County: Sligo Site name: GRANGE EAST (Site A)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0788
Author: Martin A. Timoney
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 564077m, N 833739m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.251235, -8.551232
Three proposed house sites in a line within an area 180m by 60m were tested in one overall operation (see below, Nos 1166 and 1167, for the other two sites) at Grange East, Knocknahur. The rural location is east of the Glen, a rift valley that runs along the south side of Knocknarea. Site A is aligned east–west in contrast to the other two sites, which are aligned north–south. A stone wall and some trees divide the site on a curving north–south line.
There are no known archaeological monuments within any of the three development sites. However, Site A is within the east side of a boxed-off area for SMR 14:175–182, containing a variety of site types such as a settlement platform, enclosures, ringforts, souterrains, saucer-barrows, a possible megalithic structure, a midden site, a mound, a settlement platform site and a field wall. There is no visible archaeology within the open field east of the stone wall but there is a badly formed barrow or sod-covered cairn outside the west end of the site. The site was tested by two parallel east–west-running trenches, interrupted to protect the root system of trees in the area. The percolation test-hole at the west end of the site revealed limestone rocks at 2m depth.
The soil profile differed slightly from one side of the stone wall to the other. East of the wall the sod was 0.08m deep while west of the wall it was 0.1m. The soil was a brown/black west of the wall and was wetter. On both sides were underlying gravel deposits with some protruding areas of limestone, perhaps the broken surface of the underlying limestone bedrock. The maximum depth of soil was 0.35m. Only a few pieces of modern crockery were noted in the soil east of the wall.
At the west end of the site is a possible archaeological monument: an area of raised ground with some stones on it. It is not marked on the OS maps and was not picked up during field-walking of this area by the writer in the late 1960s. It is about 12m in diameter and 2m high when viewed from the south and 0.75m high when viewed from the north. This may be a badly formed barrow or sod-covered cairn. The test-trench was stopped almost 15m east of this.
To the south-west of the development site, at a distance of 40m (also not marked on the OS maps and again not picked up in earlier field-walking) and yet again to the west at a distance of 150m, are two other similar badly formed and difficult-to-classify monuments.
There were no indications of archaeology in these trenches, nor in the trenches in the other two sites.
Bóthar an Chorainn, Keash, Co. Sligo
