Roughan Castle

Map reference: H824683 (2824, 3683)

Location: About 1km NE of Newmills and 2km NW of Coalisland, in the grounds of Roughan Care Home.



The walls of the castle are aligned with the cardinal points. It is a small square building with four large drum flanking towers. The entrance is through the tower at the NW corner.



This tower also housed the spiral stairway of which there are fragments.



At the S wall the flankers are connected by an arch at the top level. This arch has a murder-hole.



The building is three storeys high with evidence of a gabled attic storey. There are string courses at second and third floor levels. Inside there were large square rooms at each level of the main building but the floors are now missing.



There are fireplaces in the N wall at first and second floors. There were small round or square chambers at each level of the flanking towers except the NW tower which had the stairway.



The tower at the SW corner was vaulted above the ground floor room. All the rooms at the lower level had small square musket loops with good splays on the inside.





Some of the small defensive loops

The larger windows at the higher levels do not have mullions but the holes for the glazing bars are evident. There is a carved mask on the wall at the second floor level in the SE corner.



There is a scar on the outside of the SW flanker indicating that an attached wall once ran westwards from the castle.



This is the only evidence of the former presence of a bawn. In the small lake close to the castle there is a crannog.