These modest structures, sometimes called staddle-stands or corn staddles, were used to elevate harvested grain off the ground, keeping it clear of moisture and the attentions of rats and mice while it awaited threshing or storage. That one has been recorded here as a monument worth cataloguing at all speaks to how thoroughly the ordinary working fabric of rural Irish farms has begun to be taken seriously as part of the archaeological landscape.

Corn stands of this kind were widespread across Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when tillage farming was a central part of rural life before mechanised agriculture and the consolidation of holdings changed the pattern of the land. They could be built from stone, timber, or a combination of both, often sitting on mushroom-shaped staddle stones that gave rats nowhere to gain purchase. The fact that an example at Knockglass has been formally recorded suggests it retains enough of its original form to be distinguishable from later farm debris, though the details of its construction, date, and condition remain to be fully documented.