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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ringfort - rath

Crossanstown, County Westmeath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ringfort - rath, Crossanstown, County Westmeath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Crossanstown
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Hachured
Latest-edition OS map
Hachured
Coordinates
53.48242, -7.17398
SMR number
WM027-042----

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

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (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 on SE side of a very slight rise, in gently undulating pasture with good views to NE and SE. Depicted on the revised 1913 ed. OS 25-inch map as a suboval-shaped earthwork. Monument described as a subcircular-shaped area (dims. 35.5m E-W; 34m N-S) enclosed by a bank and external fosse. The bank is steep on the exterior and is almost reduced to a scarp, it is obscured by a field fence from SE-S and is levelled from S-SW-WSW where the monument is cut by the public road. There is a wide V-shaped fosse which is best preserved from WSW-W-WNW, is almost completely infilled from WNW-N-E-SE and is not visible from S-SW-WSW, where the inner bank may have been levelled into it. There is a possible entrance gap at NE which consists of a narrow ramp leading up to the interior. The edges of this entrance are slightly defaced and may have been modernised. The fosse is very faint at this point yet a causeway seems to be discernible. The interior has a gentle SE-facing slope and traces of cultivation ridges running E-W. There is a small, shallow subrectangular-shaped depression (max. L 6.3m NW-SE; max. Wth 3.4m NE-SW; D 0.4m) of unknown significance just inside the upper edge of the scarp at NE. Monument is visible today as a subcircular tree-lined earthwork on Digital Globe aerial photography.

See attached profile of monument surveyed and drawn by the ASI.

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

Date of upload: 06 November 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
All Ringfort - rath in Westmeath All County Westmeath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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