2016:679 - CASTLEPOOK SOUTH, Cork
County: Cork
Site name: CASTLEPOOK SOUTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO017-027
Licence number: 16E0524
Author: Eamonn Cotter
Author/Organisation Address: Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork
Site type: Castle - tower house and Bawn
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 561479m, N 611468m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.253576, -8.564189
Castle Pook tower-house is currently undergoing conservation and restoration as a private dwelling. Over a period of four years several phases of excavation have been carried out in tandem with the restoration works. This phase of excavation concentrated on the bawn wall to the north-east and south-west of the tower-house. The tower-house is located at the north-western corner of a bawn, the walls of which survive only as grass-covered ridges.
Trenches were excavated along either side of the northern bawn wall, exposing its full extent. This section was 34m long and returned to the south at each end, with no flanking towers. It was 1.5m thick, built of limestone rubble in a strong lime mortar. During a previous excavation (Excavations, 2012:670) the foundations of a building (Structure B) adjacent to the tower-house were found at the north-western corner of the bawn. The present excavations revealed the east wall of Structure B. Its juncture with the bawn wall indicated it was a later addition. Immediately adjacent to the junction of the two walls there was evidence that a hearth which pre-dated Structure B had been inserted into the face of the bawn wall.
Eight sherds of pottery were recovered, all from the western end of Structure B. They have been identified as Transition ware of the 16th–17th century, North Devon gravel tempered ware and North Devon sgraffito ware of the 17th century, Bristol/Staffordshire slipware of the 18th century and glazed red earthenware of the 17th–19th century.
A cutting was also excavated near the south-western corner of the tower-house, where the western line of the bawn wall appeared to turn towards the tower-house. Excavation showed that this was indeed the case. The wall here was only 1m thick and poorly preserved, petering out at about 6m from the castle. The wall was built directly on bedrock and there was some levelling of bedrock here to suggest the wall might have ended in a pier, with the entrance gateway to the bawn between the pier and the tower-house itself.