114 historic sites8 scheduled monuments61 listed buildings6 archaeological periods
TEMPLEPATRICK covers 107.8 km² in Northern Ireland. With 114 historic sites and 8 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 89th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 61 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 82nd percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 52.9 recorded sites — the 91st percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Post-Medieval period, spanning 6 archaeological periods, around the NI median for chronological depth.
TEMPLEPATRICK boundary detailTEMPLEPATRICK in regional context
Heritage at a glance
Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.
114
Historic sites
91st percentile
8
Scheduled monuments
81st percentile
61
Listed buildings
82nd percentile
1.70
Sites per km²
Population context
32
Persons per km²
30th percentile
52.9
Sites per 1,000 residents
91st percentile
3,459
Total residents (2021)
The recorded heritage of TEMPLEPATRICK
Of the 114 historic sites recorded, the most common are A.P. Site – Circular Cropmark (12, 11% of historic sites), Rath (10), and Enclosure (8). For A.P. Site – Circular Cropmarks, this is the 93rd percentile across NI wards that record this type. For Raths, this is the 68th percentile among NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 107.8 km², this gives a recorded density of 1.70 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.03° of latitude and 0.06° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement.
Most common monument types
Type
Count
Description
A.p. Site – Circular Cropmark
12
—
Rath
10
—
Enclosure
8
—
Chronological distribution
Mesolithic
18
Early Bronze Age
3
Iron Age
19
Early Medieval
32
Medieval
8
Post Medieval
8
Unknown
26
Note: 23% 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 99m, this ward sits above the NI median (72th percentile), with a maximum of 281m giving the ward meaningful vertical relief. Mean slope is 3.3° (24th percentile across NI), giving moderately undulating terrain. The Topographic Wetness Index of 10.8 (71th NI percentile) indicates moderate drainage, balanced between upland shedding and lowland accumulation. The land cover is dominated by improved grassland (83%) and woodland (10%).
Terrain measurements
Mean elevation98.6 m 73rd pct
Max elevation280.8 m 81st pct
Mean slope3.3° 25th pct
Wetness index (TWI)10.81 72nd pct
Grassland83.2% 88th pct
Woodland10.5% 21st pct
Cropland3.5% 72nd pct
Urban land2.8% 33rd pct
Where this ward sits in NI
Elevation
73rd
Slope
25th
Drainage
72nd
Grassland
88th
Woodland
21st
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 uniform (complexity index 0.17), with a single dominant geological unit underlying most of the ward. A uniform geology narrows the natural lithic-resource base available to past inhabitants.
Bedrock eraCainozoic
Bedrock periodPalaeogene
Surface depositsTill
Peat coverage0.0%
Bedrock complexity0.17
Placename evidence
The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 23 placenames for this ward. Diagnostic heritage strata identified within these are: 2 pre-Christian defensive (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-) and 7 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.
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
Motte
Motte
Medieval
Mound
Mound
Unknown
Church and graveard (site of)
Church And Graveard (Site Of)
Unknown
Barrow
Barrow
Early Bronze Age
Cairn (stone circle)
Cairn (Stone Circle)
Early Bronze Age
Mound/Enclosure
Mound/Enclosure
Iron Age
Barrow
Barrow
Early Bronze Age
Neolithic hilltop enclosure and mound: Lyles Hill
Neolithic Hilltop Enclosure And Mound: Lyles Hill
Neolithic
Recorded historic sites
Name
Period
Type
A.P. SITE – LARGE HILLTOP ENCLOSURE
Iron Age
Unknown
A.P. SITE – RATH
Early Medieval
Defence
A.P. SITE – circular & linear cropmarks
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarks
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarks – Bivallate Rath?
Iron Age
Defence
A.P. SITE – circular cropmarks – Bivallate Rath?
Iron Age
Defence
A.P. SITE – elliptical cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – elliptical enclosure
Iron Age
Unknown
A.P. SITE – enclosure
Iron Age
Unknown
A.P. SITE – enclosure
Iron Age
Unknown
A.P. SITE – large circular cropmark
Unknown
Unknown
A.P. SITE – large enclosure
Iron Age
Unknown
A.P. SITE – small circular cropmark – Barrow?
Early Bronze Age
Ritual/Funerary
ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENT?
Unknown
Unknown
BARROW
Mesolithic
Ritual/Funerary
BARROW
Mesolithic
Ritual/Funerary
BARROW
Mesolithic
Ritual/Funerary
BARROW
Mesolithic
Ritual/Funerary
BARROW
Mesolithic
Ritual/Funerary
BATTLE SITE; 1649
Post-Medieval
Unknown
Buildings and Well Remains
Post-Medieval
Domestic
C17th CASTLE on MONASTIC SITE : ORDER of ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, UPTON CASTLE, UPTON MAUSOLEUM, HUGH DE LOGAN'S TOWN
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.
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)
Spotted an error? This dataset is updated continuously.
Email contact@danielkirkpatrick.co.uk with corrections, missing records, or suggestions for improvement.
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