2002:1993 - WICKLOW: Glebe, Wicklow

Testing was undertaken in April 2002 in Glebe townland, Wicklow, as part of an assessment for a route-selection study for the proposed Wicklow Port Access Road. The route passes c. 55m from the protected area around an early ecclesiastical site (SMR 25:11). The assessment was in a large field, amalgamated from smaller land parcels after boundary removals in the last 170 years, that sloped steeply down to the south. Geophysics and the presence of low-relief landscape features on the hill slope south of the SMR protected area facilitated the selection of test-trench locations.

Field inspection identified hand-dug lazy-bed cultivation ridges in the far western part of the field, well outside the route of the proposed road. They lay near an extensive (sand?) quarry that has cut away most of the centre of the hill that forms much of the field. An old trackway leading from this quarry to the present R750 road was visible as a hollow way stretching south from the quarry entrance. East of this a disused field boundary was visible as a bank with an infilled fosse on either side, oriented north-north-east/south-south-west up the main hill slope. Test-trenches were positioned on a level area farther east, on the southern slope of the field (Trench 3) and over a visible platform (Trench 1). Another trench (Trench 2) was excavated upslope to the north and east of this level area, on the opposite side of a trackway visible as an earthwork lynchet/causeway that extended north-east up and across the hill to the far corner of the field. The final trench (Trench 4) was south of the level hillside area and visible platform. Trenches 2 and 3 were opened using a mechanical excavator with a toothless bucket. Trench 4 was started by mechanical excavator and continued by hand. Trench 1, over visible earthworks, was excavated entirely by hand.

The SMR site is the traditional site of the church of Drumkay, an early ecclesiastical foundation for which there is little information regarding its age or origin. Ronan (1928) notes that the old church was situated ‘in a field now known as Perin’s field’ and that a Romanesque doorway (possibly of 12th-century date) was removed from the site ‘of the church of Drumkay’ and placed in the present Wicklow town Church of Ireland church. Leask (1977) compares the door arch to an early arch at St Saviour’s Church in Glendalough. Local folklore asserts that the church itself was removed to the present site of the Wicklow town church in the medieval period. If true, this is doubly significant. Firstly, it suggests that most of the stonework connected with the site was, like the Romanesque door arch, removed to the present church site. The site today, centred on the top of the hill, commands an impressive view of the Wicklow coastline but is overgrown by gorse and has no above-ground remains. Secondly, it may indicate quite an early date of effective abandonment, after which there was little activity directly related to the ecclesiastical site anywhere in the surrounding field. Although the present Wicklow town church is not a medieval structure, it is situated in Glebe townland, near a likely medieval motte, the ‘Round Mount’ (SMR 25:12), within the former bounds of Glebe townland.

Liam Price tells of a bullaun stone in the field concerned, although he mislocates it in Knockrobin townland (field notebooks, 21/6/1939: I thank Chris Corlett for this reference), another indication that the present SMR site may have an Early Christian origin. The bullaun stone cannot be found. Local residents recall an episode of machine clearance of gorse at the approximate location of the stone during the late 1970s/early 1980s, and the stone may have been either removed or covered over at that time.

The name ‘Glebe’ derives from an Anglo-Norman term used to refer to land held by, or farmed on behalf of, the parish church. It is unclear whether in this case this term was used earlier than the late 17th century, in the wake of land confiscation and redistribution after the Cromwellian and Williamite campaigns in Ireland. However, the remarkably piecemeal distribution of the present townland of Glebe suggests that it fossilises earlier land use patterns associated with the parish church of Drumkay from at least the medieval period. The distribution suggests land parcelling according to a practice of organised shared land allotment, comparable to evidence of medieval open-field and infield/outfield land organisation preserved elsewhere. It is characteristic of Anglo-Norman administrative structures and may thus indicate the survival of some boundaries and land parcels from that era. This evidence is consistent with the former site of Drumkay church and the present Wicklow town Church of Ireland church (to say nothing of the Round Mount) in different parts of the same townland. Further, the interruption of the main concentration of Glebe lands, to the south-east of the assessment site, by the lands of Friar Hill suggests that the main boundaries of Glebe existed before the founding of its associated monastic house during the reign of Henry II (1216–72). Many or all of the Glebe townland boundaries may therefore have an origin in at least the 13th century.

The assessment identified archaeological deposits of probable medieval date in Trenches 1 and 3, including a pit, ditches and a charcoal-flecked spread that yielded pottery and bone. A number of unstratified, prehistoric topsoil finds may indicate prehistoric activity in the vicinity, near the hilltop to the north, outside the route of the proposed road. Also, the assessment indicated the probable eastern and southern extents of the main (medieval) archaeological deposits. A second geophysical survey has confirmed these.

Mid- to late 18th-century activity in the assessment field is especially well represented, by scattered finds recovered during test excavation from the topsoil, 0.35–0.7m deep. A north–south-oriented ditch in Trench 1 appeared to have been open (or recut?) during that time, although it may originally have been a medieval feature. A reasonable, though tentative, supposition is that such finds are the result of more intensive farming activity at the time (manuring etc.) and that late ploughmarks unearthed in Trench 2 date from this era, as perhaps does the (later) trackway that leads from the centre of the testing area to the north-east corner of the field.

An extensive 1960s/1970s water management programme was encountered in the form of 4-inch (105mm) ceramic field drains in Trenches 3 and 4. Waterlogged deposits in the ditch in Trench 1 also indicate an earlier concern with water management, as does the placename ‘the mote field’, a probable reference to the ditch in Trench 1.

On the basis of the above evidence, alterations to the route of the proposed road were recommended to mitigate the impact on the archaeology present and to increase the existing 55m buffer between the route and the edge of the SMR site. An environmental impact assessment (archaeology) is now under way on the preferred Port Access Road route option.

References
Leask, H.G. 1977 Irish churches and monastic buildings: I. The first phases and the Romanesque. Dundalk.
Ronan, M.V. 1928 The ancient churches of the deanery of Wicklow. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 93, 132–55.

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