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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Tubbrid Upper

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Three concentric banks and fosses still circle a forty-metre chamber on the Tubbrid Upper bluff, though thorns have swallowed much of the middle ridge. The western causeway and northern gap suggest people once moved through this place rather than merely looking at it. Nearby ringforts dot the valley slopes, implying a distributed settlement rather than a single isolated home. The name Fairy fort may be local tradition rather than fact, yet it captures the way the buried structure resists easy explanation.
On a small bluff, with ground level to the E and S but falling sharply from the S and W to the valley floor, on the lower slopes of the Nuenna river valley, in reclaimed grassland. There are good views all directions, though they are confined by the sides of the valley. There is another ringfort (KK012-037----) c. 240m to the W and smaller ringforts (KK012-036----; KK012-035----; KK012-034----) c. 480m, c. 540m and c. 560m to the NW, NNW and N respectively. A trivallate ringfort consisting of a circular area (int. diam. c. 40m) enclosed by a flat-topped stone-faced bank (Wth 1m; int. H 0.8m; ext. H 2m) with a steep drop to a wide flat-bottomed fosse (Wth 2m; D c. 1.2-1.5m), bank (Wth 5m; ext. H c. 0.4m); outer fosse (Wth 2m; D 0.3m) and outer bank (Wth 1.75m; ext. H c. 0.3m). The middle bank largely survives as a wide berm. The monument is heavily overgrown with thorn trees. The original entrance (Wth 2m) appears to have been in the W quadrant where there is a break in the banks and a causeway across the fosses. There is a also a gap (Wth 2m) at N through the inner and middle bank. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 30 July 2019

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What survives
Recorded monument

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