Far fewer pause to consider the flattened earthen shelves cut into the hillside near Reefert Church, a cluster of levelled platforms that speak to a different kind of industry entirely. These are the remnants of a charcoal-making operation, and they sit quietly in the landscape to the west and south-west of the church, overlooked by almost everyone who passes.

Nine platforms survive in this area, ranging considerably in scale from roughly 5 metres by 3.6 metres up to 18 metres by 13 metres. Charcoal burning, or the production of charcoal by slowly combusting stacked and covered timber in low-oxygen conditions, required level ground on which to build the mound, known as a hearth or pit, and to work safely around it. Seven of the nine platforms here are thought to have served exactly that purpose. The remaining two are interpreted as possible hut platforms, suggesting that the people tending the burn may have sheltered on site, as charcoal production demanded close and continuous attention over many hours. The site was documented by Healy in 1972, and its proximity to the early medieval monastic settlement at Glendalough raises obvious questions about the relationship between the two, though the precise period of the charcoal-making activity is not firmly established.