection which was transferred to Cambridge. (Guest 1936, 117; Meagher 1979-80, 118; Sweetman 1999, 100)