The river runs roughly north to south along the western edge of this fortified bawn, which sits on a raised platform measuring about 72 metres north to south and 60 metres east to west. According to historical records from 1905, the Butlers of Ormond held this castle and estate from at least 1560 until 1698, when they transferred ownership through a fee-farm grant to a Scotsman named Mr Hely, whose descendants retained the property into the 20th century. A tower house occupies the northern portion of the bawn, whilst a wide, now silted-up fosse once provided defensive water barriers on three sides; the 1839 Ordnance Survey Letters described it as “a deep trench full of water on the south and east sides, and on the other sides a deep and rapid stream”.

Today, only the eastern wall of the bawn survives upstanding, stretching 66.4 metres in length and rising 2.7 metres above the interior ground level. This wall features an external base-batter and contains a two-storey gatehouse positioned south of centre, accessed via a causewayed entrance across the largely infilled fosse. The gatehouse’s impressive pointed segmental archway reaches about 4.3 metres in height, and whilst much of the structure has suffered damage over the centuries, including the loss of its eastern wall, evidence of 18th-century repairs remains visible, particularly in the replacement voussoirs that likely date to the same period as the now-demolished Foulkscourt House that once stood 200 metres to the southeast.

The gatehouse chambers reveal fascinating defensive and domestic features: both floors were lit by round-headed single-light windows with provisions for wooden shutters, and both had fireplaces built into the south wall, though only fragments of the second-floor fireplace lintel survive. A garderobe projects from the first-floor chamber over the south wall of the bawn, whilst wall cupboards at various points provided storage. The defensive nature of the structure is evident in the embrasures for shot-holes flanking the gatehouse entrance, with an additional embrasure positioned 10 metres south of the gatehouse. Though the Ordnance Survey Letters claimed the bawn once had “a round tower in each angle”, only the base of the northeast angle turret survives today, standing at a maximum external height of 1.6 metres.