County: Down Site name: DEMENSE OF DOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: N.E. Brannon, Historic Monuments Branch, DOE
Site type: Standing stone
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 748419m, N 843402m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.317751, -5.718665
A 3m x 3m trench was opened around this standing stone, joined by two approximately E-W 9m x 1m trenches which traversed the summit of the hillock.
A 17-20cm topsoil gave on to a gravel subsoil. No features (burials, ring-ditch, empty sockets) were located and artefacts were restricted to 18th-century or later potsherds, deriving probably from manuring or occasional visitors. The standing stone occupied the S side of a sub-circular socket, the N side backfilled with supporting stones. The socket was not fully excavated, but extended beyond a depth of 20cm. The excavations failed to demonstrate the stone's antiquity. The site is now a scheduled monument and the report has been published in Lecale Miscellany 3(1985), 12.
