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Navigation Pillar is a nineteenth-century stone structure located at Down in Northern Ireland. These pillars were erected to assist mariners and terrestrial travellers in identifying key landmarks and determining their bearings across otherwise featureless terrain. The pillar stands on bedrock of the Hawick Group, a wacke formation dating to the Wenlock period of the Silurian, contributing a grey stone character to the local landscape.
The monument is situated in the townland area around grid reference J586 047, where the underlying geology comprises compact, fine-grained sedimentary rock typical of the Hawick Group deposits. This durable stone base would have provided a stable foundation for a structure intended to withstand exposure to Northern Irish weather over many decades.
The Navigation Pillar at Down is protected as a Historic Monument by the Historic Environment Division under reference 13893. Such markers represent an important phase in transportation and navigation history, when improved movement across the landscape became essential to growing communities and commerce in the nineteenth century.
Navigation pillar is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 13893. View the official record →
Navigation Pillar is a nineteenth-century stone structure located at Down in Northern Ireland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 13893.
Navigation pillar dates from the c19th period, and is classified as a navigation pillar. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Navigation pillar 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 13893.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Motte (1.5 km), Anglo-norman coffin lids (2) (in c. of i. church) & site of medieval church (1.7 km), Raised rath (2.8 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Navigation pillar'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.
Navigation pillar stands on Hawick Group, bedrock that formed in the Wenlock. The rock here is wacke.