Built from roughly coursed limestone rubble, the tower measures 12.9 metres in external diameter with walls an impressive 3.1 metres thick. Though it now stands three storeys high, it originally reached even higher before being truncated in the eighteenth century, likely by the residents of a nearby Georgian house who had their own plans for the ancient structure.

The tower’s defensive design reveals the concerns of its medieval builders. Entry was through a two-centred pointed doorway on the southeast side, crafted from chamfered limestone, which led into a lobby protected by an overhead murder-hole; a grim reminder of less peaceful times. Beyond this first line of defence, visitors would encounter a guardroom to the east and a second lobby, also equipped with a murder-hole, before gaining access to the spiral stairs and ground floor chamber. The interior features a mix of wooden floors supported on corbelled wall-plates and a circular vault over the first floor that springs from floor level. All the windows are narrow defensive slits set within large segmental-arched embrasures, designed to provide light whilst minimising vulnerability to attack.

By 1654, the Civil Survey recorded the site as the ‘ruines of an old castle’, with John Purcell listed as its proprietor in 1640. The eighteenth century brought significant modifications, particularly to the second floor, which features what may be a garderobe chamber on the west side and a mural chamber to the south. An eighteenth-century bawn wall to the south of the tower possibly incorporates portions of the original defensive enclosure, including what might be a seventeenth-century gable-ended thatched house built into its eastern wall; a fascinating example of how these ancient fortifications evolved and adapted through the centuries.