This thirteenth or fourteenth century hall-keep was already in ruins by the time of the Civil Survey in 1654, which recorded it as having ‘the walls onely standing’. The castle was then owned by Richard Butler of Kilcash, one of the prominent Butler family who controlled much of this region during the medieval period.

The rectangular tower, measuring 17 metres by 11.3 metres with walls over two metres thick, rises two storeys from its limestone rubble construction. Its most intriguing feature is the evidence of multiple building phases; the original first floor entrance on the northeast wall has been converted into a window, whilst a later ground floor doorway was inserted below, protected by a machicolation added directly above at wall walk level. The defensive base batter, a sloped thickening of the walls at ground level, would have made the tower more difficult to undermine during sieges.

Inside, wooden floors once divided the levels, supported within the thickness of the walls themselves. The ground floor, lit only by narrow defensive slits set into round arched embrasures, contrasts with the more comfortable first floor, which featured proper round arched windows on three sides. Two doorways at first floor level reveal the medieval attention to both defence and comfort; one leads to a garderobe whose outlet remains visible in the tower’s north angle, whilst another in the south angle opens to what was likely a private mural chamber. A seventeenth century house was later attached to the southwest wall, accessed through a tall round arched doorway, though this addition has since crumbled away, leaving only the medieval tower to mark this ancient stronghold.