First documented on the 1943 Ordnance Survey map, the site originally measured approximately 50 metres east to west and 30 metres north to south. Its western boundary was marked by a raised bank, whilst the southern edge featured a defensive ditch or fosse, with the northern and eastern sides defined by less substantial boundaries.

Today, visitors to the site will find little more than a slightly raised rectangular patch of ground, the result of levelling work carried out around 1975. Local residents still refer to it as the “square fort”, a testament to its once prominent place in the landscape. Before its destruction, the enclosure would have been typical of medieval moated sites found throughout Ireland; rectangular or square earthworks surrounded by water-filled ditches that served both defensive and status purposes for Anglo-Norman settlers and prosperous Irish families during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Aerial photography from 1973 captured the site whilst it was still clearly visible, preserving valuable evidence of its original form. These images, held by the Geological Survey of Ireland, show the rectangular enclosure in remarkable detail, providing archaeologists with crucial documentation of a site type that has largely vanished from the Irish countryside. Though the physical remains at Knockaneroe are now subtle, the site represents part of a broader pattern of medieval settlement that shaped the cultural landscape of County Cork.