2001:1015 - OLDBRIDGE, Meath

Test excavation was carried out at Oldbridge estate, Co. Meath, in early June 2001, in the concluding phase of fieldwork for a Pilot Archaeological Survey of the site of the Battle of the Boyne. Four test-pits were excavated. These were positioned to clarify data recovered by means of the three non-invasive surveys: chemical analysis of soils (phosphate), terrestrial geophysical (magnetic gradiometry) and metal-detecting, with particular emphasis on the results of the metal-detector survey.

Test-pit 1 was in survey panel A, to the north of the avenue and west of the farmyard. This panel had been set out to investigate a series of low, parallel, linear earthworks running perpendicular to the trackway to the north of the farmyard. The test-pit was positioned in an area where a pattern of dipolar (magnetic gradiometry) anomalies and metal-detector hits crossed the eastern boundary of the panel. The test-pit unearthed a soil laden with domestic and farmyard waste and detritus. Sherds of blackware pottery suggested an early to mid-18th-century date, and most probably derived from waste material thrown out from either the last few occupied houses in Oldbridge village or the adjacent farmyard complex which replaced it. A small portion of a cultivation furrow also indicated the nature of the contemporary agricultural activity: small-scale spade-dug cultivation furrows, possibly within the confines of the rectangular field system.

Test-pits 2 and 3 were in survey panel C, to the south of the avenue and the farmyard. This panel was set out to investigate a disturbed area of ground in the vicinity of the raised gravel trackway, where a series of low linear earthwork features had been observed during topographic survey. The panel also encompassed the area around the ‘1690 Stone’, and the phosphate survey had indicated the most consistently elevated phosphate levels in an area to the north-east of the trackway. In addition to this, the magnetic gradiometry survey had identified and detailed a wide range of features related to the village in the panel.

Test-pit 2 was positioned on the raised gravel trackway itself. The surface of the trackway was made up of a sandy gravel matrix with larger round pebbles and stones. Close to its northern edge, a shallow linear feature was evident which was interpreted as a wheel-rut, more likely from a carriage or cart than from any modern mechanically propelled vehicle.

Test-pit 3 was positioned immediately east of the ‘1690 Stone’, located in this area because two features, a large dipolar (magnetic gradiometry) anomaly and a large positive (magnetic gradiometry) anomaly, suggested the presence of a hearth or some other similar feature. As with the disturbed soil in Test-pit 1, a range of post-medieval and early modern artefacts were recovered, mostly broken sherds of blackware pottery, but also a sherd of white-glazed pottery, fragments of red brick, slate, animal bone and a tertiary flint flake. In addition to these there were a small fragment of plate metal, a metal staple and two pieces of wire. The material strongly suggests proximity to structural elements of Oldbridge village.

Test-pit 4 was in survey panel G, in the Groggins Field, to the eastern side of the Oldbridge to Donore road. This panel had been positioned to investigate a number of features of this field, in particular a low remnant field boundary possibly from an orchard marked on the 1834 OS Fair Plan. There was also a concentration of metal-detector hits coinciding with the remnant field boundary.

The test-pit was positioned on a raised platform within the confines of the remnant field boundary. However, no artefacts related to the battle were recovered. Instead, a remarkable depth of the cultivation soil was found which can only be accounted for as ‘made ground’. Many small iron nails, broken sherds of blackware pottery and occasional pieces of domestic detritus clearly also indicate that the concentration of metal-detector ‘hits’ in the western half of the survey panel was of similar arbori- or agricultural origin. Sherds of blackware and white-glazed pottery and the wide bore of the clay pipe fragments place at least the earliest phases of activity in the early to mid-18th century, and continuing until at least 1834, when the orchard was depicted on the OS Fair Plan.