2005:766 - MILL LANE, LEIXLIP, Kildare

Testing took place at Mill Lane, Leixlip, on 29 January 2005. Planning permission is sought to demolish a modern workshop on the site and to reconstruct two cottages incorporating existing façades which are listed for protection in the Leixlip Local Area Plan. These are millworkers’ cottages that date to between 1837 and 1908. The site lies adjacent to the Black Castle, a 16th-century tower-house which was drastically reconstructed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A test-trench was excavated across the garden area at the rear of the workshop; this revealed natural gravels at a depth of c. 0.7m below the existing ground level. At the northern end of the trench a feature was cut into the gravel, with steep sides and a flat base, at a depth of up to 0.32m. A sherd of Staffordshire slipware was found within the primary fill of the feature, placing it firmly in the post-medieval period. It may represent the remains of a field boundary first illustrated on the 1910 edition OS map. Overlying the natural gravels on the site were three layers of garden soil containing sherds of post-medieval and modern pottery.