ALDERGROVE

Daniel Kirkpatrick

ALDERGROVE Heritage Profile

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By

Daniel Kirkpatrick

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By | Compiled 2026-05-05 | N08000102
346 historic sites 19 scheduled monuments 62 listed buildings 8 archaeological periods

ALDERGROVE covers 465.0 km² in Northern Ireland. With 346 historic sites and 19 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 99th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 62 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 83rd percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 106.7 recorded sites — the 99th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Modern period, spanning 8 archaeological periods, placing the ward in the 90th percentile NI-wide for chronological depth.

Detailed boundary map of ALDERGROVE ward, Antrim and Newtownabbey
ALDERGROVE boundary detail
Regional context map showing ALDERGROVE ward within Antrim and Newtownabbey
ALDERGROVE in regional context

Heritage at a glance

Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.

346
Historic sites
99th percentile
19
Scheduled monuments
95th percentile
62
Listed buildings
83rd percentile
0.92
Sites per km²

Population context

9
Persons per km²
4th percentile
106.7
Sites per 1,000 residents
99th percentile
4,001
Total residents (2021)

The recorded heritage of ALDERGROVE

Of the 346 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (Chart) (126, 36% of historic sites), Enclosure (42), and Rath (26). For Enclosure (Chart)s, this is the 75th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Enclosures, this is placing the ward in the top 1% nationally for this type. Across the ward's 465.0 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.92 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.12° of latitude and 0.15° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.

Most common monument types

TypeCountDescription
Enclosure (chart) 126 —
Enclosure 42 —
Rath 26 —

Chronological distribution

Mesolithic
9
Neolithic
1
Early Bronze Age
1
Iron Age
179
Early Medieval
99
Medieval
7
Post Medieval
11
Modern
8
Unknown
31

Terrain and environment

Mean elevation of 32m sits around the NI median (25th percentile), reaching 126m at the highest point. The terrain is broadly flat, with a mean slope of 1.1° (0th percentile across NI). Drainage is poor across much of the ward — the Topographic Wetness Index of 12.9 sits in the 99th NI percentile, reflecting low-lying or impeded-drainage ground prone to waterlogging. The land cover is dominated by open water (55%) and improved grassland (36%). In overall character, this is low-lying, gently-sloping terrain — characteristic of NI's lowland basins and coastal plains, with land use dominated by open water.

Terrain measurements

Mean elevation31.6 m 25th pct
Max elevation126.5 m 54th pct
Mean slope1.1° 0th pct
Wetness index (TWI)12.91 100th pct
Grassland36.5% 36th pct
Woodland4.5% 2nd pct
Cropland1.9% 59th pct
Urban land2.2% 29th pct

Where this ward sits in NI

Elevation
25th
Slope
0th
Drainage
100th
Grassland
36th
Woodland
2nd

Geology and preservation

The dominant bedrock formed during the Cainozoic era (Palaeogene period). Relatively young rock formed in the last 66 million years. In Ulster, Cainozoic basalt — the lava that created the Antrim Plateau and Giant's Causeway — dominates much of the eastern landscape. Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.90, on a 0-1 Simpson-style scale), with multiple geological units within the ward boundary. Geologically diverse wards historically offered a wider range of stone types for building, toolmaking, and quarrying — a relevant factor when interpreting the material culture of nearby sites.

Bedrock eraCainozoic
Bedrock periodPalaeogene
Surface depositsDrift Geology Not Mapped [for Digital Map Use Only]
Peat coverage0.0%
Bedrock complexity0.90

Placename evidence

The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 59 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 1 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-) and 4 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-). Note: Irish-language (name_ga) forms are recorded for roughly half of NI placenames in the combined sources, so anglicised forms whose Irish original could belong to multiple categories may be misclassified.

Placename categories

Ecclesiastical (kil-, temple-, monaster-)4 names
Pre-Christian Defensive (rath-, dun-, lis-)1 name

Scheduled monuments in ALDERGROVE

Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).

