County: Meath Site name: Philpotstown 3
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A008/029; E3082
Author: Stuart Rathbone, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd, 21 Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda.
Site type: School (1860–1940)
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 691721m, N 762041m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.600188, -6.614245
This site, located within Contract 2 (Dunshaughlin–Navan) of the proposed M3 Clonee to North of Kells motorway, was identified during testing by Paul Stevens in 2004 (Excavations 2004, No. 1188,04E0428) and was excavated in 2007. The site comprised the remains of Dillon’s Bridge School, which was constructed in 1860 and demolished in 1940, when the adjacent section of the N3 was improved. Dillon’s Bridge is a stone-built bridge sited a few metres to the north-west of the schoolhouse. The school was built on the flood-plain of the small stream which ran under the bridge.
The schoolhouse was a small rectangular north-east/south-west building, parallel to the road, with three rooms. The foundations of the outside walls were constructed with large stone blocks. The foundations survived for three or four courses in most places but the north-west gable end was largely robbed out. The foundations had a consistent width of 0.65m and defined a rectangle with an external length of 14.6m and an external width of 6.6m. The gable end walls were not bonded into the front and rear walls at the level that survived, but may have been bonded in at a higher level. An entrance 1.2m wide was located in the centre of the front wall and was marked by two small protruding footings 0.6m long and 0.5m wide. The foundations were built into narrow vertical-sided trenches, only a fraction wider than the foundations themselves, cut through the natural river silts and stopping on a fine gravelly layer.
Two internal walls were recorded which divided the interior into three rooms, two equal-sized rooms at either end of the building and one smaller central room. The two partition walls were of identical construction and consisted of small rounded pebbles filling vertical-sided cuts 0.6–0.7m wide and 0.45m deep. The north-west room measured 5.6m by 4.6m internally, the central room measured 5.4m by 2.8m internally and the south-east room measured 5.3m by 4.4m internally.Associated external features were also noted.
