The site at Hermitage, on the south side of the River Shannon in the base of a quiet valley, was entirely unknown to cartographers; it appears on no Ordnance Survey historic mapping, and aerial photography shows no trace of it whatsoever. It came to light only by accident, during infrastructure work that briefly opened the ground and allowed archaeologists to look.

The feature was identified in 2001 during archaeological testing carried out under licence (No. 01E0319) as part of the way-leave corridor for the Castleconnell Sewerage Scheme, led by McCutcheon. When excavated, it proved to be a keyhole-shaped pit, a form in which a roughly circular bowl connects to a narrower rectangular section, giving the plan its distinctive outline. This particular example measured 1.3 metres along its north-northeast to south-southwest axis, 0.68 metres across, and reached a depth of 0.48 metres. Its sides were straight and its base rounded. The fill was a dark brownish-black mix of topsoil and re-deposited boulder clay, dense with charcoal flecks, burnt stone, and cremated bone. Among the material recovered were chert blades and flakes; chert is a fine-grained flint-like stone that prehistoric people knapped into cutting tools. Further inspection of the way-leave corridor and spoil-heaps turned up several axe fragments, along with 71 fragments of flint and 116 of chert. The proximity to a known fording point on the Shannon, located roughly 60 metres to the northeast, raises quiet questions about why this particular spot was chosen, though the excavation report by Collins does not offer a firm answer. Artefact analysis and dating were still ongoing at the time the record was compiled.

There is nothing for a visitor to see at ground level. The site sits in ordinary pasture, and without the intervention of the sewerage scheme's machinery, it would almost certainly have remained undetected indefinitely. Its interest lies precisely in that invisibility: a cremation deposit, possibly prehistoric given the worked stone assemblage, lying undisturbed beneath farmland on the Shannon's southern bank until a drainage project briefly brought it into the light.