Garden Tower at Quintin Castle

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Tall octagonal, rubble-constructed crenellated folly tower, of c.1855 set within the grounds of Quintin Castle and built at the time of the remodelling and extending of the castle itself. Quintin Castle is set on the SE coast of the Ards, to the E side of Kearney Road, c.3 miles SE of Portaferry. The tower is sited at the end of the long garden pathway and has steps leading to a base with low crenellated wall, to the S of the castle, on the boundary of the castle garden iself.

The tower measures roughly 3.5 x 8.5m and is constructed in flat rubble. There are two c.1.5m lancet arch openings at opposite sides at the lower end of the tower (slightly above ground level), now mainly blocked with only the arches at the top of both fully open. Two small slit openings half way up tower on same sides as arches. [Did this tower once have internal upper levels and a stairway? If it did it must have afforded an excellent view of Quintin Bay.]

Historical information

This tower was constructed in the 1850s, at the time of the remodelling and extending of Quintin Castle, by Mrs Elizabeth Calvert and her husband, Rev. Nicholas Calvert.

QUINTIN CASTLE
This large extravagant Victorian vision of a medieval Irish castle is actually built upon and around the ruins of a 12th century castle, constructed by the Anglo-Norman adventurer, John de Courcy. In the later middle ages the castle was held by the Smiths, a dependent family of the Savages. In the mid 1600s Sir James Montgomery, a relation of the Savages, purchased the castle and the surrounding lands from Dualtagh Smith. Sir James and his son,William, renovated the castle adding a large house to it as well as a walled courtyard.

Some time after an interlude in the 1650s, when a Cromwellian officer held Quintin, the Montgomerys sold the castle to George Ross, a member of an influential local family who held lands at Kearney. Ross never lived at the castle, which remained in its mid seventeenth century form until the 1850s, when one of his descendants, a Mrs. Elizabeth Calvert, set about remodelling what was by that time, a roofless and dilapidated structure much of whose stone, according to the OS Memoirs, had been taken by locals. This remodelling included the raising in height of the central keep, the construction of drawing and dining rooms and the general decoration to the entire building, as well as rebuilding the courtyard walls, gates and outer towers.

In 1897, the estate was sold by the Land Commission, however the house remained with the descendants of the Calverts, one of whom, Miss Louise King-Hall, became a writer whose many works included ‘The Wicked Lady’, a story of highwaymen and women, which later became a successful film. The King-Halls sold the castle in the 1920s and Quintin passed though a series of owners, one of whom, Mr. James O’Hara, ran the building as a nursing home during the 1980s. It may have been at this stage that that the secondary entrance in the front facade was added, perhaps to provide easier access for some of the elderly residents.

The building has now reverted to its earlier function of a somewhat ornate country residence.

References- Primary sources
1 Walter Harris, 'The Ancient and Present State of the County of Down' (Dublin 1744), p. 47
2 PRONI OS/6/3/32/1 Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st ed., 1834, Down sheet 32
3 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams
(QUB 1991), p. 126
4 PRONI OS/6/3/32/2 Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st rev., 1860, Down sheet 32
5 PRONI Second valuation, Ballytrustan, 1861 (in print)
6 PRONI OS/6/3/32/3 Ordnance Survey maps, 2nd ed., 1899-1900, Down sheet 32

Secondary sources
1 'Archaeological Survey of Co Down' (Belfast HMSO 1966), p.246
2 Thomas Byers, "Quintin Castle", in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.6' (1982), pp.7-9
3 Jim Blaney, "Mary Ann Donnan of Kearney" in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.3' (1979), pp.24-5

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Tall octagonal, rubble-constructed crenellated folly tower, of c.1855 set within the grounds of Quintin Castle and built at the time of the remodelling and extending of the castle itself. Besides its intrinsic value it has group value with Quintin Castle and the entrance gates.