The castle’s placement was no accident; from this vantage point, it controlled the entire valley, with steep slopes rising to the east, south, and west, whilst to the north, the valley opens onto flat, reclaimed land. This dramatic setting made it an ideal defensive stronghold for its medieval inhabitants.

The castle served as the seat of the Rochford family until the Cromwellian confiscations of the 17th century stripped them of their lands. Historical records from 1839 describe substantial ruins, noting particularly impressive walls that measured nine feet thick; roughly 2.7 metres of solid stone construction that speaks to both the castle’s defensive capabilities and the wealth of its builders. By the early 20th century, local historian Carrigan could only describe it as “a broken fragment” of its former self, though the 25-inch Ordnance Survey maps from that period still depicted it as a roofless rectangular structure measuring approximately 11 metres by 4.5 metres, oriented northeast to southwest.

Today, Black Castle has all but vanished from the landscape. When surveyed in 1987, only a single massively thick wall remained visible, trapped between two derelict farm buildings like a medieval ghost caught between worlds. The marshy ground that once provided natural defence now threatens to reclaim the last vestiges of this once-formidable fortress, leaving only historical records and local memory to mark where the Rochfords once held sway over this narrow valley passage.