2006:1663 - WILLIAMSTOWN OR BAWN (1), Meath

This site was located within Contract 3 (Navan bypass) of the proposed M3 Clonee to north of Kells motorway scheme and was identified during advance testing by Aidan O’Connell in April 2004 (Excavations 2004, No. 1359, 04E0576). Full resolution occurred between August and September 2006. The site comprised the remains of a prehistoric burnt mound and an adjacent slot-trench structure, representing the remains of a house, provisionally dated to the medieval period by the discovery of a sherd of green-glazed pottery in the fill. Two intersecting field ditches were recorded in the western half of the site.

The burnt mound (11.2m north–south by 10.7m and 0.32m deep) comprised a circular spread of friable, dark-grey/black sandy silt containing burnt-sandstone fragments. Removal of the mound revealed a number of limited burnt-stone deposits and two cuts in the surface of the subsoil. The pits (1.59m by 1.03m and 0.22m deep, and 2.1m by 1.22m and 0.31m deep) were filled with soft, dark-grey/black silty clay containing burnt sandstone fragments.

Two other features were located just beyond the limits of the mound, including a vertical-sided pit filled with silty clay deposits containing a heavily decayed piece of unworked oak roundwood (0.6m long by 0.25m in diameter).

The burnt mound probably dates from the Bronze Age. Its composition, charcoal-enriched clay containing heat-shattered sandstone, is typical of sites where hot-stone technology was utilised, generating hot water by means of stones heated in a fire. The larger pit would have functioned as a boiling pit or trough; the smaller pit may have been used for boiling water as well. There were no post- or stake-holes relating to ancillary or associated structures.

The house structure was located 5m north of the burnt mound. The remains were approximately rectangular in plan with rounded corners and comprised an outline of slot-trenches with external dimensions of 10.26m (east–west) by 3.6m. The internal area was divided into two halves by a central north–south slot-trench. The slot-trenches were 0.51–0.59m wide and were mainly filled with mid- to dark-grey clayey silt. A deposit of soft dark-grey silty clay was located externally along the northern side of the structure. The internal floor area measured 2.4m wide (north–south) in each half of the structure, 4.75m long (east–west) to the east of the central slot-trench, and 3.75m long to the west of it. During testing in 2004 a sherd of green-glazed pottery of medieval date was found during the excavation of a section through the slot-trench fill at the eastern end of the structure; however, no other finds were revealed by the full excavation of the complete structure.

The evidence suggests the building was constructed in stone, and the slot-trenches would originally have contained the stone footings of the walls. It was almost certainly a single-storey dwelling with a thatched roof. The absence of any kind of occupation material in the floor area suggests that the structure was stone-floored. The stratigraphic evidence of the slot-trench fills indicates that the eastern part of the structure was built first, with the central slot-trench along the line of the original west wall of the building. Subsequently the building was enlarged to the west and the wall constructed in this foundation trench taken down. This interpretation means the building, despite appearing in plan to be two-roomed, was at all times a one-roomed structure, at some point enlarged by rebuilding work which increased the original floor length of 4.75m (east–west) to 8.95m. An external deposit projecting from the north side of the ground plan probably represents the footprint of the chimney serving the building’s fireplace. When the structure was finally abandoned, the walls were completely dismantled, all the footings in the slot-trenches removed and any flooring slabs taken away for reuse elsewhere. As there is no break in the foundation trench outline, the precise location of the doorway is not known, but it is likely to have been in the south wall, opposite the fireplace.

Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda