A D-shaped fosse, the term for a defensive ditch dug around an early enclosure, shows up only as a cropmark, the faint differential in how grass or grain grows above disturbed soil, revealing the outline of a structure that has otherwise left no trace above ground.

The enclosure is modest in scale but distinct in plan: roughly forty metres across on its straight northern side and projecting about the same distance southward, forming that characteristic D-shape associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland. Ringforts and enclosed farmsteads of broadly this type were once scattered across the Irish countryside in their thousands, typically comprising a circular or sub-circular bank and ditch enclosing a farmyard and dwelling. The D-plan here, with one flattened side, is a variation that sometimes reflects the influence of a field boundary or natural feature on the original layout. The cropmark was first recorded in an aerial photograph taken in July 1989, and the northern end of the enclosure is crossed by a separate linear cropmark, most likely the ghost of an old field fence that post-dates or cuts across the earlier site.