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Glebe

Ecclesiastical enclosure

What is recorded here

Glebe is a vast, worn ecclesiastical enclosure in County Kildare where a low earthen bank still curves around a possible church site. Local tradition claims a building once stood inside that broad circular space, but livestock and field drains have since blurred its edges. The place remains a quiet reminder that human worship and memory can fade into ordinary pasture while their shape lingers beneath the grass.
On a gentle N-facing slope in mixed tillage and pasture with a possible medieval field system (KD017-018001-) immediately to the E. A very large and poorly preserved, roughly circular area (est. diam c. 300m) is defined by a low, broad, curving earthen bank (Wth 7.5m; int H 0.9m; ext H 1.2m) SW-W-NNE, which is hedged as a field boundary, and which is reduced to a long, low scarp NNE-SE (L 8m; H 0.5m) which is heavily poached by livestock, especially at NE. An outer fosse (Wth 1.4m; D 0.3m), recut as a field drain and now silted-up, girdles the bank. At W a short arc of shallow inner fosse (Wth 1.6m; D 0.2m) is visible. A broad gap (Wth 12m) at NNE may be an enlarged original entrance. According to local tradition, a church (KD017-018004-) once stood in the interior. A later field boundary bank and drain crosses the E portion of the monument NNE-SSW. The SE sector of the interior contains a trapezoidal enclosure which narrows from E to W (int. Wth 46.5m E-W) and has a curving E side, (L 46m) defined by a low earthen bank (Wth 7.5m; int H 0.2-0.4m; ext. H 0.3m), which overlies the larger enclosure's perimeter. A very shallow outer fosse (Wth 2m; D 0.1m) runs along the S. (CUCAP ATA 67 (1967); CUCAP AVR 6 (1968)) Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011

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What survives
Recorded monument

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