Coolamber Hall House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Coolamber Hall House |
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Coolamber Hall House
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| Type | Hall house |
| Location | Lismacaffry, County Longford, Ireland |
| Built | c. 13th Century |
| Architectural style(s) | Late Medieval |
| Owner | Private property |
Coolamber Hall-House is a very old building ruin in County Longford, Ireland. It was built a long time ago, around the early 1200s! This type of building is called an Anglo-Norman hall-house.
Imagine a house where the main entrance was on the second floor, reached by outside stairs. That's how hall-houses were often built! The most important part was a big hall on the second floor, which was open all the way up to the roof. The ground floor was usually for storage and could be reached by a trapdoor or inside stairs. Many hall-houses like Coolamber have been changed or rebuilt over the years.
Some people think Coolamber Hall-House might have been where Thomas Nugent, 4th Earl of Westmeath, lived. He was involved in planning how land was settled in Longford in 1620. A writer named Samuel Lewis once described it as an "old castle" that was attacked by Oliver Cromwell. He also said it marked the edge of the "English Pale", which was an area in Ireland under English control a long time ago.
What is Coolamber Hall-House Like?
Coolamber Hall-House is a building that used to have two floors. It sits on a round, raised area of land about 4 meters (13 feet) high and 40 meters (130 feet) wide. This raised area might have been an even older fort from the early Middle Ages, which was later used as a bawn. A bawn was a strong wall built around a castle or house for protection.
About 400 meters (a quarter-mile) to the north-west, there's an old church from the late Middle Ages. The raised area around Coolamber is surrounded by what's left of a bawn wall. This wall was about 1.6 meters (5 feet) thick. On the southwest side, there's a small, rectangular tower built into the wall.
Inside the hall-house, at the northern end of the ground floor, you can still see parts of a curved, tunnel-like ceiling called a barrel-vault. Most of the walls of the two-story building are now just ruins, standing about 2 meters (6.5 feet) high.
Where is Coolamber Hall-House Located?
Coolamber Hall-House is found near Lismacaffrey Village. This area is right on the border between County Longford and County Westmeath. It's also close to a small cemetery on private land.
