The site occupies a northwest-facing slope and consists of a raised square platform measuring 26 metres from east to west. This elevated area would have originally held the main buildings of the settlement, likely including a dwelling house and associated structures typical of Anglo-Norman or Gaelic Irish lordship sites.

The platform is enclosed by a substantial earth and stone bank that stands approximately 1.8 metres wide. While the interior height of this defensive bank measures just 0.25 metres today, its exterior face still rises to an impressive 1.5 metres, giving a sense of the site’s original defensive capabilities. Surrounding this bank is a wide outer fosse, or defensive ditch, measuring 3 metres across with depths varying between 0.2 and 0.8 metres. These earthwork defences would have provided both practical protection and a visual statement of the occupant’s status and authority in the medieval landscape.

A possible causewayed entrance, approximately 3 metres wide, appears to have provided access from the western side of the enclosure. This would have been the main approach to the site, likely featuring a wooden bridge or drawbridge across the fosse in its active period. Moated sites like this one at Manselstown were particularly common in Ireland during the 13th and 14th centuries, serving as fortified farmsteads for Anglo-Norman colonists or adopted by Gaelic lords as symbols of their power and prosperity.