It is only from the air that it reveals itself, as a crop mark or soil discolouration that traces out a ring in the earth, the faint signature of a structure that may be prehistoric. Ring-ditches of this kind are generally understood to represent the eroded remains of burial mounds or enclosures, the circular ditch having once surrounded a central feature, perhaps a mound, a grave, or a ritual space, that has long since been ploughed or weathered away.

What makes the Jenkinstown example particularly interesting is that it does not stand alone. It belongs to a cluster of at least fourteen such features identified across two closely associated groups in the same area, all of them picked out through aerial photography and aligned in a rough northwest to southeast orientation across the landscape. This kind of alignment is unlikely to be coincidental, and suggests the area was used in a sustained and deliberate way over time, perhaps as a field of monuments rather than a single isolated site. The specific ring-ditch in question was first recorded from an aerial photograph taken on 16 July 1971, part of the Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photography. It sits on a gently sloping terrace positioned almost exactly between two rivers, the Nore about two kilometres to the east and the Dinin about two kilometres to the west, with both rivers converging roughly two kilometres to the south. The position is significant; prehistoric communities frequently placed burial and ceremonial monuments in elevated or transitional landscapes, on ground that offered orientation toward natural features. From this terrace, the notes indicate there are fair to good views in all directions, which may well have mattered to whoever chose the spot.