Castle - unclassified

The National Monuments Service's description

No surface remains visible of Turbotstown Castle which is depicted on the 1657 Down Survey map of Fore Barony (NLI, MS 723-4). The terrier of the 1657 Down Survey map of Mayne parish lists Richard Desse [Dease], an Irish papist as the owner of the lands and castle of Turbotstown in 1641 (ibid.). The precise location of this castle has not been identified. The location of Turbotstown House matches closely the location of the medieval castle on the 1657 Down Survey map suggesting that the present house was built either on the site of or close to the site of Turbotstown Castle. The castle is not depicted on any edition of the OS 6-inch map. The owner of Turbotstown House believes that part of the yard overlies the site of an earlier house. This earlier house could incorporate the site of Turbotstown Castle. High in the wall of the out offices in the yard immediately NW of Turbotstown House are two stone heads. The heads are placed over doorways and are quite large, carved in limestone with very sharp features, they appear sexless and appear to date from the 19th century. Turbotstown House described by the National Inventory of Architectural heritage as a 'detached three-bay two-storey house country house, built c.1810, with projecting single-bay entrance front with raised parapet over and a single-bay cut limestone tetrastyle Greek Ionic entrance porch the centre of the main façade (southeast)' (www.buildingsofireland.ie).

Compiled by: Frank Coyne & Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 2 December 2016

References

NLI, MS 723-4 - National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey for the County of Westmeath, attested by W. Petty, in 1659. Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 67 maps with accompanying terriers in two volumes, 1786-7. Dublin.