County: Meath Site name: RATOATH: Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1101
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 702127m, N 751924m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.507378, -6.460390
An application was made to build two apartment blocks on the western side of the motte and bailey at Ratoath. The site is separated from the motte and bailey by a laneway from the village down to the valley of the River Broadmeadow. The site is currently occupied by a modern dwelling-house and modern sheds, all of which are to be demolished.
Existing structures on the site were all found to date to the second half of the 20th century. It was felt that the development would not have a negative visual impact on the motte and bailey. Testing was carried out in two stages, with the second stage to retrieve additional information about the ditch described below. Evidence of a medieval ditch (X) was exposed in Trenches 1, 2 and 8. Its full width was not established, but it was at least 6m wide at the uppermost level. Its full depth was revealed at one point, c. 2m below present ground level; the bottom layer was gritty, dark grey clay. The overlying layer was a soft, grey, silty material, varying in depth from 1m (in Trench 1) to 0.6m (in Trench 2). A small number of sherds of medieval pottery were recovered from the fill layers of the ditch.
There was evidence of another, smaller medieval ditch (Y), lying at right angles to the large ditch and overlain by grey garden soil 0.7–1m deep. This was narrower and shallower and also produced a small number of sherds of medieval pottery. It was not clear whether this feature was earlier than the main ditch and was cut by the latter or it was associated with the main ditch and ran into it.
To mitigate the impact of the development on the ditches, one of the apartment blocks was moved to the west. A piling grid was designed that would have minimum impact on the material in the ditch, and the ground-beams were designed so that disturbance could be kept above a clearance zone of 0.5m.
Under the same licence, an adjacent site was tested along the Main Street frontage; this will be subject to a planning application involving an extension to a butcher’s shop and a post office. Two trenches tested this area, but nothing of archaeological interest was exposed.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
