County: Offaly Site name: BUSHERSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 47:8 Licence number: 99E0593
Author: Brian Hodkinson
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 604239m, N 682441m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.892820, -7.936994
The site is a private house development adjacent to a rectangular earthwork and overlooked by Moatquarter motte just over the county boundary in Tipperary.
The footprint of the house was tested, as were two trenches running parallel to the long axis of the house to front and rear. A series of features was noted that can best be interpreted as linear features running north-north-east/south-south-west across the four parallel trenches. The date and nature of the features are unclear, the only datable find being a sherd of internally glazed red earthenware of post-medieval date found to one side of one of the features. Several fragments of disarticulated animal bone were retrieved from deep within one of the features. The features run from east of the earthwork downhill towards the road across the front of the site.
The features seem to be restricted to the house area. Testing of the septic tank and percolation areas, further to the west, revealed no features, while two trenches at the very front of the site across the line of the new frontage wall also revealed no features.
Annaholty, Birdhill, Co. Tipperary
