The bishop’s castle
Kilclief Castle is the earliest datable tower-house in County Down – so firmly dated that archaeologists use it to place every other tower-house in the Lecale peninsula. It went up between 1413 and 1441 for John Sely, Bishop of Down, who used it not as a religious retreat but as a fortified summer residence on the Narrows of Strangford Lough, 2.5 miles south of Strangford.
Sely is remembered less for his diocese than for what got him thrown out of it. He lived at Kilclief with Lettice Whailey Savage, a married woman, and when the Primate of Armagh ordered her removed he refused. In 1443 he was defrocked and ejected. The castle outlasted the scandal: in 1601–02 the Crown garrisoned it with ten warders under Nicholas FitzSymon to control the Lough during the O’Neill rebellion, and by the 18th century it had come down in the world as a granary and farm store before passing into State care.
Inside the tower
The tower is four storeys and unusually tall for its date, with two square turrets doing very different jobs. One holds the spiral staircase; the other stacks a series of garderobes – medieval latrines – serving three of the four floors, with the waste dropped straight out towards the sea. Between the turrets runs the high machicolation arch, with a drop-hole above the entrance for pouring down whatever came to hand on anyone at the door. This machicolation-between-turrets is the local signature that reappears at Ardglass, Strangford and Audley’s Castle, and it is the single detail worth looking up for.
Two things reward a closer look inside. The ground floor is roofed by a semicircular barrel vault built on wicker centring, which left a ribbed print in the stone when the timber frame was struck. And on the second floor the fireplace lintel is a reused 13th-century coffin lid – a piece of medieval thrift you could walk past without noticing.
Visiting
Admission is free, but the castle keeps short and seasonal hours: summer only, roughly daily 1pm to 5pm, with guided tours in July and August that are the best way to get the architecture and the Sely story explained. It is shut for the winter. Outside tour season a board at the site explains how to obtain a key, or you can arrange access through the Department for Communities on +44 (0) 28 9082 3207 – worth the phone call before you drive out, as a wasted trip to a locked tower is an easy mistake to make here.
Be clear-eyed about access: the spiral stairs are steep, the doorways narrow, and there are no ramps or lifts, so it genuinely isn’t suitable for wheelchair users or anyone unsteady on their feet. Unaccompanied under-16s aren’t allowed inside. Free parking is in a lay-by directly opposite the entrance off the A2.
Nearby
- Ardglass – a working fishing harbour with its own cluster of 15th-century castles, including the Audley’s and Margaret’s towers that share Kilclief’s machicolation.
- Cloghy Rocks – 0.9 miles away, one of the better spots on this coast to watch grey seals hauled out at low tide.
- Ballyhornan Beach – a mile south, a sheltered strand for a short coastal walk.
- Castle Ward – the National Trust demesne 2.7 miles north, and the Winterfell filming location for anyone doing the Game of Thrones circuit.
Strangford village, 2.5 miles north, has the nearest cafés, toilets and buses, so plan to eat and refuel there rather than at the castle, which has nothing beyond the tower itself.