County: Derry Site name: CORRSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 3:26 Licence number: AE/02/100
Author: Malachy Conway, ACS Ltd.
Site type: House - Bronze Age, House - medieval, Enclosure and Souterrain
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 686253m, N 939018m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.190892, -6.645434
In October 2002 excavation began at Corrstown, Hopefield Road, Portrush, due to extend to May 2003. The excavation was undertaken to record all archaeological remains in an area designated Field 4, which had been identified through earlier archaeological assessment and geophysical survey as the remains of Bronze Age and Early Christian period settlements in the form of houses, enclosures and associated features (No. 386, Excavations 2002). As excavations were continuing at the time of submission, only a brief summary is provided here, with the intention of presenting a more detailed summary for the 2003 issue.
Supervised stripping of Field 4 was undertaken by a mechanical excavator with a grading or ditching bucket. Full clearance was achieved by Christmas 2002, with the northern section of the adjacent Field 3 to the south cleared in January and February 2003. In summary, over 40 house and/or enclosure sites had been revealed at the time of submission, with six Bronze Age houses excavated across the north-central section of the site and a large Early Christian enclosure associated with a figure-of-eight house, a souterrain and various other features (a corn-drying kiln, a possible furnace area, pits, post-holes and gullies) excavated in the south-west corner of the field.
One unique discovery was a substantial metalled or cobbled roadway extending from the eastern limit of the site through the Bronze Age houses, which were linked to it by more finely metalled paths extending from their entrances, invariably oriented south or south-east. Finds from the Bronze Age structures have been mostly confined to large volumes of lithic material and pottery. Most of the pottery is of the Late Bronze Age coarseware variety, but several sherds of apparent Cordoned Urn pottery have also been recovered. Significant prehistoric finds associated with the houses include a large stone macehead from within Structure 1 and a mould of a Middle Bronze Age palstave axe (flanged type) recovered immediately outside Structure 1. Early Christian objects recovered from the enclosure, house and souterrain include souterrain ware and several metal objects, two of which appear to be mounts. A full summary of the excavation findings will appear in Excavations 2003.
Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth
