Enclosure, Drummod, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
At eighty metres above sea level on a ridge in County Clare, a roughly circular patch of ground holds several centuries of overlapping human activity compressed into a few low earthworks.
The site sits on a high point recorded on Ordnance Survey historic mapping as Knocklaur, and its elevated position gives wide views across the surrounding landscape to the north-west, north-east, south-east, and south-west. What makes it quietly puzzling is not any single feature but the way different periods of land use seem to have left their marks on top of one another, each partially erasing or reshaping what came before.
The enclosure itself is subcircular, measuring roughly nineteen metres north to south and twenty-two metres east to west, and is defined by a scarp, a step-like earthen edge rather than a built wall, with traces of a fosse, a defensive or boundary ditch, still visible along its southern and north-eastern sides. A possible entrance gap of about two and a half metres sits at the north-west. The interior is level in overall character but noticeably uneven underfoot, which may reflect the smoothed-over remains of ridge and furrow cultivation, the corrugated pattern of raised planting strips typical of mediaeval and post-mediaeval field systems. A shallow depression in the western portion is thought to mark the former position of a trigonometric point shown on historic Ordnance Survey maps, suggesting the high ground was still considered useful for surveying purposes long after the enclosure fell out of use. Just to the west of the monument, well-preserved ridge and furrow survives more clearly, with individual ridges around five metres wide and standing up to twenty centimetres high. To the north, a rectangular platform adjoins the enclosure, its scarp considerably more pronounced on the downslope side, reaching over a metre in height, and levelling out as the ground falls away. Whether the platform is contemporary with the enclosure or represents a separate phase of activity is not established.