Enclosure, Maine, Co. Cork

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Maine, Co. Cork

In a level pasture on the demesne of Gibbings Grove House in north Cork, there is a circular earthwork that most local people have simply always called a tree ring.

The name suggests something horticultural and relatively recent, a planted grove perhaps, but the structure is almost certainly far older. It sits quietly in the grass, easy to walk past without a second glance, its banks barely registering against the surrounding ground level.

The enclosure measures roughly 21 metres north to south and just over 20 metres east to west, making it a near-perfect circle. It is defined by a low earthen bank, the kind of boundary feature associated with early medieval ringforts or other prehistoric enclosures, with an interior height of around 0.2 metres and an exterior height of just 0.1 metres. Outside the bank runs a shallow fosse, essentially a drainage or boundary ditch, now only about 15 centimetres deep. At the centre of the interior there is a slight rise in the ground, the significance of which is unclear but which hints at some former structure or deposit beneath the surface. About 260 metres to the south, in the next field, a second small circular enclosure of a similar character occupies the same agricultural landscape, suggesting this part of the demesne was once a more densely occupied place than it appears today.

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