The castle appears prominently on the Down Survey maps from 1655-6, marked in both the barony map of Gowran and the parish map, where it’s labelled as ‘Blanchevilstown’. The accompanying terrier provides valuable detail, describing ‘on Blanchfeildstowne a large Cstle in repaire’ and identifying Sir Edmund Blanchfield as the proprietor in 1640. This documentation captures the castle at a pivotal moment in Irish history, when Cromwell’s surveyors were meticulously recording the landscape for redistribution of confiscated lands.

By the time local historian Carrigan wrote about the site in 1905, the castle had long since disappeared. He noted that it ‘stood close to the public road, in the lawn of Kearney Castle, Blanchville Demesne, but it has been long razed to the ground’. The Ordnance Survey maps tell their own story of uncertainty; the 1839 first edition marks the general location, whilst the 1900 revision attempts greater precision with a cross symbol, though this may simply indicate where the text appeared on the earlier map rather than the castle’s exact position. Modern archaeological assessment suggests the actual site could be up to 100 metres west or west-northwest of this marked spot.

Today, visitors to Blanchville Demesne won’t find stone walls or defensive towers, but the site remains significant as part of the Anglo-Norman legacy in Kilkenny. The Blanchfield family’s presence here, documented through centuries of maps and records, reflects the complex patterns of settlement, ownership, and eventual erasure that characterise so many Irish castle sites. Though the physical structure has vanished, careful map reading and historical detective work continue to reveal the castle’s story, preserved in the meticulous surveys and observations of those who documented it whilst it still stood.