County: Derry Site name: 'CASLANDOO', GLEBE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 3:6 Licence number: AE/04/72
Author: Peter Bowen, Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Unit 48, Westlink Enterprise centre, 30-50 Distillery Street, Belfast, BT12 5BJ.
Site type: Prehistoric
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 583097m, N 649471m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.596250, -8.249480
As part of the archaeological mitigation for a new foul sewer on the outskirts of Portstewart in the townland of Glebe, Co. Derry, a desktop survey followed by supervision of topsoil-stripping along the route was undertaken. The survey had revealed that the proposed route would have taken the foul sewer close to Cashlandoo, the site of a possible raised rath. An earlier phase of work in the previous year (Excavations 2003, No. 375, AE/03/12) had uncovered a series of subsoil-cut features within the confines of the pipe trench, which included a large ditch excavated to a width of 9m.
During 2004 there were two further phases of work undertaken on the site during which a total of seven areas of archaeological deposits were uncovered, two of which were a continuation of the features previously excavated.
The excavated archaeology consisted of several subsoil-cut linear slots, a number of pits and postholes along with several stone-filled field drains and a removed field boundary. A further trench was also excavated within the large ditch uncovered during the first excavation of the site, while traces of a possible structure were also uncovered. This structure consisted of a badly truncated curving slot that curved out from the south-west edge of the stripped corridor. The slot curved towards the north-east through to the east, where there was a small rounded terminal, although this may have been the result of scarping for an adjacent field boundary. The overall length of the exposed surviving portion of the slot was 5.8m with a width of 0.3m and it survived to a maximum depth of 0.2m. A number of potsherds, possibly Early Bronze Age in date, were recovered from the slot.
The majority of finds recovered consisted of struck flint, most of which had no secondary working, and the Early Bronze Age potsherds recovered from the slot of the possible structure.
