County: Kerry Site name: Bray Head, Valentia Island
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 94E0119
Author: Alan Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: House - medieval, Field system and Cultivation ridges
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 434185m, N 573662m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.890433, -10.409098
The site lies on the lower slopes of Bray Head. A village called Crompeol is shown in the area on a map of Valentia contained in the Carew Ms. dated to c. 1600AD. The site is a complex and multi-period one. An early medieval farm consisting of fields, pens, houses and a corn drying kiln underlies large medieval plough furrows. The kiln was excavated in 1993 (Excavations 1993, 41) and carbon dated to the 10th century while a medieval plough furrow over it yielded a 14th-century carbon date. At one end of the site a 70m long street of seven house platforms overlies the medieval plough furrows. One of these platforms was excavated in 1994.
An area measuring 12m by 6.2m was excavated in September 1994. The remains of a rectangular stone building measuring 6.7m by 3.4m internally was found. It had a central hearth, entrances in its long sides and underfloor stone-lined drains in its interior. At a secondary level it was divided into two rooms and another two-roomed building was built against its downhill gable. Secondary occupation deposits yielded a fragment of an iron knife and a sherd of 14th- to 17th-century Low Countries Redware.
After being abandoned for a period the building was demolished, probably to provide stone for a roadway that was built to the signal tower at the end of the headland in the early 19th century. A late 18th- or early 19th-century clay pipe and two quernstones were uncovered from the demolition levels of the building.
Sections were also excavated through the medieval field furrows and through one of the early medieval field boundaries. Samples from the latter yielded small amounts of cereal pollen.
Samples for C14 dating were taken from the building and the furrows and a sample of the burnt material from the primary floor of the building yielded a calibrated date at 2 sigma confidence level of between AD 1410 and 1620 (GrN21032).
Editor's note: This report was originally labelled as a ' "Crompeol" - early medieval farm to late medieval village'
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