Ballyfree

Area

88,205 m² (8.82 ha, 21.8 acres)

Buildings

2 buildings touch it. Their footprint covers 195 m².

Zoning

G1 OS – open space (Sligo County Development Plan 2024-2030) The objective
C2.1 BIE – business, industry, enterprise (Sligo County Development Plan 2024-2030) The objective

Townland

Ballyfree

Planning applications on this parcel

No planning application touches this parcel in the national file, which goes back to 2010.

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

No designated site (Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Natural Heritage Area or proposed one) touches this parcel.

Recorded monuments around it

This parcel is in the zone of notification of 3 recorded monuments.

• SL014-218 Earthwork
  Description

  In gently undulating pasture, on the estate/farm of the former Oakfield House. The house is shown on the 1837 OS 6-inch map, but is no longer extant, although part of the associated range of farm buildings survives. Little is known about Oakfield House. The Landed Estates databases records the following: ‘Oakfield (Sligo). In 1786 Wilson notes a house close to Cloverhill House as the seat of Mr. Deboots [?]. This may be Oakfield House. At the time of Griffith's Valuation [1848-64], this property was leased from Captain Richard Gethin by Joseph Holmes. It is described as a herd's house and was valued at £3 10s at the time. An extensive farm is still extant at the site.’ (http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates; accessed 24/5/2018) This record was included in the SMR (1989) and RMP (1995) as 'earthworks' on the basis of features visible in a black and white aerial photograph (OS 1 3309-10, Roll 160, Pr. 29) (SMR file). In current aerial views, the area encompasses a number of large open fields of pastureland, extending across an area of c. 550m E-W x c. 450m N-S. The features visible in the photo include a regular grid of large rectilinear fields. Several are shown on the 1837 OS 6-inch map, defined by tree-lined field boundaries, which radiate out from Oakfield House. A tree-lined avenue gives access to the house. A number of field fences/walls are extant, still functioning as field boundaries, and are lined by mature beech trees. Many of the smaller sub-divisions visible in aerial view represent field drains, a series of which cut across the relatively lowlying, damper ground in the E half of the area. They are visible now at ground level as shallow grassed-over linear depressions (Wth c. 2m), most barely discernible. It is likely that this field layout, and associated system of field drains, dates to the establishment of the Oakfield House estate, probably to the 18th century. In the SW part of the property, in an area of gently elevated dry ground, a tight arrangement of 4-5 contiguous rectangular field plots, bordered at their SW side by a road, is evident in the aerial photograph; they are not shown on the 1837 and 1940 OS 6-inch maps. They differ from the larger fields in being smaller and narrower (L c. 50-60m NE−SW; Wth 25-30m), and are aligned on a slightly different axis. These field plots have been levelled, but low, grassed-over banks can still be traced at ground level. They appears to represent a small settlement, possibly pre-dating or independent of Oakfield estate, but possibly that of tenants or farmworkers associated with the estate. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 29 May 2018

• SL014-296 Burnt mound
  Description

  In pasture, located at the interface of lowlying ground, which extends to S and W, and gently rising ground at N. Although currently dry, the lowlying ground is rush-grown, and appears likely to have been relatively wet and boggy in the past. This burnt mound is visible as a low, grass-covered roughly oval rise (9-10m NW−SE; 7-8m NE−SW; H 0.4m at NE, 0.5m at SW). The limits of the mound are fairly indistinct, merging seamlessly with the surrounding ground. The mound is composed of gritty, friable stone fragments in a matrix of black soil with charcoal inclusions. There is another burnt mound (SL014-297----) 20m to W. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 21 May 2018

• SL014-297 Burnt mound
  Description

  In E half of large field of pasture, located at the interface of lowlying ground, which extends to S and W, and gently rising ground at N. Although currently dry, the lowlying ground is rush-grown, and appears likely to have been relatively wet and boggy in the past. This burnt mound is visible as a low, grass-covered roughly circular rise (diam. c. 9m; H 0.3-04m at NE, 0.5-0.6m at SW). The mound backs on to gently rising ground at N−NE, and at SW slumps down to an expanse of level lowlying ground. It is composed of gritty, friable stone fragments in a matrix of dark brown/black soil with charcoal inclusions. There is a slight hollow on the NE side, but it is unclear if this represents a trough area or is merely the result of relatively recent disturbance. There is another burnt mound (SL014-296----) 20m to E. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 21 May 2018

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands on this parcel.

Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).

Ground and risks

Radon

At the centre of this parcel, about 1 in 5 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

The 1:50,000 map rates the landslide susceptibility here as low, partly inferred.

Terrain model

LiDAR of the Office of Public Works, flown in 2011, at 2 m: tile OPW_1101 (ZIP).

Flooding

The Office of Public Works publishes its flood maps on floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, and Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland, both under CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Download this parcel as DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its neighbours and buildings, for a drawing program. GeoJSON, in WGS 84, suits a map, and KML opens in Google Earth.

Registered freehold land, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. A parcel is the land of a title, not an address. The owner's name is in the Land Registry of Tailte Éireann: a copy of the folio can be ordered on landdirect.ie, for a fee.