County: Waterford Site name: Kilgrovan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WA031–045 Licence number: 07E0951
Author: Jacinta Kiely, Eachtra Archaeological Projects, Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, Kinsale Road, Cork.
Site type: Possible ecclesiastical enclosure and kilns
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 630803m, N 593067m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.088667, -7.550509
A planning application and EIS were submitted in April 2007 to Waterford County Council by the developer for a site at Kilgrovan, Clonea Strand, Dungarvan. The application was for a mixed-use tourist and leisure-related development. The monument on the site is a ‘church site’, and there is cartographic evidence of a possible enclosure at the north end of the site. The church site is the former location of five ogham stones which were removed for safer preservation to Mount Melleray Abbey, near Cappoquin.
Under the current planning application, geophysical testing was carried out in the vicinity of the site of the enclosure, under detection licence 07R217. Subsequently fifteen test-trenches were excavated on the footprint of the area of the development. The primary focus of the testing was to record the location of the enclosure and to test previously untested areas.
A large ditch, orientated north-east/south-west, was recorded at the north-eastern section of the site. It is likely to be the eastern extent of the ditch of an enclosure associated with the site of the church. The western extent of the ditch was not recorded in the trench. The trench could not be extended to the east because of the presence of overhead ESB wires, which intersect the site of the enclosure. The depth of topsoil, 1–2m, recorded in parts of trenches in this portion of the site probably accumulated when the site was bulldozed in the 1960s. It should be noted that geophysical testing would not be able to penetrate that depth of soil. No trace of burials was recorded in any of the test-trenches.
Two kilns were recorded c. 12m to the north and north-west of the site of the enclosure. Two kilns were previously recorded to the east and south-east of the site of the enclosure in 2003. A substantial layer of brown sandy clay, with inclusions of bone and shell, was recorded c. 60m to the west of the enclosure. The layer could be modern in origin and associated with the cultivation of potatoes or it could be a layer associated with medieval occupation of the site.
No archaeological features or artefacts were recorded in any of the trenches in the southern portion of the site during this phase of testing.
