Quoile Castle, July 2016

Quoile Castle is within comfortable walking distance of Downpatrick, and situated close to the banks of the Quoile river that runs up from Strangford Lough to Downpatrick. Although it is called a castle, like many other such buildings in the area, it is really a tower-house. It has been restored to some extent and sits beside the Quoile Countryside and Nature Reserve centre.  

For better or worse, the river and riverside have been used as a filming location for the Game of Thrones series, and acquired a certain touristic value as a result. You would not really appreciate this though on a cold and rainy July day however, when you arrive drenched and battered from that so-called comfortable walk from Downpatrick, however.  

What you would appreciate is the coffee, biscuits, help and hospitality provided by the gentleman who devotes his days to protecting the beautiful natural environment of the surrounding area. For him, the adjacent tower house and its origins were of little or no concern. Quite rightly so.

The tower house is unlikely to figure in any future world heritage lists, but it nonetheless, carries a history, summarized on the plaque just outside the tower itself. This records that the tower may have been constructed by Captain Richard West who settled in the area in the early seventeenth century and that members of the family continued to live in the tower well into the following century. And indeed, further beyond and into the nineteenth century if other records are to be believed.