County: Armagh Site name: BALLYREA
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 12:47 Licence number: AE/01/52
Author: Chris Lynn, Environment and Heritage Service
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 684433m, N 844902m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.345813, -6.701378
The area examined lies immediately south-west of Navan Fort on the opposite side of Navan Fort Road and is overlooked by the fort. The owner recently planted mixed deciduous woodland in the field, and by 2001 some of the saplings were reaching 2m in height. In view of the site’s central position in the Navan landscape, EHS decided, with the ready consent of the owners, to ask GeoQuest to carry out a geophysical survey of the 180m by 230m involved before the trees grew to a size which would prevent test excavation and which could damage buried archaeological remains.
The survey revealed a number of large-scale anomalies; some were clearly of recent agricultural origin, but others appeared to have archaeological potential and were examined by means of a series of six hand-excavated trial-trenches, each measuring approximately 5m by 1m. The geophysical features targeted were (what appeared to be) a large ‘enclosure’, 135m north–south by 60m, which coincided with the upper edge of a slightly elevated (natural) platform; a subrectangular area of pit-like features over 50m long in the south-east corner of the field; an incomplete ‘ring’ some 18m in diameter on the east side; and in the north-east corner a complex of vague meandering features of which the most coherent appeared to be an oval ring, perhaps 30m in diameter.
While the trial-trenches did not confirm the immediate presence of significant ancient remains, the field has not been proved to be lacking in archaeological interest. The trenches were few and small, the nature of some of the exposed features is unclear and some were apparently unrelated to the geophysics. While the test-pits did not confirm the existence of a large enclosure, the anomaly still requires explanation (geology, topsoil archaeology, agriculture?). The ‘enclosure’ feature runs into a pasture field (unplanted) on the north side of Navan Fort Road which has recently been surveyed by gradiometer. It is possible that the enclosure and other features could be examined more extensively in this area than the planted trees permitted in the field surveyed to the south.
5–33 Hill Street, Belfast
