Sir Charles Coote constructed his fortified house and bawn here sometime after 1616, building directly atop an earlier fortified house that belonged to Malby. The location was strategic; positioned where the River Suck makes a southward turn about 60 metres to the east, it commanded views of the surrounding landscape.

The bawn that once protected Coote’s house measured approximately 60 metres east to west and 40 metres north to south, forming a defensive enclosure around the main building. Though most of the bawn has vanished over time, fascinating remnants survive. The northeast and southeast towers, actually remnants from Malby’s original house, were cleverly incorporated into Coote’s design. These were balanced by a hexagonal tower at the northwest corner, though this later addition shows considerably less refined construction than its older counterparts.

Archaeological work in the 1960s revealed more of the site’s hidden structure, uncovering the foundations of the southwest tower and the western wall of the bawn, which measured about 1.6 metres thick. A well, recently conserved, can still be seen outside the northwest corner of the bawn. While much of Castlecoote has been lost to time, these surviving elements offer tangible connections to both the Malby and Coote periods of occupation, preserving layers of Irish defensive architecture from the early 17th century.