This defensive wall once enclosed Burncourt Castle, the mansion house of Sir Richard Everard, which the Civil Survey of 1654-6 recorded as having only its walls standing after being burned, with “some cabbins within a bawne” and the house itself remaining unrepaired. Today, three sides of this protective enclosure survive; the north, east and south walls, including the northeastern and southeastern corners of the fortification.

The most impressive surviving section is the eastern wall, standing five metres high and running north to south approximately 40 metres from where the fortified house once stood. The southern wall stretches 41.5 metres east to west and contains a blocked opening seven metres from its western end, originally 1.37 metres wide. At the southeastern angle, visitors can spot a particularly interesting defensive feature: a bartizan, or small turret, that projects 1.2 metres beyond the wall. This structure is supported by two double corbels on the south and east sides, with a single corbel featuring a pyramidal chamfer at the corner. Just north of this angle, a small embrasure for a shot-hole remains, though ivy now obscures its external face.

The bawn has undergone various alterations over the centuries, with later walls added to the original structure. These include a 25.8-metre section running east to west towards the southwestern angle of the former fortified house, now rebuilt with limestone rubble after partial collapse, and another 29-metre wall extending from the northwestern angle tower. Archaeological investigation has revealed wall footings 0.8 metres below the current ground level near the southeastern corner, whilst a loose architectural fragment featuring wide chamfered surfaces and pyramidal broach-stops with punch tooling may have originally formed part of the bawn’s main entrance. Despite its ruined state, the site offers valuable insights into the defensive architecture employed by Anglo-Irish landowners during one of Ireland’s most unsettled periods.