1975:046 - MOUNT SANDEL, Derry

At this earthen mound surrounded by a ditch and outer bank the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture installed a wooden bridge to take visitors over the ditch and on to the Medieval Urban mound. A preliminary excavation was undertaken in 1975 through the ditch silting and into the side of the mound to trace whether there had been an original bridge at this same point. Superficial inspection of the earthworks had suggested that the mound was likely to be a pre-Norman structure, perhaps the Dun-Da-Bann of the Annals. Further additions to the top of this could be viewed as a Norman modification, giving the effect of a motte and bailey on top of this earlier mound. To establish this two-period construction it would be necessary to show either a two stage silting of the ditch or (conceivably) a major recutting of the ditch in Norman times. The ditch at the point of sectioning may have been re-cut, though there was no definite evidence of this. Lying almost on the ditch bottom was a carbonised tree branch about 2cm in diameter. A C14 date of around AD 1230 was obtained for this. The upper part of the mound was shown to have been encircled by a perimeter bank about 3.4m wide and 1m high which contained at least one post hole. Above the level of this bank the mound continued for a height of more than 6m.