Enclosure, Newtown, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Newtown, Co. Tipperary

A circular earthwork sitting quietly in a Tipperary pasture would be unremarkable enough if you could actually see it.

What makes this one at Newtown quietly compelling is precisely how little of it remains visible at ground level, and how much of what survives was only confirmed from the air. A routine aerial survey in May 1977, using photographs catalogued under GSI reference S.788/9, caught the enclosure's outline from above, revealing what centuries of agricultural pressure and quarrying had done their best to obscure.

The enclosure measures roughly 30 metres across on its northwest to southeast axis. A low, broad bank, some 8.3 metres wide, still runs along its northern quadrant, where it was cut into the hillside and has consequently held its shape a little better than elsewhere. The outer fosse, a shallow ditch originally dug to define and defend the perimeter, survives in that same northern section to a width of around 3.4 metres and a depth of just under a third of a metre. Moving clockwise, the bank in the eastern sector gradually disappears toward the south, and in the western quadrant it has vanished entirely above ground. A field boundary that once ran northwest to southeast straight through the middle of the enclosure has since been removed, which at least restored a degree of legibility to the outline. The hill itself has been quarried on its western side, and large-scale quarrying has continued in the adjoining field to the east, meaning the surviving earthwork is effectively marooned between two episodes of industrial extraction.

The site sits on a very gentle south-facing slope just off the crest of the low hill, with a pond to the west. In its current state as open pasture, the northern bank is the one feature worth seeking out on a visit; the gradual inward slope toward the interior is still perceptible underfoot even where the bank's external face has worn almost flat.

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Pete F
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