County: Dublin Site name: BEAVERSTOWN, Donabate
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1708
Author: Ines Hagen, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 722620m, N 750210m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.487611, -6.152278
An assessment was carried out at Beaverstown, Co. Dublin, from 12 to 18 November 2002. The development site, two green fields, is near Donabate train station. The proposal comprises the development of residential buildings and the construction of new access roads to Turvey Avenue and the train station (Site A), as well as three land parcels set aside for future development (Site B).
The site is in the vicinity of an archaeological complex (SMR 12:5), which includes a church and graveyard, a tower-house and a memorial slab, dating from the medieval to the late medieval period. Testing carried out by Claire Walsh in 1999 in the field to the west of the church (Excavations 1999, No. 176, 99E0690) revealed a considerable amount of activity ranging in date from the medieval to the post-medieval period. Several artefacts have also recently been recovered during metal-detecting in Donabate, including buttons, a spur, a harness, shoe buckles, the foot of a vessel and a musket ball. Artefacts recorded from Beaverstown townland indicate prehistoric activity in the area and include a stone axehead and two flint waste flakes.
Seven test-trenches were excavated throughout the development site, both along the gently sloping ground in the south and in the level, low-lying ground to the north, the latter reserved for residential development. The ploughsoil was generally 0.4–0.5m deep and overlay the natural yellow/brown boulder clay. Trench 5, at the south-eastern corner of the site, revealed an area of sandstone conglomerate boulders, which occasionally protruded above present ground level. Artefacts from the topsoil included sherds of post-medieval pottery, iron objects and a badly corroded copper-alloy coin. No archaeological soils or features were revealed in Trenches 1–6.
Trench 7, along the gently sloping ground on the line of the proposed access road from Turvey Avenue, produced archaeological features dating to the prehistoric and post-medieval periods. This trench was excavated to the top of the archaeological features, which remain in situ. Post-medieval features were represented by the basal remains of a furrow, 0.35m wide and oriented east–west. Several prehistoric features were uncovered spreading over an area c. 20m long.
These included two small pits or post-holes, 0.2m in diameter, both of which produced pottery of possible later prehistoric date. A pit, 0.4m in diameter, was revealed 0.45m below present ground level. It was filled with a grey/brown sandy clay, which included charcoal flecks and some cremated bone.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
