County: Cork Site name: BALLINVINNY NORTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0802
Author: Eamonn Cotter, for Sheila Lane and Associates
Site type: Kiln - corn-drying
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 573620m, N 580620m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.977013, -8.383973
This site was discovered during monitoring of topsoil-stripping on the route of the N8 Glanmire– Watergrasshill road scheme. It was on a south-facing slope at 119.6m OD, with extensive views to the south and south-west, and lay approximately 200m south-east of a levelled ringfort (SMR 64:9) in the same townland and 450m north-east of a newly discovered medieval moated site excavated in Ballinvinny South (see Excavations 2001, No. 110). Excavations were carried out in August/September 2001.
The site was a keyhole-shaped corn-drying kiln, a type commonly found on medieval and late medieval sites in Ireland. The bowl and flue were cut into the side of the slope. The base of the kiln bowl survived, measuring 1m by 0.8m in plan with a depth of 0.5m below the surface. The flue extended southwards, downslope from the bowl. It varied in width from 0.5m to 0.7m but was probably originally stone-lined and therefore narrower. The hearth area was located 3m to the south of the bowl and there was evidence that this too was originally stone-lined. The flue continued a further 2m southwards from the hearth, where it became much shallower. This continuation of the flue may have functioned as a trench from which to rake out ashes from the hearth. A semicircular stone setting 0.2m south of the flue may be the foundations of a stone-lined ash-pit.
The kiln had clearly been extensively disturbed in the past as the fill of the bowl and the northern half of the flue was a brown loamy soil containing a sherd of 19th-century pottery. The southern half of the flue and the hearth area retained their original fills, with evidence of intense burning and considerable amounts of charcoal.
AE House, Monahan Road, Cork
