County: Louth Site name: RATHBRIST
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LH011-086 Licence number: 04E1466
Author: Kieran Campbell
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 695937m, N 798172m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.924014, -6.539343
Monitoring took place in October 2004 during topsoil-stripping on a 180m by 180m development site for 25 houses in the townland of Rathbrist, situated on the north-east side of the village of Tallanstown. The development was the latest phase of the 'Tallonsfield Manor' housing estate and encroached to within 80m of the site of a standing stone. There is now no trace of this stone, which is indicated as a 'Standing Stone' on the 1907–8 edition of the OS six-inch map and stood on the summit of a prominent ridge that extends in an arc from the northern boundary of the field, defined by the 100ft contour. The standing stone is not indicated on the first edition of the six-inch map, surveyed in 1835, so there must be some doubt as to whether it was a genuine antiquity.
The dimensions given for the standing stone in the Archaeological Survey of County Louth are height 1.5m, and 0.4m by 0.2m in section. The stone was extant in 1966 when visited by the Archaeological Survey, but its small size and location in the middle of a large tillage field would have made it vulnerable. A search around the edges of the field failed to turn up any stone remotely approaching the size of the missing standing stone, but enquiries are continuing.
Nothing of archaeological interest was exposed by the topsoil-stripping and only very occasional sherds of modern pottery were noted in the topsoil.
6 St Ultan's, Laytown, Drogheda
