County: Kilkenny Site name: KELLSGRANGE (AR071)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A032/072; E3575
Author: James Kyle, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd.
Site type: House - vernacular house, Field boundary and
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 650864m, N 643798m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.543144, -7.250130
This site was located within the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford road scheme along Contract 2, Phase 4, Knocktopher to Powerstown. The later features comprised several subdivided yard areas, with associated drainage features, and the remains of the foundation/floor surfaces of several buildings which were associated with the upstanding post-medieval structures on site. The site was subdivided into three areas.
Area A contained an upstanding wall, the remains of a vernacular house, a pair of flagstones cemented to the substrate with four iron leg settings which would have held a piece of machinery in place. Associated with this and leading away to the south was a drainage channel. It is suggested that this may have held a mangle or winnowing machine in place; however, no evidence for a surrounding structure was uncovered.
The majority of the features were in Area B and included a partial floor surface, with remains of a foundation course, a concrete cistern dug into the subsoil and an area of demolition material adjacent to a bedrock outcrop (16m by 12m). A series of linear features tie in with what appear to be dividing walls on the first-edition OS map; these were associated with several stone-filled sump pits, the largest of which was 6m by 3m by 0.6m, designed to assist the drainage of these areas. These features all respected a large, north–south field boundary (2m by 0.45m) which ran along the eastern edge of these yards. On the other side of the field boundary was a series of post-holes arranged in a rectangular fashion, six to the east and four to the west, with an entrance gap in the western line of posts. These post-holes were of a post-medieval date and as such the posts probably supported a barn or shed (with an area of 20m by 10m) associated with the farm complex. The remaining features were located in the north-east corner of the area and comprised a series of three shallow linear features, possibly furrows, running east–west with fills containing medieval pottery.
Area C primarily comprised a rectangular drainage system with the slight remains of a possible yard surface in the south-east corner. A gap between two of these probably represents an entrance into the yard area.
120B Greenpark Road, Bray, Wicklow
