Designed landscape feature

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the summit of a NE-SW drumlin ridge. It is depicted as a large embanked enclosure and described in gothic lettering as a ‘fort’ on the 1834 edition of the OS 6-inch map and as a large subcircular enclosure on the 1907 edition. This is a circular grass-covered area (diam. 103m NW-SE; 100m NE-SW) that slopes down slightly from the centre to the W, N and E, which is defined by traces of a scarped embankment which has been incorporated in a field bank and hedge, except NNW-E where it is reduced to a low scarp (at NE: Wth 3m; H 0.3m). There is no identifiable fosse or entrance, and it is possibly a landscape feature.
The enclosure is large enough to be considered a hilltop enclosure, but it is 1.9k m SSE of the SW tip of a large landscape design known as ‘the Thistle’ (TY060-042), just W of Aughancloy village, for which see this page of the Northern Ireland SMR database accessed on 23/06/2017: http://appsc.doeni.gov.uk/ambit/Details.aspx?MonID=14768 The Thistle was designed after 1722 by Acheson Moore, a jacobite, as a symbol of his political sympathies. Three other hilltop enclosures in Co. Monaghan are between 1 and 2 km from the SW tip of the Thistle, and together with four other large enclosures in Co. Tyrone could have been designed to enhance the Thistle as outlying rosettes. The equally large enclosure at Skinnahergna (MO003-050----) is c. 950m to the W

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Michael Moore

Date of revision: 17 July 2017