BALLYWARD covers 356.4 km² in Northern Ireland. With 105 historic sites and 18 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 87th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 47 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 76th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 37.9 recorded sites — the 84th 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 7 archaeological periods, placing the ward in the 79th percentile NI-wide for chronological depth.
Heritage at a glance
Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.
Population context
The recorded heritage of BALLYWARD
Of the 105 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (26, 25% of historic sites), Rath (16), and Platform Rath (5). For Enclosures, this is the 94th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Raths, this is the 81st percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 356.4 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.48 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.10° of latitude and 0.19° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enclosure | 26 | — |
| Rath | 16 | — |
| Platform Rath | 5 | — |
Chronological distribution
Terrain and environment
A mean elevation of 186m places this ward in the top 6% of NI wards by altitude, but the ward reaches 531m at its highest point — a vertical span of more than 345m within its boundary, indicating significant topographic diversity. The terrain is consistently steep, with a mean slope of 6.9° (94th percentile across NI). The ward is well-drained, with a Topographic Wetness Index of 9.3 (5th NI percentile) — characteristic of upland or steeply-sloping ground that sheds water rapidly. The land cover is dominated by improved grassland (91%) and woodland (6%). In overall character, this is an upland landscape of steep, elevated terrain, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Silurian period). Ancient sedimentary or metamorphic rock dating to before the age of dinosaurs; the resulting landscape has been long-stable enough to host every period of human activity. Bedrock composition is moderately varied (complexity index 0.64), with two or three geological units present within the ward boundary.
Placename evidence
The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 57 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 6 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-) and 3 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
Scheduled monuments in BALLYWARD
Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).
| Monument | Type | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Cashel | Cashel | Early Medieval |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Cairn and long cist: the Cove | Cairn And Long Cist: The Cove | Early Bronze Age |
| Raised Rath | Raised Rath | Early Medieval |
| Rath and souterrain: Big Fort | Rath And Souterrain: Big Fort | Iron Age |
| Souterrain | Souterrain | Iron Age |
| Church and Graveyard: Templemoyle | Church And Graveyard: Templemoyle | Unknown |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE – cropmark | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – double-ditched cropmark | Unknown | Defence |
| AP Cropmark – Possible enclosure and curvilinear features | Iron Age | Unknown |
| BIVALLATE RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
| Bronze Age occupation site | Early Bronze Age | Unknown |
| CAIRN | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| CAIRN (at junction of 4 townlands): THE TWELVE CAIRNS | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| CAIRN & LONG CIST: THE COVE | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| CASHEL | Early Medieval | Defence |
| CASHEL with HOUSE & SOUTERRAIN: WHITE FORT | Early Medieval | Defence |
Listed buildings in BALLYWARD
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Benraw Road Ballyward Banbridge Co Down BT31 9TH | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Ballyward Lodge 18 Ballyward Road Ballyward Co Down BT31 9PP | B+ | 1800 – 1819 |
| Outbuildings at Ballyward Lodge and Estate 18 Ballyward Road Ballyward Banbridge Co Down BT31 9PS | B1 | 1800 – 1819 |
| St. Patricks R C Church Gargarry Road Castlewellan Banbridge Co Down BT31 9RN | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
| St Mary's R C Church Leitrim Ballyward Banbridge Co Down BT31 9TH | B+ | 1860 – 1879 |
| Gate Lodge and Gatescreen Ballyward Lodge 16 Ballyward Road Ballyward Banbridge Co Down BT31 9PS | B1 | 1820 – 1839 |
| Drumgooland Parish Church Ballyward Road Banbridge Co Down BT31 9PP | B1 | 1820 – 1839 |
| Ballyward House 2 Castlewellan Road Ballyward Castlewellan Co Down BT31 9RL | B1 | 1800 – 1819 |
| Outbuilding Ballydrumman/Leitrim Road Crossroads Leitrim Banbridge Co Down BT31 9SL | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| 39 Ringsend Road Banbridge Co Down BT32 3QQ | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
Discover more in Newry, Mourne and Down
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.
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)
- Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/nismr-public-mapviewer
- HED Scheduled Monuments Dataset https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@historic-environment-division/scheduled-monuments-northern-ireland
- HED Historic Buildings Record https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/historic-environment/listed-buildings
- OSNI OS Open Names (Northern Ireland) https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data—50k-gazetteer
- Logainm — Placenames Database of Ireland https://www.logainm.ie/
- GeoNames https://www.geonames.org/
- Census 2021 (Northern Ireland) https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2021-census
- OSNI Open Data — Largescale Boundaries https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data-largescale-boundaries-wards-2012
- Copernicus GLO-30 DEM https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/collections/copernicus-digital-elevation-model
- ESA WorldCover https://esa-worldcover.org/
- GSNI 1:250,000 Geology https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/maps/