A cairn marking a large burial mound situated on the summit of the hill. The centre of the cairn stands to a considerable height. Kerb stones set on edge are traceable in places around the circumference of the mound.
The cairn has not been excavated but is probably early Bronze Age or late Neolithic in date.
The name means 'Hill of the Watch by Day' or 'Hill of the Day-Watch' and the hilltop would have been one of several medieval or early post-medieval watch and ward posts placed at strategic points round the island. Every coastal parish had at least one 'hill of the day-watch' and 'port of the night-watch'.
This is the site of a modern aviation radio direction beacon, operated by National Air Traffic Services. The site has been used since the 1950s for radio beacons providing navigation information for civil aircraft.
The Ordnance Survey 1:10560 scale mapping published in 1958 shows a central mast next to a technical building, around which four more masts are marked to the NW, NE, SE and SW, at a distance of approximately 80 m. The concrete foundation pads of the northerly masts have been removed, but the southern pair survive. The historical mapping bears the annotation, 'Automatic Wireless Transmitting Direction-finding Station (Aircraft) (Min[istry] of Trans[port] & Civ[il] Av[iation])'.
The mast array was for many years replaced by a low-level arrangement known locally as the 'Bandstand', which itself is in the process of being partially dismantled and replaced (as of 2021).
The cropmark of a feature described as a "double-ring" seen to the south of a gully in the 1970s and thought to possibly represent an Iron Age roundhouse. No further information is available at present.
Medieval burial mound.
This well-preserved burial mound stands in a prominent location on the coast. Coastal erosion is likely to have brought the mound closer to the shore than when it was originally created, but the surviving topography would suggest that it was designed to be visible from out to sea, and it bears direct comparison with nearby excavated sites such as Ballateare and Cronk Mooar, and disturbed examples such as that within Jurby churchyard.
The sharply defined outline of the mound, which is 19m in diameter and 3.5m high, would tend to confirm its medieval, rather than prehistoric, origins.
The mound is locally known as Cronk ny Arrey Lhaa, or 'hill of the daytime watch', for which purpose it could have served well. A document dated to 1627 and contained within the Castle Rushen Papers, however, states that the day and nightime coastal watches were by then kept from Knockmore (now Cronk Mooar) 1200m to the south-west.
The mound is known as Cronk ny Arrey Lhaa, or 'hill of the daytime watch', for which purpose it could have served well. A document dated 1627 and contained within the Castle Rushen Papers, however, states that the day and nightime coastal watches were by then kept from Knockmore (now Cronk Mooar) 1200m to the south-west. It is not impossible that the site may have served this purpose during medieval times before being superseded by Cronk Moar.
The site of a Bronze Age barrow, which survives as a ditchless, gorse and fern covered bowl barrow with diameter of 12.0 metres and height of 1.4 metres. It has several stones, some of them quartz, exposed on the mound. A second barrow lies 50 metres to the northeast (PRN 0532.00). The barrow is shown as a Tumulus on the 1870 1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map.
Cronk ny Keeill Bouyr means the Mound of Keeill Bouyr (Mound of the Chapel of the Deaf).
Defended promontory. When first surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1868, the most obvious features on the site were the large, grass-covered bank, standing 3.5m high and 5m wide, and the less substantial remains of a rectangular building behind it on the promontory. The scale of the bank led to an assumption that it represented a prehistoric burial mound, a belief compounded by its name, which translates as 'hill of the dead'.
Excavation in 1950-51 found that the promontory had first been protected by a timber stockade, which was later replaced by a timber-reinforced earthen rampart. A ditch had also been excavated in front of the bank, to a depth of about 1m below modern ground-level; the ditch was spanned by a causeway at the west end to allow access to the headland. The rampart was further augmented by a timber platform, or raised walkway.
The defensive site so created was considered to be of Iron Age character, though no features of this period were identified within the site. Several residual finds, however, confirm an Iron Age presence.
The interior of the headland is now dominated by a later longhouse which is likely to have disturbed or destroyed most traces of earlier occupation. The longhouse measures 13.5m by 7.5m, with earthen walls 1.5m thick faced inside and out in stone. The walls originally stood to a height of around 1.5m, and probably supported a pitched roof. Two doorways are located opposite each other near the west end, and low stone benches run along both of the long walls and across the western gable. There was little evidence of domestic activity, only rather basic remains of a hearth, and no domestic rubbish. The form of the building thus conforms to a domestic Viking longhouse, while the excavated evidence suggests that it was not permanently occupied.
Several other defended promontories (Cass ny Hawin, Close ny Chollagh and Borrane) have similar buildings within their ramparts, leading to the suggestion that existing promontory forts were reused as part of a 'watch and ward' system of coastal defence and perhaps also to police beach markets.
No dating evidence was found during the excavations but in 1970, a half-penny of Edward I, dating 1280-81, was found in the back-fill of the dig and presumably indicates some occupation of the site after the end of Norse rule on the Island in 1265.
Defended promontory.
When first surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1868, the most obvious features on the site were the large, grass-covered bank, standing 3.5m high and 5m wide, and the less substantial remains of a rectangular building behind it on the promontory. The scale of the bank led to an assumption that it represented a prehistoric burial mound, a belief compounded by its name, which translates as 'hill of the dead'.
