KILROOT covers 57.7 km² in Northern Ireland. With 44 historic sites and 8 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 58th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 22 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 51st percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 17.4 recorded sites — the 57th 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.
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 KILROOT
Of the 44 historic sites recorded, the most common are A.P. Site – Enclosure (3, 7% of historic sites), Enclosure (3), and Mound (3). For A.P. Site – Enclosures, this is the 88th percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Enclosures, this is the 27th percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 57.7 km², this gives a recorded density of 1.28 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments occupy a compact area within the ward (less than 0.04° of geographic spread), indicating clustered placement.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| A.p. Site – Enclosure | 3 | — |
| Enclosure | 3 | — |
| Mound | 3 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 20% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
With a mean elevation of 113m, this ward sits above the NI median (77th percentile), with a maximum of 231m giving the ward meaningful vertical relief. Mean slope is 4.7° (64th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.2 (36th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (75%), woodland (15%), and urban land (6%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is elevated but relatively gentle terrain — typical of plateau country, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Mesozoic era (Palaeogene period). Rock formed during the age of dinosaurs; in NI this typically appears as Triassic mudstones and Jurassic clays now buried beneath younger deposits. Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.84, 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.
Placename evidence
The placename record for this ward is small — 14 names in total — but it does include 4 ecclesiastical placenames. With this few records, the count should be treated as indicative rather than a firm characterisation.
Placename categories
Scheduled monuments in KILROOT
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Barrows (2) | Barrows (2) | Unknown |
| Bishop's house, early Church site and bawn | Bishop'S House, Early Church Site And Bawn | Post-Medieval |
| Fortification, 'Castle Dobbs' | Fortification, 'Castle Dobbs' | Unknown |
| 17th Century settlement site 'Marhsallstown' | 17Th Century Settlement Site 'Marhsallstown' | Early Medieval |
| Dalway's Bawn: c17th Bawn | Dalway'S Bawn: C17Th Bawn | Post-Medieval |
| WW1 Coastal Battery | Ww1 Coastal Battery | Unknown |
| WW1 Battery Searchlight Emplacement | Ww1 Battery Searchlight Emplacement | Modern |
| WW1 Battery Searchlight Emplacement | Ww1 Battery Searchlight Emplacement | Modern |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE – enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – enclosure? | Iron Age | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE or FARMSTEAD – banked enclosure; field boundaries and house platform. | Post-Medieval | Agriculture |
| AP Site- Possible enclosure at Porg Hill (rath?) | Iron Age | Defence |
| AP Site- Possible enclosure or barrow | Early Bronze Age | Ritual/Funerary |
| AP Site- Possible enclosure or barrow | Early Bronze Age | Ritual/Funerary |
| BARROW | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| BARROW | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
Listed buildings in KILROOT
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Farm Buildings Castle Dobbs Tongue Loanen Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 9BU | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Castle Dobbs 74 Tongue Loanen Carrickfergus Co.Antrim BT38 9BU | A | 1740 – 1759 |
| Bridge to rear of Castle Dobbs Dobbsland Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 9BU | B1 | 1780 – 1799 |
| Bridge at farmyard Castle Dobbs Dobbsland Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 9BU | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Walled Garden Castle Dobbs Dobbsland Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 9BU | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Kilroot Bridge Belfast Road Kilroot Co.Antrim | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Gardeners Cottage Castle Dobbs Dobbsland Carrickfergus BT38 9BU | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Lodge at Castle Dobbs 73b Tongue Loanen Carrickfergus Co Antrim BT38 9BU | B2 | 1820 – 1839 |
| Dalway's Bawn Dalway's Bawn Road Carrickfergus BT38 | Record Only | 1600 – 1649 |
| Belmont 96 Beltoy Road Carrickfergus Co. Antrim BT38 9BZ | Record Only | 1820 – 1839 |
Discover more in Mid and East Antrim
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/