Rather than the defensive fortification you might expect from such a structure, local tradition holds that this square enclosure functioned as a flax yard; a processing centre for the plant that would become linen. The site appears on both the 1841 and 1906 Ordnance Survey maps, where it’s depicted as a 40-metre square area surrounded by a wide, water-filled ditch known as a fosse, with a slight external bank bringing the overall dimensions to roughly 70 metres on each side.

According to locals who remembered the site before its destruction, the interior was perfectly level and covered about one and a half Irish acres. The enclosing fosse was remarkably deep, with a correspondingly high bank that would have made the site quite imposing in the landscape. This substantial earthwork construction suggests considerable investment in what was essentially an industrial facility, highlighting the importance of flax processing to the local economy during its period of use.

Unfortunately, the site met its end during agricultural improvements in the late 1950s or early 1960s, when it was completely levelled. Today, no visible traces remain above ground of either the moated enclosure or its defensive features. However, stone foundations discovered immediately northeast of where the moated site once stood are believed to mark the location of a village that grew up around the flax yard, offering tantalising hints at the broader community that once thrived here around this now-vanished centre of textile production.