County: Wexford Site name: BRICKETSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0626
Author: Michael Tierney, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: Kiln - corn-drying
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 691430m, N 623250m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.353208, -6.657847
This site was excavated as part of a programme of monitoring and testing for Wexford County Council (see Excavations 2000, No. 1068 for scope of works). It was found while monitoring the topsoil-stripping phase of the road construction programme.
The site was in open, gently undulating tillage land. A large bowl and flue were uncovered in association with the remains of two field boundaries, which may also have a medieval date. The bowl of the kiln, which is being interpreted as having been used for drying cereals, had two phases of use, with the recut creating a smaller bowl.
During the primary phase of activity the bowl was 3.08m north–south by 3m, with a depth of 0.95m. The kiln had steep, slightly concave sides that came to a flat bottom with a sharp break of slope. A square-cut, 0.39m-wide trench ran from the interface between the flue entrance for a distance of 2.4m back into the base of the bowl. This was cut to a depth of between 0.1m and 0.16m and would have conducted heat into and across the centre of the kiln to aid the circulation of warm air. The sides of the cut showed clear evidence of intensive burning prior to the construction of a wall that lined the bottom of the bowl. This may have been a sealing event prior to the use of the feature for drying. The drystone wall lining survived to four courses and may have originally been this size. The stones were a mixture of sizes, with the main supporting stones averaging lengths of 0.25m with widths of 0.1m and similar depths. There was little or no evidence of collapse from this wall, so it could have supported a superstructure that would have held the grain to be dried. Alternatively, it may have functioned as a revetment for the unconsolidated, but quite solid, shale bedrock. The flue ran south-west of the bowl for 4m. It was 2.05m wide at the south-west and narrowed to 1.5m at the entrance to the bowl.
After a period of disuse, which included some deliberate backfilling, a new bowl was cut. This was also circular in plan, 2.5m long from north to south and 2.2m wide, being cut to a depth of 0.9m. It had exactly the same orientation as the first kiln, with the same flue being used, suggesting close proximity between the two primary phases of use.
A robber trench was cut into the whole feature after it had been backfilled. The feature is morphologically similar to other corn-drying kilns found on the road project. Variation occurred in the method of how air was circulated throughout the bowl. The relationship to the kiln and possible medieval field boundaries points future analysis towards a landscape perspective, tying the kilns into a broader series of economic and social processes (O’Keeffe 2000, 61–6). Dating and archaeobotanical analysis has begun.
Reference
O’Keeffe, T. 2000 Medieval Ireland: an archaeology. Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Riveroaks, Riverstown, Birr, Co. Offaly
