County: Waterford Site name: NEWTOWN (Site 1)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0208 ext.
Author: Ian Russell, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 651408m, N 610233m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.241427, -7.247265
Testing was carried out from 12 to 14 March 2003 on behalf of Waterford City Council in advance of the construction of the new N25 Waterford Bypass. An assessment was carried out within four fields at Site 1 in the townland of Newtown to the north of the village of Kilmeaden. An earlier assessment had already been partially carried out within Field 1 in March 2002 by Deirdre Murphy (Excavations 2002, No. 1803) and this was completed in March 2003 by the writer under an extension to the same licence.
Eighteen test-trenches were excavated by machine. The sod and topsoil measured an average of 0.2m in depth, consisting of a mid-brown loam containing occasional small round stones, and lay directly above the compact orange-coloured sandy clay. A single post-medieval soak pit was exposed in Field 3 in the centre-line trench. It consisted of an oval-shaped pit measuring 1.6m by 1.54m and 0.5m in depth. It had been filled with a mid-brown clay containing frequent tightly packed angular stones measuring 0.15m by 0.1m and 0.05m in thickness. An area measuring 4.5m by 2.5m was extended around the feature, but no additional features were exposed.
No archaeological features or deposits were exposed.
Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth
