Historic Buildings Record · Northern Ireland
Nendrum Castle
Mahee Island, Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland
The record
- Designation
- Record only (not listed)
- Grade
- Record Only
- Type
- Castle
- Date of construction
- Pre 1600
- Address
- Nendrum Castle, Mahee Island, Killinchy, Co Down, BT23 6EP
- Townland
- Mahee Island
- Council
- Ards and North Down
- Country
- Northern Ireland
- Coordinates
- 54.50106, -5.64856
- Date of survey
- 02 July 1998
- HB reference
- HB24/17/067
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1636 "Vltoniae Orientalis Pars" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
The Department's description
Exterior description and setting
Ruinous and partly overgrown remains of a tower house, probably built c.1570, set at the northern edge of Mahee Island, facing the causeway from Reagh Island, c.2.5 miles (as the crow flies) NE of the village of Killinchy.
The ruins are three storeys in height and split stone rubble and boulders. The plan was probably originally rectangular, the remaining walls measuring roughly 13m by 6.5m. Very little survives of the NE wall save a corner section to the right, but much of the SW wall remains. The SW wall contains six openings of various sizes, with splayed reveals, with a two openings to the ground floor, three to the first floor and one to the left on the second floor. The opening to the left on the ground floor appears to have been a doorway. Above one of the openings on the first floor there are a series of niches which once held the second floor joists.
At ground level there are the remains of two rooms with barrel vaulting to that to the SW. The SE room continues through to a full width doorway on the SW (see above), but the NE end has fallen away. The first floor appears to have consisted of a single chamber. The remains of the stairway are to the S corner and the stairway itself can be seen rising through the thickness of the SE wall.
Historical information
This castle is believed to have been built in c.1570 by a soldier from England named Thomas Browne, who had secured a lease of the Mahee Island from Bishop Merriman. In 1572 Captain Browne petitioned Lord Burghley in relation to his expensive buildings on the island, which had apparently cost him 400 marks (£266-4-0).
References- Primary sources
1 QUB Calendar of State Papers relating to Ireland Vol.I (1509-73), 492.
2 PRONI OS maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 17.
Secondary sources
1 'Archaeological survey of Co. Down' (HMSO 1966), p.244-45.
Criteria for listing: architectural interest
Not listed
Criteria for listing: historic interest
Not listed
Evaluation
Ruined remains of a tower house, probably built c.1570.
Nearby in the register
- Nendrum monastic siteChurchunder 1 mi
- 5 Reagh IslandHouseunder 1 mi
- 43 Ballydorn RoadDemolishedunder 1 mi
- 63 Ballydorn RoadHouseunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.