County: Waterford Site name: KNOCKBOY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0115
Author: Dominic Delany
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 664191m, N 609608m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.234468, -7.060232
Monitoring of topsoil removal for access roads to service 47 house sites was carried out between 4 and 11 April 2000. There are no recorded monuments within 500m of the proposed development site, which lies 4km south-west of Waterford city centre.
The stratigraphy was uniform across the monitored areas. A dark brown, silty clay topsoil 0.5–0.8m in thickness overlay a yellow to light orange, silty clay subsoil. Finds from the topsoil comprised several modern pottery sherds and glass fragments, five post-medieval pottery sherds and one late/post-medieval pottery sherd.
Seventeen modern features were uncovered during monitoring. These comprised eight irregular fire spots, two circular post-holes, two foul water pipe drains and six field drains. The fire spots consisted of shallow pits containing charcoal-rich layers overlying red, burnt subsoil. Finds indicated a relatively modern date for these features, and they are probably related to the burning of gorse bushes, which flourish in this area. The two post-holes (diameter 0.3m) were situated 1.3m apart and were 0.1m deep. The fill was a mix of disturbed topsoil and stones and contained modern glass fragments. The pipe drains were set in machine-cut trenches and aligned with manholes on the site. The field drains were shallow linear features containing rough stone packing. No archaeological material was discovered.
31 Ashbrook, Oranmore, Co. Galway
