Sir John Vaughan built Vaughan Castle in 1718 (which is the date inscribed in the main doorcase) and it is the earliest and most important house in the Inishowen peninsula. The house occupies the site of old Buncrana, which had grown up round O’Doherty’s Keep - Vaughan re-sited this settlement across the river on a long curving main street. The castle is approached grandly the C18th Castle Bridge, which is stone built of six arches with cutwaters and pedestrian recesses.

Bridge, house and an extended driveway with pillars are on an axis with a formal walled court between, terraced on the north and south and closed by the tall façade of the castle on the west.

The castle is plain but imposing, the frontage is on 28m which is broken back in the centre, it is a 7-bay 2 storey block on an unusually high basement with flanking single bay pavilion wings, the same height but thrusting forwards and given hipped roofs to distinguish them from the main block. The house is 2 rooms thick and has no other regular elevation.

The castle is hailed, but appears to be originally red-bricked, there are stucco-quoined strips to the wings along with curved vault insets.

The window proportions are long and thin: 18 sash panes on the main floor and twelve above. Refinements on the castle are the bolection-moulded frame to the door, which has an opened scrolled pediment.

Inside are wainscoted rooms, tall 8-panelled doors and a handsome staircase with fluted balustrades and acanthus scrolled tread ends.

In the forecourt there is a modern monument to Sir Cahir O’Doherty- last lord of Inishowen and a plaque to Wolfe Tone, who landed here on 3rd of November 1798 as prisoner on the British captured French warship the “La Hoche”.