The Great Heath of Maryborough (An Fraoch Mór, ‘big heather’), locally called ‘the Heath’, is a unique archaeological landscape located along the M7 motorway (Junction 16: Ballydavis) in County Laois, with the Rock of Dunamase 2.5km to the south-east and the Tudor garrison town of Portlaoise 5km to the south-west. The Heath is a relatively level agricultural plain but with localised undulations punctuated by a low, rolling range of hillocks to the east, known locally as the sugarloaf hills.