Structure

The National Monuments Service's description

On a gentle W-facing slope and at the W angle of a walled garden attached to the 19th century Cloonahee House that replaces an older house associated with the Conroy family, although the tower is older than the present house and walled garden.
The tower is a diamond-shaped structure of four storeys (int. dims 4.15m NE-SW; 4m NW-SE; H 11m). Access to the ground floor, which contained a bench of garderobes on the NE wall over a SE-NW stream, was by a doorway on the NW wall, and it was accessible only to those outside the garden. Access to the other floors was by a doorway (Wth 1m; H 1.8m) in the NE wall placed c. 1m over the present ground level of the walled garden and only available to those in the garden. Access to the upper floors was by an internal wooden ladder through trapdoors. The first and second floors have a rectangular window (Wth 0.7-0.8m ; H 0.9-1m) on each wall but the third has simple lights (Wth 0.1m; H 1-1.1m) over an external string-course. The parapet has simple crenellations, and the tower was restored in 2007 with a flat roof.
There is a graffito scratched in the plaster of the NW wall of the first floor. It depicts a woman (H 0.4m) wearing a crown and smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, with the inscriptions overhead '1794' and 'Mrs. J. (F?) Hazleregtio (a?)'.

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of revised upload: 30 June 2015