2004:1797 - DANESCASTLE, Wexford

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Wexford Site name: DANESCASTLE

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E0855

Author: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil, Kilkenny Archaeology, Three-castles, Kilkenny for Mary Henry Archaeological Services Ltd.

Site type: Limekiln

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 686715m, N 610398m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.238480, -6.730350

Monitoring for a sewage pipeline at Danescastle, Co. Wexford, by Mary Henry Archaeological Services Ltd uncovered the buried remains of a limekiln and flue that was subsequently excavated by the author in June 2004.

Within an area 7.5m by 6m, the remains of the flue, stoke hole and about half the kiln was investigated. The remainder of the kiln bowl lay outside the development area and was therefore not available for study.

The section of the kiln investigated was semicircular in plan and measured 3.48m by 1.02m by 1.64m deep. The kiln was lined with clay and crushed old red sandstone mix, which had baked rock-hard in the heat of the kiln. The base was partly covered with a slab of shale and partly with baked substratum. Overlying the eastern side of the base was the only in situ deposit within the kiln: a 0.18mdeep deposit of some twenty large burnt angular stones of limestone and granite in a matrix of burnt soil, ash and culm. The deposit is a portion of the material left in the kiln after its final use. Overlying it were five deposits, three of which were secondary kiln waste and two that were dumps of redeposited substratum. The fills had been deposited from the east of the kiln, to judge by the tip-lines.

The flue of the kiln was of roughly triangular plan, measuring 5.04m in length by 4.35m at its widest point and tapering to 1.35m wide at the stoke hole in the north. It had a maximum depth of 1.2m. A modern sewage pipe truncated the south-eastern side and a ramp of redeposited substratum gave access to the base.

Much of the base of the flue was covered in a thin (20mm) deposit of ash and culm, which is probably the remains of rake-out from the kiln. Ten dumped deposits of secondary kiln waste and redeposited substratum filled the flue. Patches of burnt lime were most frequent in the upper contexts. The only two artefacts recovered during the excavations were found in the flue fills: a body sherd of brown-glazed red earthenware (18th-19th-century in date) and a clay-pipe stem fragment (17th-20th-century).

In the south wall of the kiln was a stoke hole. This was an arched gap in the wall of the kiln leading to the flue, 0.66m high by 0.63m wide by 0.51m. The base of the stoke hole was lined with the shale slab (noted above). This would have allowed material within the interior to be drawn out smoothly through the stoke hole. On either side of the exterior (south side) were two vertical semicircular niches cut into the sides of the flue. These originally held an iron bar that supported a barrier that acted to stop material collapsing from the kiln interior.

The Danescastle example falls into the draw kiln variety and has been categorised as 'Type C - cylindrical (short) shaft kilns'. As the name suggests, the shaft is usually cylindrical, though square varieties have been recorded. A superstructure, probably of stone, was constructed over the shaft and limestone was placed inside the kiln over a grate under which fuel was burned (the grate no longer survives at Danescastle). The fuel took the form principally of culm, which Harrington (2000, 10) records was imported from Wales via Newtown on the west side of Bannow Bay, and was lit at the base. If required, the kiln was refuelled until the lime was produced. There is a single draw-hole at the base of the kiln, from which the calcined limestone was removed. The ash and associated burnt material was evidently dumped quite close to the kiln, as it was reused to infill it after decommissioning.

No finds were associated with the in situ deposits inside the kiln and flue and the one sherd of pottery and clay-pipe stem recovered from the dumped secondary kiln-waste deposits merely provide post-c. 1700 dates for the layers in which they were found. A field-boundary bank that covers the uppermost fill of the kiln would provide an 18th-century date for the limekiln (it is marked on the 1841 OS map and was presumably built as a consequence of the 18th-century Enclosure Acts) if it were certain the kiln was not dug into the side of the bank, as was often the case.

Unfortunately it was not possible to determine whether or not this had occurred, due to the limited section of kiln available for excavation.

Likewise, the morphology of the Danescastle limekiln does not lend itself to easy dating. It is of a type that was used in Ireland from the 13th century and it is not clear when this form was replaced by the more common masonry examples. Despite these problems, it is nevertheless likely, given its location adjacent to an 18th-century village and the nature of the associated finds, that the limekiln was constructed and used in the 18th-19th centuries.

As has been noted above, the rocks that were found at the base of the kiln were of granite and limestone. The solid geology beneath it, however, is not of limestone or granite but of the Booley Bay Formation (grey to black mudstones with siltstones), which was unsuitable for firing (GSI map sheet 23). The nearest limestone bedrock is situated 7km to the east. It seems unlikely that the raw material was transported from such a distance and it would have been more economical to convey the finished lime from the nearest source (the first-edition OS map marks fifteen limekilns on the Hook promontory alone - Colfer 2004, 182). Instead, perhaps the limestone was sourced locally from demolished buildings.
References
Colfer, B. 2004 The Hook peninsula. Cork.
Harrington, J. 2000 An archaeological and historical overview of limeburning in Victoria. Melbourne.