LOUGHRIES covers 122.1 km² in Northern Ireland. With 50 historic sites and 4 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 66th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 35 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 65th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 21.7 recorded sites — the 64th 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 LOUGHRIES
Of the 50 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (4, 8% of historic sites), Rath (4), and Kelp Grid (3). For Enclosures, this is the 38th percentile among NI wards that record this type. For Raths, this is the 31st percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 122.1 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.73 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.01° of latitude and 0.09° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enclosure | 4 | — |
| Rath | 4 | — |
| Kelp Grid | 3 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 18% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 28m sits around the NI median (21th percentile), reaching 69m at the highest point. The terrain is broadly flat, with a mean slope of 2.9° (13th percentile across NI). Drainage is poor across much of the ward — the Topographic Wetness Index of 11.2 sits in the 89th NI percentile, reflecting low-lying or impeded-drainage ground prone to waterlogging. The land cover is dominated by improved grassland (80%) and arable farmland (8%). In overall character, this is low-lying, gently-sloping terrain — characteristic of NI's lowland basins and coastal plains, 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. Peat covers 17% of the ward. Peat-bound ground preserves organic archaeological material that would not survive on aerated mineral soils. Bedrock composition is uniform (complexity index 0.20), with a single dominant geological unit underlying most of the ward. A uniform geology narrows the natural lithic-resource base available to past inhabitants.
Placename evidence
The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 20 placenames for this ward. Of those, 2 fall into the ecclesiastical category (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-) — the only diagnostic heritage stratum identified beyond the generic Gaelic landscape substrate. 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 LOUGHRIES
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Platform Rath | Platform Rath | Early Medieval |
| Raised Rath: Gransha Mound | Raised Rath: Gransha Mound | Early Medieval |
| PILLBOX | Pillbox | Modern |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – extensive series of cropmarks indicating settlement site | Unknown | Domestic |
| A.P. SITE: RING DITCH | Mesolithic | Defence |
| AIRFIELD: MILLISLE | Modern | Agriculture |
| BURIAL GROUND & possible ABBEY (unlocated) | Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| Burnt Mound | Middle-Late Bronze Age | Agriculture |
| Burnt mound and hearths | Early Bronze Age | Agriculture |
| CHURCH (site of) | Unknown | Religious |
| CHURCH, GRAVEYARD & HOLY WELL: TEMPLEPATRICK & ST.PATRICK'S WELL | Early Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| Cropmark – Possible crannog | Iron Age | Defence |
Listed buildings in LOUGHRIES
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Ballyvester House 84 Ballyvester Road Ballyvester Donaghadee Co. Down | B+ | — |
| Former Old Forge Hotel Millisle Road Miller Hill Donaghadee Co. Down | Record Only | 1860 – 1879 |
| Ballyvester School 244 Killaughey Road Ballyvester Donaghadee Co. Down | B1 | 1900 – 1919 |
| ’Swiss Cottage’ 23 Ballyblack Road Ballyhaff Newtownards Co Down BT22 2AP | B1 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Ballyblack Lodge 16 Ballyblack Road Ballyhaft Newtownards Co Down BT22 2AP | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| 'First and Last' 39 Main Street Ballymacruise Millisle Newtownards Co. Down BT22 2BL | Record Only | 1840 – 1859 |
| 31 Main Street Ballymacruise Millisle Newtownards Co. Down BT22 2BL | Record Only | 1840 – 1859 |
| 4 Shore Road Ballymacruise Millisle Newtownards Co. Down BT22 2BT | Record Only | 1820 – 1839 |
| The Mill House 3 Main Street Ballymacruise Millisle Newtownards Co. Down BT22 3BL | Record Only | 1820 – 1839 |
| 73 Donaghadee Road Ballycopeland Millisle Newtownards Co. Down BT22 2BZ | Record Only | — |
Discover more in Ards and North Down
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- Lisnacree — Newry, Mourne and Down
- Lisnagelvin — Derry City and Strabane
- Lough Road — Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon
See all 462 wards in the Northern Ireland Heritage Tool.
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/