County: Cork Site name: SHEEPWALK WEST
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO035–086 Licence number: 09E0127
Author: Eamonn Cotter, Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co.Cork.
Site type: Circular enclosure
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 577346m, N 600591m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.156697, -8.331074
Testing was carried out at Sheepwalk West, Fermoy, in April 2009 on foot of a planning application for the construction of farm buildings. The site of the proposed development was located close to a possible
circular enclosure. The enclosure had been identified from aerial photography as a semicircular cropmark immediately east of a local road that runs north–south.
Five test-trenches were excavated by mechanical digger in the area of the proposed development. The enclosure ditch was found in two of the trenches. The
ditch measured 2.8m wide at the surface and was 1.5m
deep. It had a truncated ‘V’ profile and was 0.4m wide at the base. Two of the trenches were extended to the interior of the enclosure but no archaeological features
were found there. No artefacts were recovered. Only about half of the enclosure is now traceable, the remainder extending underneath the public road to the west, and probably under the farmyard to the west of the road. The surviving elements suggest the enclosure was 30–40m in diameter.
