The site sits on a low-lying, south-west-facing slope within an undulating landscape threaded through by an extensive field system. Its defining feature is a very slight scarp, a low earthen edge rising to just 0.3 metres for most of its circuit, though at the western end of the northern side it reaches 0.8 metres, which is where the enclosure reads most clearly as a deliberate human construction. The overall shape is subrectangular, measuring roughly 25.7 metres east to west and 18.7 metres north to south. Traces of an inner bank edge can still be made out at around 4 metres wide, though the eastern portion of the scarp may owe as much to natural ground variation as to any intentional banking.

By 1897, when the Ordnance Survey produced its 25-inch map edition, whoever was recording the landscape at Ballybaun saw fit to name it simply 'Sheepfold', suggesting it was then understood as a relatively recent agricultural feature rather than anything of antiquity. The 1916 edition of the OS 6-inch map recorded it with hachures, the short lines surveyors used to indicate a raised or embanked feature, which at least confirms it was still legible as a distinct earthwork at that point. Whether the enclosure began its life as a prehistoric or early medieval structure that was later reused for livestock management, or whether it was always a pastoral feature, the surviving evidence does not settle the question. Complicating matters further, two other enclosures lie within close range: one approximately 52 metres to the north-east, another roughly 57 metres to the south-west, suggesting this part of Ballybaun held a concentration of enclosed spaces that may or may not have been related in function or period.