A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy.
Peel towers are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing with defence being a prime consideration of their design with "confirmation of status and prestige" also playing a role. They also functioned as watch towers where signal fires could be lit by the garrison to warn of approaching danger.
Scottish castles are buildings that combine fortifications and residence, built within the borders of modern Scotland. Castles arrived in Scotland with the introduction of feudalism in the twelfth century. Initially these were wooden motte-and-bailey constructions, but many were replaced by stone castles with a high curtain wall. During the Wars of Independence, Robert the Bruce pursued a policy of castle slighting. In the Late Middle Ages, new castles were built, some on a grander scale as "livery and maintenance" castles that could support a large garrison. Gunpowder weaponry led to the use of gun ports, platforms to mount guns and walls adapted to resist bombardment.
A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the castle fall to an adversary. The first keeps were made of timber and formed a key part of the motte-and-bailey castles that emerged in Normandy and Anjou during the 10th century; the design spread to England, south Italy and Sicily. As a result of the Norman invasion of 1066, use spread into Wales during the second half of the 11th century and into Ireland in the 1170s. The Anglo-Normans and French rulers began to build stone keeps during the 10th and 11th centuries; these included Norman keeps, with a square or rectangular design, and circular shell keeps. Stone keeps carried considerable political as well as military importance and could take up to a decade or more to build.
Narrow Water Castle is a 16th-century tower house and bawn near Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland. It is beside the A2 road and on the County Down bank of the Clanrye (Newry) River, which enters Carlingford Lough a mile to the south. It is a historic monument in state care in the townland of Narrow Water, in Newry and Mourne District Council district, at grid ref: J1256 1939.
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, in order to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces. At the same time, they were also used as an aristocrat's residence, around which a castle town was often constructed.
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. At that time the word "great" simply meant big and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. In the medieval period, the room would simply have been referred to as the "hall" unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term "great hall" has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries, to distinguish them from the different type of hall found in post-medieval houses. Great halls were found especially in France, England and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries.
Muchalls Castle stands overlooking the North Sea in the countryside of Kincardine and Mearns, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The lower course is a well-preserved Romanesque, double-groined 13th-century tower house structure, built by the Frasers of Muchalls. Upon this structure, the 17th-century castle was begun by Alexander Burnett of Leys and completed by his son, Sir Thomas Burnett, 1st Baronet, in 1627. The Burnetts of Leys built the remaining four-storey present-day castle.
Barryscourt Castle is a castle located in eastern County Cork in southern Ireland, close to the town of Carrigtwohill.
Scottish Vernacular architecture is a form of vernacular architecture that uses local materials.
Parke's Castle is a plantation era castle situated on the northeast shore of Lough Gill, in County Leitrim, Ireland. The castle is built on the site of an earlier fifteenth-century O'Rourke tower house. The building came into the possession of Robert Parke in late 1628. By 1635 Parke had completed his fortified manor house on the site of the older Gaelic castle.
Dunlough Castle, standing atop the cliffs at the northern tip of the Mizen Peninsula, looks at the Atlantic Ocean from the extreme southwest point of Ireland. Founded in 1207 by Donagh O’Mahony, Dunlough is one of the oldest castles in southern Ireland and an example of Norman architecture and dry stone masonry.
Carrigogunnell Castle is a medieval Irish fortification near the village of Clarina, on the banks of the River Shannon in County Limerick.
Ballymarkahan Castle is a ruined tower house in the parish of Quin, in County Clare, Ireland. It was listed by Irish antiquarian T. J. Westropp as one of the 195 "lesser castles", or peel towers, of County Clare in 1899, by which time it was already a ruin. It was mentioned as a ruin in the Ordnance Survey Letters of John O'Donovan and Eugene O'Curry in 1839. It is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of 1842. The castle dates from the fifteenth century, some time after the construction of Quin Abbey, and was built by the MacNamara family, who built a number of castles in the area, including nearby Knappogue Castle. According to Westropp, it was built in 1430 by "Donall, son of Shane an Gabhaltais."
Ballyhannon Castle is a medieval Irish castle dating back to the 15th century, located near the village of Quin in County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland. It is fully intact and in the Irish Governmental records it is registered as a National Monument and "Listed/Protected" structure, intended to protect its historic, architectural and aesthetic significance.
The architecture of Scotland in the Middle Ages includes all building within the modern borders of Scotland, between the departure of the Romans from Northern Britain in the early fifth century and the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century, and includes vernacular, ecclesiastical, royal, aristocratic and military constructions. The first surviving houses in Scotland go back 9500 years. There is evidence of different forms of stone and wooden houses exist and earthwork hill forts from the Iron Age. The arrival of the Romans led to the abandonment of many of these forts. After the departure of the Romans in the fifth century, there is evidence of the building of a series of smaller "nucleated" constructions sometimes utilizing major geographical features, as at Dunadd and Dumbarton. In the following centuries new forms of construction emerged throughout Scotland that would come to define the landscape.
Welsh tower houses were fortified stone houses that were built between the early 14th and 15th centuries. They are related to tower houses, which occur in considerable numbers in Ireland and Scotland and to a much lesser extent in England. A map showing the distribution of tower houses within the United Kingdom is given in Houses of the Welsh Countryside.
Kilcrea Castle is a ruined 15th-century towerhouse and bawn located near the Kilcrea Friary, west of Cork City, Ireland. The tower house and friary were both built by Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, 9th Lord of Muskerry.
