Aerial photographs taken by Cambridge University in 1966 revealed a series of linear earthworks forming small rectangular enclosures and other features across a roughly rectangular area measuring approximately 725 metres north to south and 850 metres northwest to southeast. That the whole complex sits within the boundaries of one field, and that the field itself takes the name Deerpark, suggests a carefully managed landscape whose original purpose has grown obscure with time.

A deerpark, in the medieval and early modern sense, was an enclosed tract of land maintained by a lord for the hunting or keeping of deer, typically bounded by a bank and ditch or a paled fence. The earthworks at Ballintue may represent just such an enclosure, though their precise date remains uncertain. What is clearer is their likely relationship to nearby castles. Two castle sites associated with Ballintue lie close by, one roughly 180 metres to the northwest and another, accompanied by a deserted medieval settlement, about 200 metres to the south. Either or both could plausibly have been the seat of whoever controlled the park. By the time the Ordnance Survey produced its six-inch map in 1837, the landscape had changed considerably: a large tree plantation occupied the centre of the park, a walled garden sat to the northwest of that woodland, and a series of pathways ran through the trees, suggesting the site had been absorbed into a more formal demesne arrangement. The medieval earthworks, if that is what they are, were already buried beneath later land use by then, invisible to anyone walking the ground.