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The Ragheries is a medieval wooden fish trap located in Ards, County Down. The structure represents a form of aquatic resource management practised throughout medieval Britain and Ireland, where rivers and tidal zones were exploited using fixed installations to capture fish. The trap consists of wooden stakes and woven elements designed to direct fish into a confined chamber from which escape was difficult.
The monument sits upon Silurian siltstone bedrock, overlain with sandstone and limestone deposits. This geology shaped both the river channel in which the trap was constructed and the materials available to medieval builders for driving the trap's wooden framework into the riverbed. The sandy and silty soils of the Ards peninsula would have supported the engineering required to anchor such installations against tidal currents.
The Ragheries survives as waterlogged wooden remains, a preservation that reflects the anaerobic conditions created by the Silurian deposits beneath. Fish traps of this type, though labour-intensive to construct and maintain, were valuable communal resources or valuable assets for medieval landholders, providing a reliable seasonal catch. The monument is protected by the Historic Environment Division under reference 13484, recognising its significance as evidence of medieval fishing practice in Ulster.
The ragheries. wooden fish trap is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 13484. View the official record →
The Ragheries is a medieval wooden fish trap located in Ards, County Down. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 13484.
The ragheries. wooden fish trap dates from the medieval period, and is classified as a fish trap. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
The ragheries. wooden fish trap 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 13484.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Kelp grid (2.1 km), Kircubbin harbour. quay, slipway and mooring (4.1 km), Stone fish trap (5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of The ragheries. wooden fish trap'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.
The ragheries. wooden fish trap stands on Silurian siltstone, bedrock that formed in the Silurian. The rock here is major:{siltstone}, Minor{sandstone,limestone}.