In 1999, during redevelopment of the farm, earthworks that had long been visible across the landscape were deliberately covered with topsoil to make the ground safe for livestock. What had extended 110 metres eastward from the graveyard wall, covering an area some 300 metres north to south, was effectively put to sleep beneath a new field surface. Before that happened, a digital terrain model captured what was there: a sub-rectangular earthwork, a circular enclosure, a feature interpreted as a mill or fish pond, and three low circular mounds whose purpose remains uncertain, possibly ring-ditches, possibly the remains of feeding troughs.

The place is Ballysheehan, a name derived from the Irish baile Uí Shiodhcháin, meaning O'Sheehan's Town. By 1305, it was functioning as a sub-manor of Ardmayle, and a legal extent from that year records that John, son and heir of William Hackett, held land here. A second extent from the same year is oddly candid: it notes that there are no buildings of any profit at Ballysheehan, yet goes on to mention two mills. The settlement, whatever its scale, had already begun to recede from formal record. Around the area, the remains of a motte and bailey sit 200 metres to the south-west. A motte and bailey is an early medieval fortification consisting of a raised earthen mound topped by a wooden or stone tower, connected to an enclosed courtyard. A fortified church and graveyard lie to the west. Aerial photographs taken in 1967 and 1971 showed earthworks to the north and east of the church, consistent with a deserted settlement clustered around it. In 1953, a fragment of an iron horseshoe, the point of an iron spike, and five sherds of medieval pottery were found in the hummocky field near the motte, small objects that confirm human activity without quite resolving the larger questions about when, and why, the settlement emptied out.