This is a belvedere, a type of ornamental structure common to the landscaped demesnes of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Ireland, designed to give the gentry somewhere agreeable to stand while contemplating a view. What makes this one quietly interesting is how fully it was appointed for that purpose: not a hollow folly, but a two-storey circular tower roughly five metres in diameter, fitted with fireplaces on both floors, pointed Gothic-style doorways and window openings oriented to catch the coastal panorama on three sides.

By 1842, when the Ordnance Survey recorded it on their six-inch map, it was already known as Roche's Tower, a name that ties it to the Roche family associated with Trabolgan House. The pointed arches on the doorway and windows are characteristic of the Gothic Revival taste that was fashionable among Irish landowners of the period, lending a vaguely ecclesiastical or medieval air to what was essentially a comfortable viewing platform. The fireplaces, one on each floor set into the north-west wall with a shared chimney, suggest it was intended for more than fleeting visits; on a blustery Cork coastline, the ability to warm the room would have made the view considerably more enjoyable. It now stands roofless, its upper floor open to the sky, which gives it a different kind of atmosphere to the one its builders intended.