The finds point to a household that was simultaneously domestic and martial, the kind of mixed material record that tends to belong to a minor Anglo-Norman establishment rather than a purely agricultural one.

The discoveries came to light during archaeological investigation, when stone walls consistent with a building were uncovered alongside a large hearth. Around the hearth, excavators found two distinct patches of a stony habitation layer, the compacted, charcoal-flecked accumulation that builds up on floors and surfaces where people have lived and worked over time. Post-holes cutting through these layers indicated that timber uprights had once stood here, suggesting the structure was at least partly built in wood as well as stone. The pottery recovered was identified as Leinster cooking ware, a type of utilitarian ceramic produced in the region during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and commonly found on Anglo-Norman rural sites across the province. Sixty sherds is a reasonably substantial quantity for a site of this kind, and taken together with the iron spur and the probable harness mount, which would have been equipment associated with a horse and rider of some social standing, the evidence points to occupation somewhere in the late twelfth or thirteenth century, possibly extending somewhat later. The site was recorded and discussed by Carroll in 1998.

Butterfield sits within what is now a largely residential part of south County Dublin, which means the archaeological remains are not visible above ground and there is nothing to see at the spot itself in the way of standing masonry or earthworks. The value of the site is archival rather than visual: it represents a moment of medieval life in a landscape that has been almost entirely absorbed into modern suburbia. Anyone interested in following up the excavation findings would do best to consult Carroll's 1998 report through the National Monuments Service or the Irish Archaeological Archive, where site records from interventions of this period are generally held.