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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ringfort - rath

Higginstown (farbill By.), County Westmeath, Ireland

The record

Townland
Higginstown (farbill By.)
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Hachured
Latest-edition OS map
Hachured
Coordinates
53.52894, -7.13777
SMR number
WM020-083----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1790 "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in low-lying, gently undulating pasture, with views restricted where overlooked by higher ground. Depicted on the revised 1913 ed. OS 25-inch map as a circular-shaped earthwork. Monument described in 1970-2 as a circular-shaped area (dims. 53m N-S; 51m E-W) enclosed by an inner bank, an intervening wide, deep fosse and an outer bank. The inner bank is reduced to a scarp at NE and a field boundary running NE-SW truncates the bank from ENE-SSE. The outer bank is only visible from SW-NW. An entrance gap (overall Wth 5.6m; basal Wth 2.2m) at S where a modified causeway (basal Wth 5m; top Wth 2m; H 0.65m) is also present. The inner bank has been modified into a large mound (L 8m; int. H 1.2m; ext. H 3m) at the E side of the entrance. There has been extensive quarrying for stone within the WNW half of the interior. A long irregular depression defined by a low bank which extends through the inner bank of the ringfort at NW may represent a dug out souterrain. Levelled ringfort is visible today as a circular-shaped cropmark on Digital Globe aerial photography.

Compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien.

Date of upload: 05 July 2019

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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