MonumentTypePeriod
Church (site of)Church (Site Of)Unknown
MotteMotteMedieval
Rath and souterain: Bog HeadRath And Souterain: Bog HeadEarly Medieval
RathRathEarly Medieval
Rath and MotteRath And MotteEarly Medieval
Platform rathPlatform RathEarly Medieval
BarrowBarrowEarly Bronze Age
Motte and bailey and later enclosure : Bull MountMotte And Bailey And Later Enclosure : Bull MountIron Age

Recorded historic sites

NamePeriodType
A.P. SITE – ENCLOSUREIron AgeUnknown
A.P. SITE – MOUNDUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – RATHEarly MedievalDefence
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarkUnknownUnknown

Listed buildings in ALDERGROVE

Address / NameGradePeriod
St Catherine's C. of I. Church Seacash Crumlin Road Aldergrove Crumlin Co AntrimB11880 – 1899
Railway viaduct Mill Road Crumlin Co AntrimB11900 – 1919
St Judes Church (C 0f I) Oldstone Road Muckamore Antrim Co AntrimB21840 – 1859
The Old Rectory 40 Oldstone Road Muckamore Antrim BT41 4PY Co AntrimB11840 – 1859
The Lodge Greenmount College 22 Greenmount Road Muckamore Antrim Co Antrim BT41 4PXB11920 – 1939
30 Greenmount Road Muckamore Antrim BT41 4PXB11920 – 1939
31 Greenmount Road Muckamore Antrim Co Antrim BT41 4PXB11920 – 1939
Glenhurst 28 Oldstone Road Muckamore Antrim BT41 4PYB11840 – 1859
Entrance and wall of graveyard Oldstone Road Muckamore Antrim Co AntrimB21840 – 1859
60 Abbeyview Muckamore Antrim Co Antrim BT41 4QAB11760 – 1779

Further reading

Discover more in Antrim and Newtownabbey

Grounding History report mockup

Want a deeper view?

Grounding History: 10 Maps of Northern Ireland’s Past

A spatial history report bringing together analysis of all 462 wards into one place through 10 high-quality maps — covering monument density, archaeological periods, placename heritage, terrain, wetland, and the historic landscape at first survey.

View the report — £12.99

About this profile

What is a ward?

A ward is the smallest electoral and statistical geography used by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The boundaries used here are the 2014 NISRA / OSNI Wards (462 across Northern Ireland), each typically covering 1-700 km² and a population of a few thousand. Wards do not align with parishes, townlands, or any historic administrative unit — they are a modern statistical convenience, used here only as a fixed spatial frame within which to summarise heritage records.

What counts as a site?

Three distinct heritage record types are reported separately, not combined: (1) Historic Sites — entries in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR), the inventory of recorded archaeological sites and findspots, dated from prehistoric to early-modern; (2) Scheduled Monuments — sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995 and maintained by the Historic Environment Division (HED); (3) Listed Buildings — buildings of architectural or historic interest protected under the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and graded A, B+, B1, B2, or Record-Only by HED. A site appearing in more than one register is counted in each register independently.

Editorial principles

These ward profiles describe evidence, not history. They report what is recorded, not what occurred. Where the data is ambiguous, we say so. We do not infer historical processes — population movements, settlement expansion, periods of decline — from patterns in the record. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in Northern Ireland, where antiquarian survey was uneven and modern excavation is geographically biased, a gap in the record almost always reflects the limits of recording rather than a genuine historical absence. We mark such gaps explicitly where they appear in the data.

Limits of coverage and known caveats

Several caveats apply to every ward profile: (1) NISMR coverage is uneven across NI — some areas (notably parts of the south-east and the Belfast urban fringe) have been more intensively surveyed than others, so a low recorded site count does not reliably indicate a low past density of activity; (2) period attributions in NISMR are often 'Unknown', and chronological breakdowns reported here reflect only the dated subset; (3) placename classification depends on the Irish-language form (name_ga), which is recorded for approximately 50% of NI placenames in the combined sources, so ecclesiastical and pre-Christian counts may be understated where anglicised forms remain unparsed; (4) terrain percentile ranks compare each ward only to the other 461 NI wards; they are not absolute thresholds. For absence-dominant land cover categories (wetland, water, cropland), percentile ranks are suppressed below 1% raw value, since the ranking of zero-value wards is not meaningful.

Data sources (11)
Spotted an error? This dataset is updated continuously. Email contact@danielkirkpatrick.co.uk with corrections, missing records, or suggestions for improvement.