Building

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the S face of a slight ridge, overlooked by higher ground to the N, with poorly drained lands to the W. Stream running roughly N-S lies 40m to E. Tyfarnham church site (WM012-003----) and surrounding earthworks lie 150m to N. Depicted on the 1837 OS Fair Plan map as a small rectilinear-shaped earthwork, and annotated as a ‘fort’. A rectangular-shaped area (approx. dims. 12m NW-SE; 14m NE-SW) enclosed by a slight earth and stone bank, and a narrow shallow fosse, with entrance gap (Wth 0.9m) at E. This earthwork appears to be located in the N quadrant of a large sub-triangular-shaped earthwork visible on Digital Globe aerial photograph taken November 2011. It is not clear if this large sub-triangular-shaped earthwork is a pre-1700 archaeological monument or the remains of post-1700 land reclamation works. Tyfarnham church is depicted on the 1654-56 Down Survey map of Leny and Tyfarnan parish where it is depicted standing beside a building (NLI, MS 723-4). The terrier of the Down Survey parish of Tyfarnan recorded that in this parish are 'Scituate the Hall & Church of Tyfarnan' (ibid.) This rectangular-shaped earthwork may represent the levelled remains of the 'Hall'.

Compiled by: Frank Coyne and Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 15 November 2017

References

NLI, MS 723-4 - National Library of Ireland, The parish maps of the Down Survey for the County of Westmeath, attested by W. Petty, in 1659. Copied by Daniel O'Brien. A set of 67 maps with accompanying terriers in two volumes, 1786-7. Dublin.