They are all that physically remains of a horizontal water mill, a type of early medieval grinding technology once widespread across Ireland and the wider Atlantic fringe. Unlike the more familiar vertical waterwheel, a horizontal mill used a wheel laid flat beneath the millhouse floor, driven directly by a jet of water channelled through a wooden flume. The simplicity of the design made it well suited to small, fast-flowing streams, and hundreds once operated across the Irish countryside.

The timbers came to light in the 1980s when a sloping cutting was made in the stream bank to allow cattle access to the water, exposing the structural remains roughly 0.6 metres above the water surface. The larger of the two beams measures 2.34 metres in length, 0.15 metres wide, and 0.25 metres deep, aligned north to south and rectangular in cross-section. Its companion, aligned east to west and partially embedded in the ground, carries a shallow groove cut across its upper face, likely a functional feature of the original mill mechanism. In the angle where the two timbers meet, a fragment representing about a third of a millstone was found in place, the stone having an estimated original diameter of around 0.75 metres and a central perforation of 0.15 metres. A second broken millstone, this one representing roughly half of a stone some 0.65 metres in diameter, was recovered from the stream bed itself; its upper edge is bevelled and a small lip encircles the central hole, details that point to a carefully finished piece of grinding equipment.

In 1985, an OPW drainage scheme along the stream was carried out under archaeological supervision specifically to protect the timbers. The millstone fragment that had lain in the stream bed was moved and placed beside the structural beams, and the timbers were then covered over with soil to preserve them. A new cattle access point was opened roughly ten metres to the east, redirecting foot traffic away from the mill site. The remains are now buried and not visible at the surface, but the deliberate care taken to preserve them in place means the site retains its archaeological integrity beneath the ground.