Historical records from 1640 describe this as a ‘castle in good repair’ when William Esmond owned it along with 180 acres at Hilltown, plus additional lands totalling 370 acres in nearby Ballymitty and Ballyknock. The structure consists of a three-storey rectangular house paired with an offset entrance tower, both originally topped with gabled roofs, creating the distinctive profile typical of fortified Irish houses from this period.

The entrance tower, measuring 7.8 by 4.35 metres externally, remains complete up to its simple crenellations, though time has obscured its original doorway and internal stairs. Built with granite quoins, the four-floor tower retains just a few original features: one slit window and two double-light windows, with many later insertions altering its character. The main house, slightly larger at 12.8 by 7.45 metres, survives to the top of its second-storey windows and features a defensive machicolation at its southwest corner. Original windows with square hood-mouldings punctuate the walls; four rectangular openings, including two with double lights, grace the first floor, whilst the ground and second floors preserve a mix of single and double-light windows from the building’s earliest days.

The interior reveals tantalising details of domestic life in this fortified home. A fireplace in the northeast wall warmed the first floor, whilst projecting chimney flues visible on the second floor’s southwest and northwest walls indicate additional heating arrangements. The upper floors were supported by corbels set into the northwest and southeast walls rather than vaulting, and intriguingly, no evidence survives of the original doorways that once connected the house to its services tower, nor of any garderobes or internal stairs. Archaeological testing conducted in 2010 about 70 metres northeast of the castle yielded no related materials, though aerial photography reveals cropmarks of a relict field system to the northwest, likely the ghostly outline of the agricultural landscape that once supported this imposing residence.