County: Wicklow Site name: KILOUGHTER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 19:42 Licence number: 00E0690
Author: Redmond Tobin, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Field system
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 728698m, N 699601m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.031591, -6.081201
The area that was tested, as part of work on the Hollybrook to Wicklow Natural Gas Pipeline, is 100m west of SMR 19:24 (church and graveyard), 100m to the east of SMR 19:40 (01, 02) (possible moated site) and corresponds to SMR 19:42 (possible field system). The area tested is in undulating pastureland. The pipeline corridor will enter this field from the north, traversing the field from north to south and crossing c. 150m of archaeologically sensitive ground.
The area tested, identified as low earthworks from an aerial photograph, corresponds to the location of the possible field system. The areas tested were on the western-sloping grassland, facing onto the possible moated site. Before testing, the area was surveyed, and contour plans and hill-shaded models were prepared. The results of this work showed regular linear earthworks that extended east–west. The width and regularity of these features would indicate that they are lazy-beds of uncertain antiquity.
Six trenches were excavated across the proposed pipeline corridor. The trenches verified the evidence from both the aerial photographs and survey data, proving conclusively that the features noted are in fact agricultural in origin. Owing to the lack of any artefactual material, the antiquity of these features remains uncertain.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
