wallstead

From wall +‎ stead. Compare Old English weallsteall.

wallstead (plural wallsteads)

1. A site with the remains of a building or buildings, especially one with wall remnants still standing.
   • 1876 November, The Dublin University Magazine, page 611, column 1:

     "You're too 'feared, but my sister Rose willna be 'feared for me, — tell her to meet me to-morrow evening, in the old wallsteads."

   • 1877, A.M. Sullivan, New Ireland: Political Sketches and Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years of Irish Public Life, Glasgow: Cameron & Ferguson, page 228:

     The dumb animals refused to leave the wallsteads, and in some cases were with difficulty rescued from the falling timbers.

   • 1881, E.H. Hickey, “The Wanderer”, in A Sculptor, and Other Poems, London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co., page 175:

     Till the works of the city-dwellers, the works of the giants of earth,
     Stood empty and lorn of the burst of the mighty reveller's mirth.
     Who wisely hath mus'd on this wallstead, and ponders this dark life well,
     n his heart he hath often bethought him of slayings many and fell[.]

   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 7:

     So Grendel ruled in definace of right,
     one against all, until the greatest house
     in the world stood empty, a deserted wallstead.