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Benburb Castle   -  Wingfield Bawn

Benburb Castle is sometimes called ‘Wingfield Bawn’, and although the Wingfields never lived at Benburb they left a lasting mark on the landscape.

Sir Richard Wingfield was an active and distinguished soldier, a member of a Suffolk family, from the east of England. After military service in Ireland and on the Continent, he was made Marshal of Ireland in 1600 and fought at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. In 1610 he was granted 2,000 acres embracing the castle and town of Benburb and began to build both bawn and Church. There is a record of the sale of the estate to Nicholas White in 1615, but the significance of this is unclear as Wingfield was in possession of Benburb 1n 1618-19. Sir Richard was created Viscount Powerscourt in 1618 and died in 1634.

The Wingfield family’s main lands were in Wexford and Wicklow, and their principal seat was Powerscourt, near Enniskerry in Co. Wicklow.

Members of the Wingfield family still live in Ireland and there is an active Wingfield Family Society in America.

Friar Servants of Mary (OSM)

Servite Trust N.I. -  Charity Number XN55092

Living in Benburb Castle

The 16th Century

 

Benburb Castle had at least five lives. The first was as a stronghold of Shane O’Neill, on this same spot. On the map of the Blackwater river in 1602, Shane’s castle looks like a bawn with a NE corner tower and the gable of a large ruined building inside the bawn, perhaps a hall.

 

The 17th Century

 

Sir Richard Wingfield’s bawn of 1615 may contain some of the O’Neill walling. Pynnar describes it as “a bawn, 120 feet square with two flankers, in which is built in each a good house, three stories high, and is inhabited with an English Gentleman with his wife and family”. Many bawns had a house in the centre (as Shane O’Neill’s did), but Wingfield’s did not. The use of the defensive flanker towers as houses was not uncommon, and the Benburb ones made a comfortable house. Wingfield owned other houses, most notably in Co. Wicklow and Dublin city both called Powerscourt.

 

Much of Wingfield bawn has survived, it stands on solid rock, defended on a high cliff above a bend in the Blackwater river. To the North and East the wall is pierced by small musket loops. Of the original flanker towers, the North West one has survived the best. A third staircase tower to the South is a late addition. Inside, the flankers were three storeys high. The ground floor, divided into two rooms was for defence and storage. It has musket loops for ‘flanking fire’ along the walls. The large first floor room has very large windows to the North and West. The one to the West was safe from attack because of its cliff-top position. The North one would have been a definite risk. Was it a 19th century addition perhaps? All that had survived of its stonework was the outer frame. In the 19th century a new sash window was inserted inside it, and in the 1940’s it was blocked up so it appears to have been original.

 

Historic Monuments craftsmen have restored the missing stonework, but you still have to imagine the diamond paned glass in leaded lights. Both windows were above head height, presumably to avoid musket fire.

 

The 19th Century

 

In the 19th century the floor was raised to enjoy the view out the windows and all the windows were framed in robust timber frames. The original stone fireplace was hacked back to suit the new floor, and a cast iron fireplace inserted (too broken for salvage in 1990). The top floor had lost its roof by 1834 when the castle was featured in the Dublin Penny Journal, but originally there were two private rooms in the attic, each with a fireplace. The fireplaces were badly scarred from the insertion of flat roofs in the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

In the 19th century, when the Bruces lived at Benburb, a cottage was built inside the bawn, and the flankers were refitted with new woodwork. One can imagine the flankers being used as rooms to supplement the cottage rather than as two independent houses.

 

The 20th Century

 

In the 1940’s American troops used the Manor house as a hospital and the towers of the bawn were altered to allow watchmen on the roofs. The vulnerable North facing windows were blocked up, but other internal features were left untouched.

 

When Historic Monuments Branch came to Benburb 1n 1982 at the invitation of the Servite Friars at Benburb, it found the roofs had kept both flanker buildings dry. However all woodwork  was in trouble and that new floors and stairs were needed. It was decided to refit largely to 17th century standards but to put in a platform to allow access to the view from the window. The siting of a stair to the attic was difficult. A narrow winder or a ladder may have been used originally. On the attic floor, the split-level floor is correct, based on fireplace levels and a few surviving beam slots. A similar floor exists at Tully Castle in Co. Fermanagh.

 

The 21st Century

 

Today the Castle/bawn continues under the guardianship of the Department of the Environment—Historical Monuments Section and is continually being maintained.

Servite Priory -  Benburb Centre

10 Main Street

Benburb

Co. Tyrone

BT71 7JZ

Phone: 028 37548241 (ten lines)

Fax: 029 37548524

E-mail: servitepriory@btconnect.com