2018:362 - Castlepook South, Cork

Castle Pook tower-house is currently undergoing conservation and restoration as a private dwelling, and several phases of excavation have already been carried out in tandem with the restoration works. The tower-house is located at the north-western corner of a bawn. The present phase of excavations investigated a 20m-long section of the southern bawn wall and a grass-covered mound to the north-west of the tower-house, outside the bawn. The investigated section of the bawn wall was very poorly preserved. Most of the building stone had been robbed out, and since the wall was built directly on bedrock there was no foundation trench. Much of its length was traced, and a roughly-paved area at one point suggested it was the location of a 3m-wide entrance through the bawn wall.
The grass-covered mound to the north-west of the tower house covered the foundations of a circular limekiln, of a type known as a ‘flare kiln’. Built on a flat bedrock plateau, the kiln was of earth-bonded stone-facing masonry with a core fill of earth and small stones. It was 3.34m diameter and survived to a maximum height of 0.9m. It had three flues, facing north-east, south-east and south-west. The latter two were floored with flat stones. The flues gave access to the hearth at the centre of the structure. Above the hearth the base of the kiln bowl survived. At its narrowest point, just above the hearth, the almost circular bowl was 0.45-0.5m in diameter, splaying out as it rose, to a maximum surviving diameter of 0.75m.

Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork