Beneath and alongside it, an earthen bank with stone facing, topped in places by a hedgerow, traces the line of a route that was already old enough to be mapped in 1755, when John Rocque recorded it in his plan of the camp near Thurles. The stream it crosses was a ford, a shallow crossing point where travellers on foot, on horseback, and with carts could pass the water before it flows north to join the River Suir.

What makes this crossing particularly legible as a historical artefact is the cartographic record that has survived it. Rocque's 1755 map marks both the road and the fording point, and a later map from 1775, part of a substantial collection of land surveys covering several Tipperary baronies and compiled by surveyors including John Wrigh, John Moynaham, and the Longfield family between 1757 and 1834, labels the route explicitly as the Old Road to Cashel. Cashel, with its famous rock and its role as an ecclesiastical and political centre, drew traffic from across the county, and roads feeding into it carried considerable importance. The stone wall boundary that still runs alongside the modern road and continues down to the stream is likely the most visible remnant of the original route's management and demarcation. A ford, in this context, was not merely a convenience but an engineered crossing, often improved with laid stone and maintained as part of the road network it served.