County: Armagh Site name: DERRYHUBBERT NORTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/02/52
Author: Eoin Halpin, ADS Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 689532m, N 860499m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.485044, -6.618273
The Peatlands Park covers an area of 234ha. It consists primarily of low-lying bog with areas of mixed woodland and cultivated fields. The land now comprising the park was acquired by the Verner family in the late 17th century and became part of their ‘Churchill’ estate. They built a large country house nearby (which was demolished in 1928), and for most of the period the estate was used primarily for hunting and shooting. In 1901 the land was acquired by the Irish Peat Development Company, and commercial turf cutting was carried out until the late 1960s. In the early 1980s the Department of the Environment acquired 234ha of the former estate, and the Peatlands Park was established. The park lies in an archaeologically rich landscape, with a range of sites dating from the Bronze Age to the Plantation period within a 4km radius. Within the Park itself there are two possible crannog sites, SMR 4:3 and SMR 4:7, as well as a trackway, SMR 4:10, and landscape features, SMR 4:6.
The sites for the new, two-storey, biodiversity education centre and associated reed-bed filter system are in the south-west of the park, near the existing visitors’ centre. Topsoil-stripping was monitored. A Caterpillar digger with a 1.2m-wide toothless bucket was used. The footprint of the proposed biodiversity centre is J-shaped, measuring c. 30m by 25m. This area was stripped down to the subsoil. No archaeological features or deposits were found.
Unit 48, Westlink Enterprise Centre, 30–50 Distillery Street, Belfast BT12 5BJ
