County: Kildare Site name: NAAS: 19 North Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 19:30 Licence number: 99E0055 ext.
Author: Clare Mullins
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 689092m, N 719583m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.219184, -6.665939
Following testing at Naas Credit Union, where an isolated pocket of archaeological layers was identified (see No. 416, Excavations 1999), excavation commenced in April 1999. Because of the isolated and apparently nebulous nature of the archaeological layers, and also because of the unstable nature of the gable walls of the surrounding buildings, excavation was carried out in conjunction with monitoring of ground-level reduction of the surrounding area.
The archaeological layer identified during testing proved to represent the upper layer of a pit that extended to a depth of 1.4m. The top of this pit was at a depth of 0.6m beneath the present ground surface and, while the edges of the pit were difficult to define, it was irregularly square with dimensions of c. 1.4–1.6m each way. The pit had been truncated on the north and east sides, and there was a tendency to over-cut the remaining edges, but the southern side of the pit showed an almost sheer-vertical drop.
Three distinct layers could be discerned within the fill. The uppermost was a sandy, stony clay with occasional charcoal flecks. The central and most distinctive layer followed the contours of the cut; it consisted of a dark brown, silty clay mixed with natural and contained inclusions of frequent charcoal flecks, frequent animal bone and some oyster shell; this layer produced several sherds of medieval pottery, all found close to each other. The lower layer was almost indistinguishable from the natural, being composed of a sandy gravel, and would have been dismissed as natural were it not for the occurrence of a conspicuous lens of mortar running almost horizontally through it close to the base. Another lens of mortar occurred as an interface between the central and basal layers of the pit. The pit lay beneath 0.5m of disturbed soil, which formed the floor level of the pre-existing building.
Monitoring of general ground-level reduction and the excavation of two column bases within the boundary of the property to the south were also undertaken. The results of monitoring did not reveal further archaeological material.
31 Millford, Athgarvan, Co. Kildare
