STEWARTSTOWN covers 196.7 km² in Northern Ireland. With 79 historic sites and 6 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 79th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 42 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 72nd percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 40.9 recorded sites — the 86th 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 STEWARTSTOWN
Of the 79 historic sites recorded, the most common are Rath (31, 39% of historic sites), Enclosure (8), and Non-Antiquity (4). For Raths, this is placing the ward in the top 4% nationally for this type. For Enclosures, this is the 62nd percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 196.7 km², this gives a recorded density of 0.65 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.06° of latitude and 0.06° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rath | 31 | — |
| Enclosure | 8 | — |
| Non-antiquity | 4 | — |
Chronological distribution
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 65m sits around the NI median (52th percentile), reaching 132m at the highest point. Mean slope is 4.1° (50th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.4 (49th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (83%), woodland (9%), and arable farmland (6%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Carboniferous 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 10% of the ward. Peat-bound ground preserves organic archaeological material that would not survive on aerated mineral soils. Bedrock composition is varied (complexity index 0.80, 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 combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 117 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 9 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-), 11 ecclesiastical (cill-, teampall-, mainistir-, díseart-), and 1 Plantation-era (17th c English/Scots settlement names). 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 STEWARTSTOWN
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Castle and Village: Stewartstown | Castle And Village: Stewartstown | Unknown |
| Standing Stone | Standing Stone | Early Bronze Age |
| Trivallate Enclosure | Trivallate Enclosure | Iron Age |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Church: Ballyclog Old Church | Church: Ballyclog Old Church | Unknown |
| Bivallate Rath | Bivallate Rath | Iron Age |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| A.P. SITE – 3 circular cropmarks | Unknown | Unknown |
| A.P. SITE – Rath's | Early Medieval | Defence |
| A.P. SITE – STANDING STONE? | Early Bronze Age | Ritual/Funerary |
| Ardtrea Historic Settlement | Post-Medieval | Domestic |
| BAWN | Post-Medieval | Defence |
| BIVALLATE RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
| CASTLE & VILLAGE: STEWARTSTOWN CASTLE | Post-Medieval | Defence |
| CHURCH & GRAVEYARD: GLEBE or BALLYCLOG OLD CHURCH | Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| CHURCH (unlocated) | Unknown | Religious |
| COUNTERSCARP RATH | Early Medieval | Defence |
Listed buildings in STEWARTSTOWN
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Sherrigrim House 60 Newmills Road Dungannon BT71 4DJ | B1 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Tullylagan House 40 Tullylagan Road Cookstown BT80 8UP | B+ | 1820 – 1839 |
| Donaghenry Rectory 90 Donaghendry Road Stewartstown Dungannon BT71 5PW | B1 | 1800 – 1819 |
| St Patrick's Church of Ireland 125 Coagh Road Stewartstown Dungannon BT71 5LL | B+ | 1860 – 1879 |
| St Andrew's Church of Ireland Ardtrea Road Stewartstown Dungannon BT71 5LY | B+ | 1820 – 1839 |
| Finvey Bridge, Killyneedan Road, Cookstown | B2 | 1820 – 1839 |
| St Andrew's Church of Ireland Hall Ardtrea Road Stewartstown Dungannon BT71 5LY | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Pump Castlefarm Road/North St Stewartstown Dungannon | B1 | 1880 – 1899 |
| Gate Screen & Gate opposite Stuart Hall Demesne Castlefarm Road Stewartstown Co Tyrone BT71 5AE | B1 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Pump behind house 32 Killyneedan Road Sandholes Cookstown Co. Tyrone | B1 | 1900 – 1919 |
Discover more in Mid Ulster
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- Donaghmore
- Swatragh
- Bellaghy
- Coalisland North
- Cookstown East
- Maghera
- Strabane West — Derry City and Strabane
- Stranmillis — Belfast
- Stormont — Belfast
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/