2002:0884 - CASTLEWARDEN HOUSE, Castlewarden North, Kildare

Testing was undertaken in March 2002 before a planned extension to existing modern additions to Castlewarden House. Castlewarden House, the main building for the Castlewarden Golf Club, is prominently situated on a gentle west-south-west-facing slope near Blackchurch and c. 3km north-east of Kill. A farmyard/carpark lies just to the north, east and west of the building.

Approximately 500m to the north-east is a probable 12th-century, horseshoe-shaped motte and double-fosse bailey that has been extensively quarried for sand (Office of Public Works, fieldnotes 1972; Office of Public Works, fieldnotes 1 July 1988; Healy 1977). The standing house is primarily an early 19th-century structure, on the site of an important 17th-century house (Anon. 1976, 56). Testing was carried out in coordination with a standing building survey undertaken by Jackie Jordan.

The 17th-century building is represented in the 1655 Down Survey, where it is identified as ‘Castlenarning’. The representation suggests a fortified or semi-fortified house akin to the small 17th-century house at Derrin, Co. Laois, with prominent chimneys (Craig 1982, 135), or a larger, T-plan or H-plan building with two or four flanking towers. The west/central footprint of the existing building at basement/ground-floor level contains thick walls (0.6–0.8m) that, while heavily rendered, may incorporate parts of a 17th-century structure. Viewed in plan, these walls form a T-shape, measuring 12.8m east–west by 6m, with the stem of the T projecting north for a further 6m and encompassing a staircase. Some 18th-century components are present on the exterior of the building, particularly in the south façade, indicating some renovation and/or rebuilding at that time. The first-edition OS map (1838) depicts ‘Castlewarden House’, oriented approximately north–south, with an enclosed yard to the east and gardens to the north. The layout of the house is difficult to discern, but it appears to be roughly T-shaped. Another structure is depicted on the first edition, across the yard to the north-east; it is still standing and in use as the golf shop. The second-edition OS map (1871–2) indicates that a number of additional buildings had been constructed around the yard during the mid-/late 19th century, including a narrow structure to the east of Castlewarden House, on a similar, but not identical, alignment.

Castlewarden House has been added to several times in the last twenty years. The areas adjacent to what was formerly the basement have been excavated and landscaped to provide access to the former basement/present ground floor. Although it is unclear when such work was completed, it has resulted in artificial gradients down to the southern and eastern exterior walls (5.75m and 7.75m wide respectively) and a narrower-walled alleyway along the exterior of the northern and western walls (c. 1.5m wide, separating the building from a tarmacadamed carpark). This landscaping has removed any archaeological material that may have existed adjacent to the exterior walls.

Two perpendicular test-trenches were mechanically excavated across an area to the south, south-east and east of Castlewarden House. Trench 1 measured 21m north–south by 2.45m and was 7.75m east of the modern, eastern addition to the existing building, at the top of the landscaped slope. In Trench 1 an L-shaped wall trench backfilled with late 18th-/19th-century material is likely to have been part of either an adjacent farm building constructed around the attached farmyard between 1838 and 1871–2 or a boundary wall of similar date. A single find from buried topsoil beneath the tarmac may date to the 17th-century phase of Castlewarden House: a thick, trapezoidal, vernacular roof slate/stone shingle with late medieval/early post-medieval parallels. Trench 2 measured 19.5m east–west and was 5.75m south of the modern, eastern addition to Castlewarden House. No significant archaeology was unearthed in this trench.

Based on the rough representation of ‘Castlenarning’ in the 1655 Down Survey, the possibility of encountering the remains of towers flanking the main early structure was entertained before testing. No evidence of any towers was encountered. If they did once exist on the south side of Castlewarden House, they appear to have been entirely removed, leaving no surviving trace. Alternatively, any conjectural towers associated with an earlier phase of the building may conceivably have flanked the stairwell on the north side of the structure, beneath the tarmacadam carpark and well outside the footprint of development and archaeological testing.

References
Anon. 1976 Buildings of architectural interest in Co. Kildare. Dublin.
Craig, M. 1982 The architecture of Ireland, from the earliest times to 1880. London.
Healy, P. 1977 Report on the moat at Castlewarden North, Co. Kildare, OS15. Unpublished, An Foras Forbatha.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin