2004:1521 - BUSHYPARK, HAZELWOOD, Sligo

Hazelwood, Co. Sligo, was the main Wynne estate, the Wynnes being landlords, politicians, progressive farmers and very influential on the Sligo scene in the 18th and 19th centuries. A repeatedly ploughed twelve-acre field, known since the 18th century as Bushypark, was tested by twelve trenches; there were no archaeological discoveries in any of the test-trenches.

A supposed earthwork that had been levelled in the 1920s was just about discernible on the ground, its position being established from alignment with field boundaries beyond the field. The site was tested by three trenches, each 1m wide and extending sufficiently outside of the site to test for external features. These trenches were widened for further testing where they crossed the ditch and, following the strong conviction that this was not a ringfort, an enclosure or a barrow, the site was fully excavated.

This established that the feature consisted of a continuous subcircular ditch, 30.48m in diameter, 2m wide and, where undisturbed, averaging 0.4m in depth, within which was another circular ditch, averaging 5.1m in diameter, about 0.5m wide and only surviving to at most 60mm, which was towards the north-east side of the centre of the outer ditch. Finally, close to the central point of the outer ditch was a pit containing black sooty soil, 1m in diameter and 0.5m in depth below the base of ploughsoil, which the circuit of the inner ditch passed over.

The outer ditch contained lots of stones with modern material, red brick, glass, crockery, slate, etc., at the base of the fill. The fill of the inner ditch contained a few small fragments of crockery and of red brick. At the side of the pit and towards the base in black sooty soil there was a piece of metal slag with a curved base; there was a small fragment of the same material elsewhere in the black sooty soil and a separate piece was found among the loose stones in the outer ditch, on the east side. All of the finds, the metal slag excepted, are of modern material, and some of these clearly date the primary fill of the ditch.

The outer ditch, because of its dimensions and basal fill, is interpreted as the uninterrupted ditch of a tree ring rather than a ringfort. The finds that were in the fill of the inner ditch suggest that it is also of recent vintage, though the fact that its circuit passes over the fill of the pit that contained the metal slag leaves one wondering if it is all that survived of an earlier feature after repeated ploughing. The tree-ring interpretation matches information from maps. Map 1 of a series of Hazelwood Demesne maps by George Hillas, dated 1771, does not have anything shown for this location and the OS depiction is always of a group of trees. All this indicates that this is a decorative landscape feature of probable 18th-century date, possibly post-1771, within which was a shallow ditch, also possibly 18th-century, and a pit of as yet unknown date.

Further post-excavation research is ongoing and will be reported on in conjunction with the report on monitoring of the groundworks in the area along the ridge where SMR 15:27 was and for the access road to a reservoir that is planned for the adjacent 21-acre field in 2005.