Farm buildings at Kilwaughter Castle, Kilwaughter, Larne, Co Antrim

Farm buildings at Kilwaughter Castle

Two courtyards of farm buildings forming a handsome and well-detailed ensemble that constitutes an important group element with Kilwaughter Castle itself.

The buildings comprise single-storey and two-storey structures of stone arranged informally around two farm yards lying to the north of Kilwaughter Castle, organised into three main blocks running east to west.

The eastern block forms part of the north side of the first yard nearest the castle. A single-storey greystone building now used as a cow byre, it displays segmental arches now blocked with brick or rubble, though some rectangular door and window openings remain. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses. To the south, the block returns with a taller gabled section roofed partly in asbestos slates and partly in corrugated asbestos. The walls are partly rendered in wet dash with crushed black stones and partly in smooth cement render. A modern corrugated iron door on an overhead runner has been installed. Behind this stands a taller gabled block of greystone rubble with asbestos slates to the north slope and natural slates to the south. Window openings are blocked with corrugated perspex and feature flat arched heads.

The central block forms the remainder of the north side of the first yard and returns westward to form the west side of that yard. It is a single-storey gabled building of squared greystone in regular courses, with a square tower at its east end. The main entrance is a tall Tudor-arched opening in the centre of the single-storey section, facing south. The south facade to the left of the tower is symmetrically designed, with a central archway flanked by buttresses on each side. Beyond the buttresses is a symmetrical arrangement of openings: a small Tudor-arched doorway with a Tudor-arched window to either side. Door and window arches possess chamfered edges. Each window has a sloping sandstone cill, as do recessed panels and wall planes above the doorway and window openings. The windows are two-light and fixed, featuring rounded timber arches within a Tudor timber arch containing a spandrel light and diamond pattern glazing bars, though much is damaged and none of the four windows across the facade are completely intact. The main entrance contains a recessed timber frame of similar profile to the arch, though the original doors are now missing. Original ledged timber doors with vertical pole mouldings over the joints survive in both small doorways, but the lower portions are rotted away in each case. The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses, contained by a gable upstand at the west end and the tower at the east end. Cast iron rainwater goods are in derelict and broken condition.

The tower has a projecting offset at its base with a moulded top that returns on the east face to form part of the moulded surround to a dressed sandstone tower doorway. The doorway has a Tudor-arched head in a single stone with chamfered edges all round. An original ledged timber door with pole mouldings over the joints remains, accessed by three stone steps, now partly fallen. The tower contains narrow rectangular slit openings on different faces at three levels, executed in the same style as the entrance piers to the estate. The top storey has a rectangular opening on each face, dressed in moulded sandstone and surmounted by a projecting sandstone cornice topped with greystone crenellations. Where the tower abuts the lower gabled block, a narrow two-light slit opening sits within a recessed wall plane. The tower roof, visible through these openings, appears intact. Set back from the south facade and beyond the tower doorway is a later gabled block, with the angle between its roof and the tower now built up with rubble. The south and east faces of this block are constructed of rubble greystone with roughly squared quoins and shaped voussoirs to a semi-circular arched window in the south gable and a circular window in the apex above it; the circular window is partly obscured by wooden boxing. A doorway in the east wall has a flat arch. A projecting return at the west end of the central block, constructed of roughly squared masonry incorporating galleting, has a replacement roof of corrugated iron. Its long east-facing facade contains rectangular window openings, a small doorway, and a large central semi-circular archway, now all blocked with concrete blockwork; flat arches span the rectangular openings, and remnants of diamond pattern glazing bars remain in two windows at the north end. The apex of the south gable is built up in concrete blockwork, with a modern corrugated iron doorway on a runner. This projecting return separates the two farm yards, its west face forming part of the west boundary of the second yard. It connects to the western block via a ruinous rubble stone wall at the south end, which projects westwards to link with a gate screen to the second yard. This screen comprises a base wall finished in smooth cement render surmounted by original wrought iron railings with cast iron crestings, a pair of cast iron pillars with Jacobean-style finials, and original gates of similar design to the railings.

The western block comprises a long two-storey barn forming the western side of the second yard, with a return to the east at its south end forming part of the south side of the yard. The southern face of this return is built of roughly squared and rubble masonry in rough courses with flat arches spanning rectangular windows, now derelict. The western face of the western block displays two red brick chimneys near the south corner. The northern face is a plain gable with a large later rectangular opening dressed in smooth cement render. The elevations toward the second yard display masonry of similar quality to the outer faces and feature large segmental archways to the ground floor, now blocked with cement, and circular and diamond-shaped vent openings to the first floor.

A fourth block, a small single-storey stone building of similar masonry and similar age but in very ruinous condition, forms the north boundary of the second yard. A rubble stone wall completes the eastern boundary and separates the yard from an old graveyard.

The farm buildings appear on the 1832 Ordnance Survey map with essentially the same layout as at present, suggesting they were built in association with the early 19th-century development of Kilwaughter Castle. The structures lie within scheduled monument areas. The buildings are set just to the north of Kilwaughter Castle, well within its demesne and surrounded by agricultural land.