2001:1390 - MAYNE, Westmeath

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Westmeath Site name: MAYNE

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0236

Author: Clare Mullins

Site type: No archaeology found

Period/Dating: N/A

ITM: E 641631m, N 771532m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.691840, -7.369675

Test-trenching was carried out on a site at Mayne, Coole, Co. Westmeath, during March 2001. The proposed development site consisted of an L-shaped area, measuring approximately 75m by 75m.

St Nicholas’s Church and graveyard, SMR 3:83, is on the opposite side of the road to the proposed development. The church is still in use and appears to be a late 18th/early 19th-century structure. The gravestones are of 19th- and 20th-century date. The boundary wall curves from east-north-east to north-north-east and this may reflect the line of an earlier enclosure. There are no other indications of an earlier church or enclosure.

There was no evidence prior to the commencement of test-trenching of any archaeological remains on the site. A number of linear earth-marks, which appeared to form a grid pattern, were visible on the ground surface and these clearly reflected the remains of now-removed field boundaries.

Four test-trenches were excavated using a toothless ditching bucket. No archaeological features were uncovered. The soil was quite stony and the impression was that the bedrock lay quite close to the ground surface.

31 Millford, Athgarvan, Co. Kildare