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Located at a strategic point on Upper Lough Erne, controlling the Erne between Enniskillen and Belturbet, the castle was built by Michael Balfour, the laird of Mountwhinney in the Kingdom of Fife, in 1611 and later sold to Sir Stephen Butler in 1619.
The castle built of lime and stone was enclosed with a bawn some 20m square and 4m high with flanking towers. The remains of Balfour's Crom Castle presents a picturesque ruin close to the Erne. The remains of a round tower and a square tower can be detected. To the south of the ruins there are traces of a late 17th century formal garden and bowling green, enclosed by a battlemented ha-ha. Within this enclosure stand giant yews, said to be the largest in Ireland. There is no authentic record as to age but tradition reports that O'Neill, at the time of the 'Flight of the Earls' took leave of his lady love under the 'old yew tree' of Crom.
Abraham Crichton, whose family had acquired the neighbouring castle at Aghalane, across the Erne, became the next owner in 1655. The castle withstood two sieges in the Jacobite Rising of 1689. In 1764 when the Crichton family were celebrating with the housewarming party at Florence Court a glow in the sky to the SE told them that their castle at Crom was on fire. The cause of the fire was probably accidental.
As a result there are now two castles on the beautiful water-locked demense - the old plantation castle, now described as Old Crom, and the neo-Tudor house designed by the architect Edward Blore in 1879. This new Castle, Crom Castle built from the dark local limestone, is today the home of the 6th Earl of Erne.
The Crom
estate, but not Crom Castle, belongs to the National Trust. This estate which
comprises almost 2000 acres of woodland, wetlands, farmland and parkland on
the shores of Upper Lough Erne also has one of the largest areas of semi-natural
oak woodland remaining in Ireland and one of the most important freshwater
habitats in the British Isles.