2001:112 - BALLINVINNY SOUTH, Cork

This site was excavated in August 2001 as part of the resolution of archaeological sites on the route of the N8 Glanmire–Watergrasshill road scheme. It was a section of a farm trackway which is indicated as a public roadway on the 1st edition 6in. OS map for the area. It is located at c. 85m OD on a gentle west-facing slope overlooking the valley of a south-flowing stream. The road is part of a wider settlement complex dating from the late and post-medieval period which includes domestic structures and a smithy excavated some distance to the north (Excavations 2001, Nos 110 and 111).

The roadway as it survives measures 5.5m in width and is bounded on either side by a stone-faced earthen bank. An area approximately 20m north–south by 12m was excavated, revealing the road surface, which consisted of a layer of large cobbles tightly packed to form a solid surface. On the eastern side of the excavated section the cobbled surface was bounded by the foundations of a stone-faced earthen bank. At the north end of the surviving section of these foundations a rectangular block of stonework, 1m by 1m, appears to be the foundation of a gate pier. When a section of the cobbled surface was removed, two parallel ditches were seen to run north–south underneath. The eastern ditch was 3m wide and 0.4m deep, while the western ditch was 1.8m wide and 0.3m deep. These ditches are likely to have been a continuation of the ditches discovered on sites c. 120m and 200m to the north respectively (see Excavations 2001, Nos 111 and 110) and probably mark the line of an earlier, narrower trackway which was subsequently widened and surfaced with cobbles. The cobbled surface itself appears to have been a relatively late imposition judging by the presence of numerous fragments of roofing slate below it.

Artefacts recovered during the excavation appear to date generally from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork and AE House, Monahan Road, Cork.