A medieval settlement once occupied this corner of North Tipperary, and what remains above the soil falls into three distinct elements: a moated site, a tower house, and an enclosure, each a different layer of how people organised life and defence in the medieval Irish countryside.

A moated site, to use the term plainly, is a platform of raised ground surrounded by a water-filled or rock-cut ditch, used primarily by Anglo-Norman settlers from the thirteenth century onward as a form of protected farmstead or manor. They are common enough across the Irish midlands, but their presence alongside a tower house, the compact fortified residence that became the dominant building type for Gaelic and Anglo-Irish lords from the fourteenth century onward, suggests that Knigh was a place of some local consequence across several centuries. An enclosure completes the picture, hinting at boundaries that once meant something practical, whether for livestock, for a church precinct, or for the settlement's outer edge. Together the three components point to a layered occupation, one that accumulated features over generations before falling quiet entirely.