2006:938 - BURTONHALL DEMESNE, Kildare

The site was excavated as part of the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford scheme: Kilcullen to Powerstown. Testing carried out on this site in 2005 by Brendon Wilkins (Excavations 2005, No. 739, A021/010) identified the possible remains of a stone wall or culvert. This was described as: ‘a curvilinear wall or culvert emerging from the ditch boundary (on the east), close to where a small bridge was located. The bridge appeared to be constructed with the same stone as the wall or culvert. Incorporated into the latter structure was a saddle quern, apparently used as a capping stone. Directly north of the wall or culvert, a large pit produced a flint tool that appeared to have been broken in antiquity. The presence of the saddle quern and the pit indicate prehistoric settlement in the vicinity. The wall or culvert is likely to be related to later post-medieval activity.’

The site lies at the northern foot of the small hill on which the mansion house of Burtonhall Demesne was built in the early 18th century. This rises up by 30m from the surrounding countryside over c. 600m to the south. It is currently capped by the walled 18th-century garden and tree plantation. The shape of the site in plan was roughly that of a right-angled triangle, with the sides measuring 220m (oriented north–south) by 170m (north-west/south-east) by 110m (north-east/south-west). The area stripped was 10,570m2.

Resolution on this site began with machine stripping on 13 February and full excavation finished on 14 April 2006. This revealed the large stone feature identified in testing crossing the full width of the compulsory purchase order zone for a distance of 80m (and slightly more, taking the curves into account). This consisted for the most part of a double line of roughly dressed granite blocks acting as revetments in a cut trench, <1m deep and <1.5m wide, with capping stones surviving in most parts. This is now believed to be a culvert, although the interpretation is not absolutely conclusive. No dating material was recovered from the trench, apart from a residual sherd of prehistoric pottery, but it is thought likely to have been of post-medieval date, probably early 18th-century, when Burton Hall mansion was built and the associated estate landscaped. The mansion house was built on the adjacent hill to the south-east and the stone culvert ran in a series of curves from the general direction of its foot, downhill into the stream that marked the eastern edge of the modern field.

Other features investigated included various ditches and field boundaries, some of them interrelating with the stone feature, so as to suggest that it also once marked the position of aboveground features. Several pit-type cut features were also examined and could mostly be interpreted as sockets left by granite boulder removal for agricultural field clearance and use as building stone. These were deemed to be of only minor archaeological significance, but two features had noteworthy details. The first was a pit at the west end of the culvert with the remains of decayed granite blocks in it, as well as a small iron stone-splitting wedge used for granite cleaving. The second was a pit at the eastern end of the culvert filled with burnt and shattered stones and ash, similar to the spreads of a fulacht fiadh found not far away, in the next field to the east across the modern stream channel.

Unit 1, Wallingstown Business Park, Little Island, Cork