2016:678 - CASTLEPOOK SOUTH, Cork

In a further phase of excavations, carried out in January 2016 under an extension to licence 14E0358, the main top-floor chamber of the tower-house and its adjacent garderobe chamber were excavated. The top floor chamber has long been roofless and a thick sod had developed, with several aged thorn bushes. At its north-eastern corner a narrow doorway leads into a small garderobe whose external walls have collapsed. Removal of the sod revealed the spine of the vault running east-west. On either side of the vault the fill below the sod was a more or less homogeneous mix of earth and stone. The lack of identifiable stratigraphy suggested the area had been disturbed over the centuries, a suggestion supported by the discovery of modern artefacts up to 0.5m below the surface. The nature of the fill on either side of the vault suggests that these spaces (the ‘haunches’) were left void when the castle was built and that the chamber had a timber floor with voids below. The threshold of the garderobe doorway was found largely intact, constructed of fragments of a cut-stone window.

Further investigation was also carried out in the quarry pit to the south-west of the castle. On the south face of the quarry the outline of a V-shaped ditch cut through the bedrock was noted. The ditch may have been part of a moat around the tower-house, or may have pre-dated it.