Earthwork - but what exactly?
It caught my eye while driving past on a visit to the area—a tree-topped mound outside Portglenone with a slight but distinct dominance over the surrounding landscape. Given its location near the River Bann, long associated with early settlement in Ireland, I assumed it might be a prehistoric hillfort. But it’s not listed on the Atlas of Hillforts of the UK and Ireland . Still, it seemed the site, officially called Knockanhead (the flat-topped hillock), and known locally as Clement’s Hill , had a story to tell. Historical maps offered bare facts. It was recorded as 102 feet on the Ordnance Survey First Edition (1829–1835), though later editions round it down to 100 feet. PRONI’s historical map viewer however referenced something more intriguing - an entry on the Sites and Monuments Record of Northern Ireland (SMR ) describing it as an earthwork and a “possible military encampment”. It was just a hint, but a vivid one. The SMR draws from the Ordnance Survey Memoirs , which ...