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Margaret's Castle is a tower-house situated in County Down, Northern Ireland, representing a late-medieval form of fortification characteristic of the period. The monument stands on bedrock of the Hawick Group, a wacke formation dating to the Wenlock epoch, which provides the geological foundation for this strategic structure. The site is protected by the Historic Environment Division under reference 8573.
Tower-houses of this type emerged across Ireland and Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the favoured defensive residence of minor lords and gentry. These compact, multi-storey structures combined residential and military functions within a confined footprint, offering protection whilst minimising the expense of larger castles. The format proved enduringly practical for landowners seeking to maintain local authority over their territories.
Margaret's Castle reflects the regional building traditions of late-medieval Ulster, where tower-houses provided essential strongholds for prominent families managing their estates and asserting territorial claims. The monument survives as evidence of domestic fortification practices in the North of Ireland during a period of significant political and social change, when such structures were integral to local power structures and land management strategies.
Margaret's castle. tower-house is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 8573. View the official record →
Margaret's Castle is a tower-house situated in County Down, Northern Ireland, representing a late-medieval form of fortification characteristic of the period. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 8573.
Margaret's castle. tower-house dates from the late-med period, and is classified as a fortification. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Margaret's castle. tower-house 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 8573.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Newark & horn castle, adrglass castle. tower-house, merchants stores & c18th castle (0.1 km), Souterrain (1.1 km), Coney island pier. coney island pier, part of killough harbour (1.9 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Margaret's castle. tower-house'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.
Margaret's castle. tower-house stands on Hawick Group, bedrock that formed in the Wenlock. The rock here is wacke.