The site, which has a hill rising some 400 metres to the east behind Meldrum House, was home to James Sall of Moeldrom, recorded as an ‘Irish Papist’ proprietor in 1630. The Civil Survey of 1654-6 described the property as ‘a good stone house with a bawne about it’, indicating it was a substantial fortified residence typical of the period when landowners needed defensive structures around their homes.

The bawn, essentially a fortified enclosure that protected the main house, formed a rectangular perimeter measuring approximately 70 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west. According to Ordnance Survey letters from the 19th century, the house remains were surrounded by an impressive defensive trench, ten feet wide and four feet deep. Though no visible traces of this bawn survive at ground level today, aerial photography from 1971 clearly captured its outline as a cropmark in the landscape, revealing the ghost of this once formidable defensive structure.

The site has undergone considerable change since its heyday; a modern field drain now cuts through what would have been the southwest corner of the bawn, and early Ordnance Survey maps from 1840 show a watercourse running southeast from the southern line of the old moat into a nearby stream. These historical layers, from 17th century fortification to 19th century mapping and 20th century aerial photography, provide a fascinating glimpse into how this Irish stronghold has evolved and eventually faded into the Tipperary countryside.