Its exact position has been lost to time, but the fact of its existence was recorded with quiet precision in a land survey conducted in the mid-seventeenth century, making it one of those places that is more document than site, more ghost than building.

The Down Survey, carried out between 1655 and 1656 under the direction of William Petty, was a systematic mapping of forfeitable lands across Ireland following the Cromwellian conquest. It remains one of the most detailed early surveys of the Irish landscape. Both the barony map of the Liberties of the City of Kilkenny and the parish map of St Patrick's Parish mark a house in the northern portion of the townland then recorded as 'Archersgrove and the broadfeilds'. A terrier, which is a written document accompanying the maps and describing the lands in detail, goes further: it notes 'in Archersgrove a Thatcht House' and identifies the proprietor in 1640 as 'Thomas Archer Irish Papist'. That phrase, a standard piece of survey shorthand, flags Archer as a Catholic landowner, the kind of proprietor whose holdings were under scrutiny and at risk of confiscation during the upheavals of the 1650s. The surname itself is interesting; the townland name suggests the Archer family had held a presence here long enough to leave their name on the land.

The house Thomas Archer occupied has not been positively identified on the ground. There is a later building in the townland, a detached three-bay two-storey house dating to around 1900, which may incorporate the fabric of an earlier mill owner's house. Whether any material connection exists between that structure and the thatched house of 1640 is unknown. The townland name endures, the river still runs, and the record remains.