County: Tyrone Site name: ESKRAGH TD: Lough Eskragh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: B. Williams, Historic Monuments Branch, Ministry of Finance
Site type: Crannog
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 669812m, N 858294m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.468328, -6.923064
Fieldwork in 1953 produced evidence of Late Bronze Age settlement at Lough Eskragh 1. When the water level was again lowered in October 1973 the sites were revisited.
Site A: The surface of the crannog at Site A had been eroded since 1953 when it yielded one saddle quern. Found on this new surface were eight saddle querns, one polished stone axe, two hand made pots, a jet bracelet and a two-piece wooden bucket. Structurally the crannog consisted of brushwood, piles and horizontal timbers, which were surveyed.
1 WA Seaby and AEP Collins. U.J.A. xxiii (1960) (25—37) ‘A crannog at Lough Eskragh, co. Tyrone’.
Site B: This site, recognised in 1953 as a bronze-smith’s workshop, was set on lakemuds and sand. With the water-level reduced, these underlying strata were drying out and fissuring, threatening to destroy the site.
On excavation it was found to be a roughly oval platform of brushwood, horizontal timbers and piles. It consisted of two phases, the first of which was represented by a platform of burnt brushwood, containing fragments of burnt daub in its peripheral areas. Set into the burnt brushwood were the horizontal timbers and piles of phase II. Finds associated with this phase include saddle querns, clay moulds, crucibles and fragments of burnt daub.
Site C: The fissuring which threatened site B had already removed most of this site before the writer’s first visit to Lough Eskragh. Fortunately three birch piles were obtained which can be used for radiocarbon dating.
