Walled garden at, 16 Drumnadonaghy Road, Kilwaughter, Larne, Co Antrim

Walled Garden at 16 Drumnadonaghy Road, Kilwaughter

This walled garden of oblong form dates to the early 19th century and forms part of a group with the other Kilwaughter Castle buildings. It was laid out on an east to west axis with north and south sides running parallel. The west side is straight with curved corners to north and south, while the east side comprises a large sweeping arc.

The exterior walls are built of basalt rubble with a coping of limestone blocks, now much deteriorated. Large buttress walls project at the outer corners and at intermediate points on the south and east walls. These buttresses are constructed of coursed limestone but are deteriorated at their outer extremities and are not keyed into the main wall but merely abut it. The main entrance faces east and is formed by a segmental arched opening. A rectangular doorway with a flat arch is located near the centre of the south side. A buttress to the right of the main entrance has been incorporated into a modern garden shed.

Against the north side wall stands a long low lean-to block in greystone with various segmental arched openings, some now blocked with cement render. Its original function is not known, but it is now used as hen houses. The interior faces of the garden wall are lined with brickwork except for the central portions of the north and south sides, which retain basalt rubble with some courses of brickwork continuous around the south side. Brick dressings, including a segmental arch, face the inside of the doorway in the south wall.

The ground slopes gently from west to east within the outer walls. An intermediate wall known as a 'fruit wall' runs across the garden from north to south, constructed of coursed squared limestone blocks with a rectangular pier at each end stopping short of the boundary walls. It features a large segmental archway in its centre and is topped with sandstone coping slabs with wide overhang all round, with some spalling to the limestone blocks in places, including at the corners of the end piers.

Along the north side of the boundary wall, on the inside, the top of the wall ramps up to a higher level where a former greenhouse stood. Original greenhouses are now gone, but terraced areas remain, supported on the south side by low segmental arcading of greystone. The inner face of the wall behind this greenhouse area has various rectangular window and door openings, mostly in a derelict state.

The walled garden is situated on a sloping area of land within the demesne of Kilwaughter Castle, a short distance to the north of the castle, surrounded by agricultural land with a 13th-century motte nearby to the south-east. A modern garage has been built close up to the south wall near the main entrance, and a house of modern appearance stands just to the east. The structure impinges on the area of scheduled monument no. ANT 40:5.

The garden appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and was built in association with the early 19th-century development of Kilwaughter Castle.