Excavation in 1950-51 found that the promontory had first been protected by a timber stockade, which was later replaced by a timber-reinforced earthen rampart. A ditch had also been excavated in front of the bank, to a depth of about 1m below modern ground-level; the ditch was spanned by a causeway at the west end to allow access to the headland. The rampart was further augmented by a timber platform, or raised walkway.
The defensive site so created was considered to be of Iron Age character, though no features of this period were identified within the site. Several residual finds, however, confirm an Iron Age presence.
Medieval longhouse.
When first surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1868, the most obvious features on the site were the large, grass-covered bank, standing 3.5m high and 5m wide, and the less substantial remains of a rectangular building behind it on the promontory.
The interior of the headland is now dominated by a later longhouse which is likely to have disturbed or destroyed most traces of earlier occupation. The longhouse measures 13.5m by 7.5m, with earthen walls 1.5m thick faced inside and out in stone. The walls originally stood to a height of around 1.5m, and probably supported a pitched roof. Two doorways are located opposite each other near the west end, and low stone benches run along both of the long walls and across the western gable. There was little evidence of domestic activity, only rather basic remains of a hearth, and no domestic rubbish. The form of the building thus conforms to a domestic Viking longhouse, while the excavated evidence suggests that it was not permanently occupied.
No dating evidence was found during the excavations but in 1970, a half-penny of Edward I, dating 1280-81, was found in the back-fill of the dig and presumably indicates some occupation of the site after the end of Norse rule on the Island in 1265.
Medieval watch place.
The excavated evidence suggests that the site was not permanently occupied during the medieval period.
Several other defended promontories (Cass ny Hawin, Close ny Chollagh and Borrane) have similar buildings within their ramparts, leading to the suggestion that existing promontory forts were reused as part of a 'watch and ward' system of coastal defence and perhaps also to police beach markets.
The findspot of an early prehistoric flint scatter. Mesolithic Heavy-blade or Bann type material has been found in this area on separate occasions. They include a single 'Bann' missile head (Manx Museum Accession No. 1954-1148/317) as well as a stray 'Bann' flake from the Cronk ny Merriu excavation (Manx Museum Accession No. 1971-0016/17).
The conjectured site of an undated fort based on the identification of a "broad wall" on an annotated 1:10560 map. No evidence of such a fortification has been recorded.
The remains of a damaged Bronze Age bowl barrow survives here, represented by a flat topped grass covered ditchless mound, which is the southeast quarter of the barrow. It is bounded in the north, northwest and west by modern hedge banks and elsewhere by a stone retaining wall. It has measurements of 11.0 metres east-west by 8.0 metres north-south by an average height of 1.1 metres. There is no trace of stones. There is no visible trace of a cist or the barrow in the adjoining fields which are grass covered.
A possible barrow existed in this area, where a flint axehead and an urn were found. P.M.C. Kermode recorded 'Sites of Tumuli near the avenue to Begoade house. One about 40 yards (the other 200 yards) SW of the house in a field called Cronk ny Urn. Flint found and Urn since broken and thrown away'. It was also recorded that 'Mr Corkhill told me a larger one (flint axe) had been found in his Father's time, along with pottery, in a field since called 'Cronk Urn''.
The site of a "Chapel and Burial Ground" is marked here on the Ordnance Survey's 1:2500 sclae map of 1869. It represents the site of an Early Medieval keeill or chapel, thought to have been in use circa AD 500 to AD 1000.
All trace and remembrance of the keeill had disappeared by the time it was visited by an excursion of the N.H.A.S. in July 1899, who reported it as 'completely obliterated by the plough'. Kermode lists the site and adds 'Lintel graves found by 'sappers and miners'.
The site was also visited by J.R. Bruce in 1963-64 who stated that the site was at the highest point of a slightly sloping field, but it was not possible to detect any surface features in the area which was covered by permanent pasture.
The site of a "Chapel and Burial Ground" is marked here on the Ordnance Survey's 1:2500 sclae map of 1869. It represents the site of an Early Medieval keeill or chapel, thought to have been in use circa AD 500 to AD 1000.
All trace and remembrance of the keeill had disappeared by the time it was visited by an excursion of the N.H.A.S. in July 1899, who reported it as 'completely obliterated by the plough'. Kermode lists the site and adds 'Lintel graves found by 'sappers and miners'.
The site was also visited by J.R. Bruce in 1963-64 who stated that the site was at the highest point of a slightly sloping field, but it was not possible to detect any surface features in the area which was covered by permanent pasture.
The site of a mound which is thought likely to be a natural feature. It has never been excavated and was recorded as a ditchless mound in a field under root crops. Its diameter is 45.0 metres and its height to the north is 2.0 metres.
This was the site of an early medieval chapel or keeill, thought to date to the period AD500 to AD1000. The place was still remembered by local residents as recently as the 1860s but is not shown on the 1869 1:2500 Ordnance Survey map, as it had evidently been lost by that time. Mr Crellin thought that the high road had been constructed through the site of the keeill.
It was reported that "numerous urns" were found in the area, but these may have been associated with prehistoric burials in the vicinity rather than a keeill.
It is thought that a Bronze Age funerary barrow existed here until the mid-19th century when the construction of a new road saw the mound removed, with a number of "urns" being revealed in the process.