Lady's Island Castles

Map Reference: T107075 (3107, 1075)



There was a community of Augustinian Canons at Lady's Island from the fifteenth century and it was considered to be a famous pilgrimage. After the Suppression. the lands were leased to the Brownes of Mulrankin and they seemed to have remained there until 1654. There are two fragments of curtain wall with a tower house and gatehouse built across the isthmus from mainland to church and pilgrimage site.



The tower house has four floors surviving to the wall-walk. The original entrance with pointed arch of uncut stone towards the E end of the S wall is protected by a murder-hole. The ground floor is greatly altered but a double-splayed loop survives in W wall. The stairs in the S wall lead through a lintelled doorway to a loft under a vault with two windows and an antechamber at the SE angle. At the first floor there is a destroyed fireplace and a window with seats in the N wall, two antechambers in the E wall, that on the N being a garderobe. There are two large windows in the S wall and two slit windows in the W wall. The spiral stairs at the SW angle rises to the second floor which has a fireplace and a window with seats in the N wall, a destroyed garderobe at the NE angle and single slit windows in the E, S and W walls. There are stairs in the W wall to the third floor, which has three slit windows. The stairs continue to the wall-walk. The gatehouse atands at W side of tower house. It has a passage with segmental S arch and pointed N arch protected by a murder hole. The first floor lintelled chamber may be reached from the first floor of the tower house and has three slit windows.





The arched gateway





One of the small windows

A tower from the outer curtain wall leans at an angle of c30 degrees from vertical. It stands c70m NE of the tower house. There is a cross loop in the N wall and a garderobe chute on the W wall running from the second floor beneath remains of a vaulted roof.