County: Derry Site name: TULLYNURE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: N.F. Brannon, Historic Monuments Branch, DOE
Site type: Ecclesiastical enclosure
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 680534m, N 882794m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.686828, -6.750985
These sampling excavations, in advance of proposed N.I.H.E. development, took place in September 1985.
A 20 x 1.5m trench was excavated across the line of the postulated ecclesiastical enclosure boundary and located a large ditch. The trench was extended to include a greater area of the ditch, which proved to be approximately 3.5m wide at the subsoil surface, and up to 1.5m deep. It was of a rounded 'U' profile, and, where sectioned, was infilled with five layers: eroded subsoils, probably deriving from an upslope, upcast bank, and silts with a high percentage content of vegetable matter. The deposition of one silt layer suggested that the ditch had been re-cut once. A few sherds of 'everted rim' cooking pottery and a single body sherd of cream-coloured fabric, externally copper-glazed pottery indicated that infilling of the ditch probably took place in medieval times, but there was no evidence to date the cutting of the ditch. Observation of the topographical remains of the slight surface earthwork survival suggests that the line of the enclosure can be traced with some certainty on the S, W and E although on the N no line could be discerned. The enclosure appears to have been oval, rather than circular, with a N-S diameter of approximately 140m and an E-W diameter of approximately 190m, enclosing an area of just over 15,000 sq. metres.
Trenches excavated in the N half of the field within the enclosure failed to locate any archaeological remains. The whole field appears to have been gridded with closely spaced land-drains, possibly in the 18th century. These promoted extensive flooding of the site and interfered considerably with the excavation.
