County: Meath Site name: TRIM CASTLE, TRIM
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0077 ext.
Author: Alan Hayden, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Gatehouse
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 678399m, N 756337m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.551097, -6.816903
Dúchas The Heritage Service is to construct a block of toilets inside the west gate of the castle. Monitoring of topsoil-stripping in January 1998 revealed the presence of medieval structures close to the intended location of the toilets. The buildings were excavated in June, when trenches were also opened adjacent to the inner side of the gatehouse, inside the curtain wall south of the gatehouse and in the ramp leading to the gatehouse from its outer side.
The remains of a stone-footed structure were uncovered beneath the gatehouse. It appears to have burnt down. It is possibly the remains of a timber gatehouse that defended the castle in the 1170s–1180s. The two-phase building of the late gatehouse was reflected in the deposits around it, and part of the now truncated curtain wall was revealed south of the gatehouse. A succession of road surfaces was also uncovered leading into the castle from the gatehouse.
The large earthen bank that stands inside the curtain south of the gatehouse was partly excavated and proved to be most probably of early 14th-century date. Two stone-walled medieval buildings that were reoccupied during the 1640s were cut into this earthen bank. These were fully excavated.
The proposed location of the toilets was altered to avoid all the surviving medieval structures in the area.
Three short trenches were also cut into the ramp leading up to the west gate from outside the castle. The ramp proved to be composed of dry-stone masonry that could not be dated but that may be of medieval origin.
The work was funded by Dúchas The Heritage Service.
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