County: Roscommon Site name: Kilbegly 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A034; E3329
Author: Neil Jackman, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny.
Site type: Possible early medieval cereal-drying kiln and pits
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 590100m, N 730177m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.321769, -8.148593
The site of Kilbegly 1 was excavated as part of the N6 Ballinasloe to Athlone national road scheme. Work was commissioned by Galway County Council and funded by the National Roads Authority.
An area of 2470m2 was stripped of topsoil to facilitate excavation. This revealed seven subcircular pits, generally with a high charcoal content and some evidence of burning in situ due to the oxidisation of the surrounding subsoil. None of these pits appeared to have any clear industrial purpose and there was no evidence of ferrous or non-ferrous metalworking or production in situ. The pits did not appear to form any clear structural pattern and generally had a diameter of 1m and a depth of 0.2m.
A curvilinear feature was identified at the north-western limit of the excavation. Only a portion of the feature lay within the CPO area and this ran roughly north–south and measured 10.8m in length, 0.5m in width and had an average depth of 0.32m. The cut was filled by a light-brown silty sand which contained occasional disarticulated faunal remains. The curvilinear feature was interpreted as a slot-trench for a palisade fence or windbreak.
An outlying feature was identified in the southern area of the site, c. 16m west-south-west of the above features. This was a cereal-drying kiln that had a rough figure-of-eight shape (2.4m length, 1.7m in maximum width and 0.25m in depth). It was orientated north-north-east/south-south-west. This feature contained a mixture of black charcoal and silty sand material with frequent oxidised clay. Oxidisation of the surrounding subsoil was noted, indicating a high level of burning in situ.
Two chert scrapers were recovered from the topsoil of the site.
The post-medieval/early modern period was represented on the site by a large shallow field boundary. This ran across the site in a north-west/south-east direction and contained fragments of early modern ceramics.
Kilbegly 1 was situated c. 360m west-south-west of a churchyard and holy well, which are not impacted on by the route of the road, RO054–026, RO054–027 (01, 02 and 03). Kilbegly 1 was also situated c. 200m north-north-east of two newly discovered archaeological sites, a burnt mound of possible prehistoric date and an extremely well-preserved early medieval horizontal mill (A034; E3369, No. 1494 below).
These remains may represent low-level industry that may be associated with Kilbegly churchyard and the newly discovered early medieval horizontal mill.
Post-excavation work is ongoing and any interpretations are preliminary.
