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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - tower house

Cummerstown, County Westmeath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - tower house, Cummerstown, County Westmeath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Cummerstown
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.66384, -7.17918
SMR number
WM008-027----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in undulating pasture-land on W facing slope of a low natural ridge, with good views to the NW, NE & S. Post medieval corn mill and millrace possibly built on site of medieval watermill (WM008-026----) 110m to the SSW. Stream used as a millrace located 75m to W. The 1659 Down Survey map of Fore barony depicts a tower house type castle standing beside a stream in this general area (NLI MS 723-4).
A sub-rectangular shaped mound of grass covered stones (dims. 15m N-S; 14.6m E-W; max. H 2m), with pieces of limestone masonry bonded with mortar along the perimeter of the mound at W & SSE marks the site of this castle depicted on the 1659 Down Survey map of St. Mary's parish (NLI MS 723-4). Two sub-rectangular shaped depressions (dims 7.8m N-S; 3.5m E-W; 4.8m N-S; 5.8m E-W) are visible on the surface of the mound. The land around the mound shows traces of old cultivation ridges running roughly E-W. There are faint indications of earthworks possibly belonging to a bawn wall to N of mound which are visible on Digital Globe aerial photograph taken November 2011.

Compiled by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 19 April 2017

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.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Castle - tower house in Westmeath All County Westmeath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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