This burnt mound, a type of prehistoric cooking site common throughout Ireland, reveals itself only in the eroded northern bank of the stream, where careful observation shows a distinctive band of charcoal-rich soil and burnt stone fragments running for about four metres along the exposed section. The site sits in the base of an east-west valley, where the two-metre-wide stream has been dredged at some point in the past, leaving small mounds of upcast soil along parts of the northern bank, though not directly near the burnt mound itself.

The exposed section face, standing roughly 60 to 70 centimetres high, tells a story of layers built up over millennia. Immediately beneath the thin sod layer sits a band of dark, charcoal-rich soil mixed with burnt stone fragments, about 10 centimetres thick. This burnt material overlies a thicker layer of peat, measuring 25 to 30 centimetres, which in turn rests on a basal layer of sand. The southern bank, largely hidden by grass, shows hints of similar burnt material in a small eroded section, suggesting the site may extend across both sides of the stream.

What makes this site particularly intriguing is its subtle nature; no mound or rise is visible at surface level on either side of the stream, making it an easily overlooked piece of prehistory. Historical Ordnance Survey maps from the 25-inch series mark a spring on the southern side of the stream, just metres west of the burnt mound’s location, though this water source is no longer evident today. These burnt mounds, or fulacht fiadh as they’re known in Irish, were typically used for cooking during the Bronze Age, where heated stones would be dropped into water-filled troughs to boil meat, though some archaeologists suggest they may have served other purposes including bathing or textile production.