This cropmark, clearly visible in Google Earth photographs from June 2018, represents what may be the remains of Herbertstown Castle, a structure with a fascinating documentary trail stretching back to the 16th century. Local memory has preserved something of its significance too; residents still refer to the field containing the cropmark as the ‘Castle Field’, a name that hints at the substantial structure that once stood here.

Historical records paint a picture of a prosperous estate centred on this now vanished castle. A Crown Inquisition from 1584/5 reveals that the Prior of Great Connall Abbey collected an annual rent of 10 shillings from the Herbertstown lands, which were then held by one Edmond Goulding. The estate was substantial, comprising a castle, six houses with gardens, 120 acres of arable land, four acres of meadow, 100 acres of pasture and moorland, and even a large rabbit warren. By 1623, the castle remained in the Goulding family, with John Goulding’s estate including the castle and 100 acres of arable land. The Civil Survey of 1654;56 valued the castle at thirty pounds sterling, a considerable sum, and recorded it as belonging to Geoffrey Fay, described as an ‘Irish Papist’.

Today, only the cropmark remains to mark where this once important local stronghold stood, its square shape suggesting a typical tower house with bawn or a fortified enclosure. Faint traces of linear field boundaries can be seen running from the northwest side of the enclosure, though these may be later additions from the 18th century onwards rather than original features. The southern side of the enclosure doesn’t show up in the aerial imagery, possibly destroyed by centuries of agricultural activity, but enough survives in the soil’s memory to tell the story of this lost piece of Kildare’s medieval landscape.