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There are 3 mounds at the peak of the hill. The hill has been quarried for lyme, leaving a high cliff. The lyme was processed in the nearby lyme kiln, which is still standing and worth a look while your there.

The view from the top of the low is amazing, Minning low, Alek low, Harboro rocks, Thorpe cloud and many other places of interest are visable from the hill.

The low is part of new house farm, and although there is no footpath on that field, there is a footpath runnung through the field where the lyme kiln is. The farmer is very fiendly and knowleagble about the history of the local area. He loves to talk with people (when hes not busy). Bonus that there is meat available for sale from the organic farm shop! There are also rare spiecies of grasses and orchids growing in that field (called the quarry field) and very good places to forage mushrooms around that area.

There is also a lead mine below the cliff which goes down quite a few meters below the hill.

The low is on a lane of the same name.
The derbyshire council monument website details many of the finds that were discovered during investigations of the site.
her.derbyshire.gov.uk/Monument/MDR3216

I read the report of an archaeological dig done here in the 70’s.
The report mentioned that there were sky burials conducted on the hill. I can try to get a copy of the report from the farmer I was working with and see if I am able to upload it to the site. There is no mention of the sky burials on the councils monument record MDR3204 on their website.

Lismahon mound, or barrow if you like, is 100 metres in off the Ballymaglassan road that runs south-west out of Batterstown. It’s not much but it’s on a mate’s uncle’s land and I’ve been meaning to check it out for a while.

I’d been here before, 19 years ago, and hadn’t bothered getting into the field. At the junction of a couple of drains, nowadays it’s completely overgrown and difficult to interpret. It has been mentioned that it could be spoil from the digging of the drains, but the landowner, Mattie Nolan, refers to it as a moat (motte? or mound?) and I’d prefer to go with his interpretation. That said, it is only with excavation that its provenance could be realised.

Batterstown (Baile an Bhóthar, the town of the road) is a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hamlet on the Rathoath to Trim road. It has a pub, a church, a GAA club and a petrol station/shop. It’s surrounded by ancient land that has been colonised by centuries of farmwork and subdivided by hedgerows.

Three hundred metres north-east of the village, behind the church, the infant Tolka (An Tulcha) flows, having risen about a mile north-west in the townland of Pelletstown. There used to be a Batterstown train station, the now defunct line running parallel to the river.

Rathregan townland takes up and envelops much of Batterstown itself, taking its name from the massive rath/habitation site between Rathregan church and Rathregan House. I had been to the rath a few years before but the entry on the SMR that showed a barrow 350 metres to its south-east was the target for today.

We parked at the old ruins beside the rath and clomped our way through the sodden fields, heading along the old cattle-rutted rail cutting that truncates the northern arc of the barrow. The misty rain didn’t dampen our spirits, back out on the hunt after a hearty breakfast in nearby Dunshaughlin.

Expectations were low as we climbed out of the deep rail line having spied the mound from three hundred metres further west. However, it is still an impressive monument, though badly robbed, with almost all of its bank and ditch destroyed. There is also a deep bowl dug into the centre of the mound. The western arc of the bank and ditch remain, allowing the interpretation that this is indeed a ring-barrow. It’s quite miraculous that so much has survived and it was well worth coming here.

It was time to head back along the treacherous cliff at Dun Ach’ Na H-Atha to more surer footing on the farm track to head to the A83 to walk another mile south to Glencreggan.

Head towards Glencreggan House, once the North Lodge is reached head south west into woods. A short walk on long grass will lead to much ruined dun, it has been well robbed. What remains are the bottom stones of the walls, best preserved in the south west – they mark the site’s entrance, almost 1m wide with the wall being almost 3m in width. Traces of wall in other areas can be traced by using the height of the grass which also helps by putting the dun at 26m by 15m.

There’s something good about visiting sites in trees (when the trees haven’t fallen), certainly adds to the aura of the place.

Visited 01/08/2025.

There is still a distinct mark left by the hillfort nearly 3000 years later. I’m sure everyone can relate to how bad cameras are at capturing the steep undulations and so the photos don’t do it justice. The inside area is very large and extremely flat sitting at the top of Snelsmore and if one could remove all the trees in the area (perhaps by building a palisade) you would have a great vantage point in the area especially looking north up the wantage road. The North and East side have some very steep banks especially on the north. A final note would be that during April it’s absolutely flooded with blue bells.