KINDLESTOWN CASTLE

The site is named after its reputed builder Albert de Kenly who was sheriff of Kildare in 1301. It consists of a rectangular tower house / hall of roughly coursed rubble, of which only the north wall remains largely intact. The hall has two stories with a barrel vault (running east to west) on the ground floor. Above this, the surviving north wall is stepped inward to support the first storey floor above the vault. Towers occur at the north-west and north-east angles and project (0.60m) from the wall. The tower at the north-east has collapsed but the stair well leading from the ground floor to a passage in the thickness of the wall at first level in the north wall is still visible. A chamber occurs in the north-west tower at this level with a cross-loop in the west wall. There are two garderobe chutes (a medieval lavatory) in the north face of this tower and a third immediately beneath the projection between it and the north wall of the hall. there are four internally rounded window openings in the north wall of the first floor narrowing to simple rectangular windows. The hall is probably of 14th century. The hall stands at the east end of a rectangular ditched enclosure. The dith extends 29 m to the west beyond the hall and turns south to the adjacent field boundary. There is no indication of the entrance.