County: Meath Site name: BETTYSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0038
Author: Finola O'Carroll
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 715819m, N 773497m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.698324, -6.246068
The site lies on the west side of the Bettystown/ Laytown road, close to the village of Bettystown. Its rear (western) boundary wall separates it from the small housing estate 'Brookside', where an Iron Age cemetery (SMR 21:10) was excavated by Eamonn Kelly in 1979 (JIA 4, 1987–8, 75). The ground level of the housing estate is higher by c. 1m than that on the site, and this rise is artificially continued to the estate wall. Part of the area of the site closest to the wall may have been partially scarped before the erection of a building that stood there, but there is a noticeable, though gentle, ridge running north-south and extending northwards behind the village.
Seven trenches were dug by mechanical digger with a toothless bucket in the area of the main building.
Although a number of features were noted, these proved to be natural, resulting from the overlying of the old shoreline by a deposit of boulder clay and gravels.
