Audley's Castle is a 15th-century castle located 1 mile (1.6 km) north-east of

Strangford Strangford (from Old Norse ''Strangr fjörðr'', meaning "strong sea-inlet") is a small village at the mouth of Strangford Lough, on the Lecale peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 475 at the 2001 census. On th ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, on a rocky height overlooking

Strangford Lough Strangford Lough () is a large sea lough or inlet in County Down, in the east of Northern Ireland. It is the largest inlet in Ireland and the wider British Isles, covering . The lough is almost fully enclosed by the Ards Peninsula and is linke ...

. It is a three-storey

Tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points ...

named after its 16th century owner, John Audley. Audley's Castle tower house and bawn is a State Care Historic Monument in the

townland A townland (; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a traditional small land division used in Ireland and in the Western Isles of Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of medieval Gaelic origin, predating the Norman invasion, and mo ...

of Castleward, in

Down District Council Down District Council was a Local Council in County Down in Northern Ireland. It merged with Newry and Mourne District Council in April 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become Newry, Mourne and Down District Co ...

area, at grid ref: J5781 5058. There are thousands of small stone towers similar to Audley's Castle in the Irish countryside. They are one of the commonest of

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

sites, which indicates these were not buildings put up for the higher

aristocracy Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense Economy, economic, Politics, political, and soc ...

, but for lesser

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

s and gentry. Most were built in the late

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

(roughly 1350–1550). Audley's was built towards the end of this period.

Features

Audley's Castle consists of a tower set within a yard (technically known as a

bawn A bawn is the defensive wall surrounding an Irish tower house. It is the anglicised version of the Irish word ''bábhún'' (sometimes spelt ''badhún''), possibly meaning "cattle-stronghold" or "cattle-enclosure".See alternative traditional s ...

) which is enclosed by a thin wall, with a simple gate. The tower has one main room on each floor, with one or two subsidiary rooms off each of the big ones. The ground floor has small windows and no

fireplace A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design. ...

latrine A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...

and was for storage of provisions. The first floor has better windows, a large fireplace and access to a latrine; this was a room for the owner to live in and entertain his friends. It also has a chute for throwing dirty water away, so the large fireplace was also probably used for cooking on. The second floor was probably the lord's private room for sleeping and his family life:

servants A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly d ...

and others could be accommodated in the

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building. It is also known as a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because they fill the space between the ceiling of a building's t ...

. There is very little historical information about the buildings in the small courtyard around Audley's. Only a minority of towers had courtyard walls at all, and their buildings were clearly less important than the tower. The towers in different parts of the country vary, with distinct regional patterns. Audley's with its two

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

s linked by an arch is one of a type found in

only.

History

Audley castle is a ruin which once stood as a tower constructed in the 15th century which now lies on the ground of

Castle Ward Castle Ward is an 18th-century National Trust property located near the village of Strangford, in County Down, Northern Ireland, in the townland of the same name. It overlooks Strangford Lough and is 7 miles from Downpatrick and 1.5 miles fro ...

, owned by

Viscount Bangor Viscount Bangor, of Castle Ward, in County Down, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. History The title was created in January 1781 for Bernard Ward, 1st Baron Bangor, who had previously represented County Down in the Irish House of Commons. ...

. The area was established by the Irish Normans, and given to a knight named

John de Courcy Sir John de Courcy (c. 1150–1219) was an Anglo-Norman knight who lived in Ireland from 1176 until his expulsion in 1204. He conquered a considerable territory, endowed religious establishments, built abbeys for both the Benedictines and the ...

in 1177. In 1646 the castle was bought by the Ward family and a 3-story tower castle was built and named after John Audley. Nearby was a town named Audleystown, until the locals were sent to America by the Ward family in the 1850s. The castle is now a public park

Filming location

During the filming of the TV series

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American Fantasy television, fantasy Drama (film and television), drama television series created by David Benioff and for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of high fantasy novels by ...

, the castle ruins were twice used as a set, once for an encampment at the scenes for the 'battle of camps'. And another as a backdrop to the Twins', Frey residence in the 'Red wedding' in season 3, episode 9.

Gallery

Image:Audley's Castle (10), August 2009.JPG, Audley's Castle, August 2009 Image:Audley's Castle, through trees.jpg, Audley's Castle

References

External links