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Enclosure at Larne is an uncertain enclosure located in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The monument sits upon bedrock comprising Palaeogene extrusive rocks, formed from mafic lava and mafic tuff during volcanic activity around 66 to 2.6 million years ago. This distinctive geological foundation has weathered to create the underlying landscape of the Larne area, which lies in a region shaped by ancient volcanism and subsequent glaciation.
The enclosure itself cannot be confidently assigned to any particular period or cultural tradition, as surviving remains do not provide sufficient diagnostic features for secure dating or functional interpretation. It represents the type of earthwork settlement or ceremonial boundary that occurs throughout Irish prehistory and later periods, though without excavation or structural clarity, its precise chronological position remains unresolved.
The site is protected and recorded as a monument of archaeological interest under the Historic Environment Division's scheduling system, reference number 3225. Its preservation recognises the potential archaeological value of uncertain enclosures, which may yield evidence about past settlement patterns and land use once investigated by appropriate archaeological methods.
Enclosure is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 3225. View the official record →
Enclosure at Larne is an uncertain enclosure located in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 3225.
Enclosure dates from the uncertain period, and is classified as a enclosure. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Enclosure is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 3225.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Carn school house, slieve true, school house carn. round cairn (5 km), Coveknows. barrow (5.4 km), Lisnalinchy, the fort of o'loingsech, silentia fort. multivallate rath and souterrain (6.5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Enclosure's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Enclosure stands on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Palaeogene, bedrock that formed in the Paleogene. The rock here is mafic lava and mafic tuff.