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Bishop's House is a seventeenth-century dwelling with a defensive bawn, located in Carrickfergus. The house and its fortification represent the security concerns of the period, when substantial landholders required physical protection for their residences and property. The bawn—a walled enclosure of post-medieval origin—would have provided a defensible space for livestock and personnel, a common feature on Irish estates during a period of considerable upheaval and uncertain tenure.
The house sits upon Mercia Mudstone Group bedrock, a geological formation of Rhaetian age comprising mudstone, sandstone and limestone. This underlying geology would have influenced the building's foundations and the character of the surrounding landscape. The site lies within Carrickfergus, a town established in the late twelfth century and strategically significant as a port and administrative centre.
The monument is protected as a statutory heritage site by the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities, Northern Ireland, under reference 3972. The surviving structure provides evidence of domestic life and defensive architecture during the seventeenth century, a formative period in the town's development and in the broader history of colonial settlement in Ulster.
Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 3972. View the official record →
Bishop's House is a seventeenth-century dwelling with a defensive bawn, located in Carrickfergus. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 3972.
Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn dates from the post-med period, and is classified as a fortification. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 3972.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Kilroot battery. ww1 coastal battery (0.4 km), Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement associated with ww1 coastal battery (0.4 km), Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement (associated with ww1 coastal battery) (0.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn stands on Mercia Mudstone Group, bedrock that formed in the Rhaetian. The rock here is mudstone, sandstone and limestone.