It is not visible to anyone walking past; it shows up only from the air, where differences in soil moisture and crop growth reveal the outline of a buried prehistoric monument. What the aerial photograph captures is the cropmark of a possible ring barrow, the faint signature of a ditch, an internal bank, and what may be an external bank, pressed into the earth and invisible at ground level.

A ring barrow is a type of funerary monument, typically of Bronze Age date, consisting of a low central mound enclosed by a circular ditch and bank. They are among the more common prehistoric earthworks found across Ireland, though many survive only as subtle earthworks or, as here, as cropmarks detectable only through aerial survey. The Knightswood example is of particular interest because it sits close to a confirmed ring barrow roughly 150 metres to the west-southwest, suggesting that this part of the Westmeath landscape may have once held a small grouping of such monuments. Cropmarks of this kind were identified using Digital Globe aerial photography, with the site brought to wider attention through the work of Brian Doyle.