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Todd's Grove is a bivallate rath located near Lisburn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. A rath is an early Christian farmstead, typically consisting of a dwelling house and ancillary buildings enclosed within one or more earthen banks and ditches. The bivallate form indicates this example is defended by two concentric rings of earthwork. The site sits on bedrock formed from the Gala Group wackes of the Telychian period, Ordovician in age, which would have provided a stable foundation for the construction and occupation of the rath during the early Christian period.
Raths were common settlement forms across Ireland from the late Iron Age through the early medieval period, representing the residences of farming families or minor nobility. Their distribution and morphology provide valuable insight into settlement patterns, land use and social hierarchies in early Christian Ireland. The double-bank construction suggests a site of some defensive concern or social status within its local community.
Todd's Grove is protected as a scheduled monument by the Historic Environment Division of the Department for Communities under reference 6691. The survival of the earthwork as an upstanding monument makes it a valuable archaeological resource for understanding settlement archaeology and landscape use in early medieval Ulster.
Todd's grove. bivallate rath is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 6691. View the official record →
Todd's Grove is a bivallate rath located near Lisburn in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 6691.
Todd's grove. bivallate rath dates from the e.christ. period, and is classified as a rath. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Todd's grove. bivallate rath 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 6691.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Rath (5.6 km), Rath (5.6 km), Rath (7.4 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Todd's grove. bivallate rath'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.
Todd's grove. bivallate rath stands on Gala Group, bedrock that formed in the Telychian. The rock here is wacke.