County: Antrim Site name: ISLANDMAGEE: The Stables Reid's Road, Ballystrudder
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/04/026
Author: Lisa Doyle, c/o NAC
Site type: Prehistoric site - lithic scatter
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 747160m, N 894751m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.779128, -5.712344
A 1961 photograph showed a dark circular enclosure-type cropmark (c. 100m in diameter) predominantly located in the more western of the two fields of the proposed development. This was too large to have been a removed ringfort but there are other monuments, such as henges and monastic enclosures, that could be about this size. Nothing archaeological was observed on the ground here and it seemed to correspond with an area of more level land on otherwise sloping ground. Test-trenching across the feature was suggested to try to establish its existence and nature.
No sign of the enclosure was uncovered upon cruciform test-trenching, so monitored topsoil-stripping was initiated. The course of an ancient stream was uncovered running across the development site. This had a scatter of Neolithic flint on its eastern bank and in the material filling the stream cut. This material is being examined at present. There was no sign of the apparent enclosure, so it must be assumed that this was an artefact of the photograph.
Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast BT12 7DY
