2009:658 - NOBBER, Meath

An assessment of the proposed site of a new playing pitch for Nobber GFC at Nobber, Co. Meath, revealed the survival of archaeological features and deposits on part of the site, which lies within the medieval borough of Nobber (ME006–055) (Excavations 2008, No. 975). As the proposed development could only be undertaken with the removal of this part of the site to below the level of subsoil, an excavation was undertaken in April and May 2009 in advance of development.
Prehistoric features
The earliest features uncovered lay at the south-east corner of the site. There, a 6–6.4m diameter round house with its doorway on the south-east side was partly enclosed on its southern side by a double line of post-and-wattle fencing reinforced with regularly spaced posts. The doorway of the house was marked by two large post-holes (each of which contained a flat padstone) set 1m apart. The wall of the building consisted of a single line of post and wattle except at its north-west side, where there was a double line of stake-holes. There was a 1m-diameter pit with an oxidised base set off-centre in the house. This may have been its hearth. A second unburnt pit was, however, linked to the burnt one and the two combined could alternatively be the remains of a later kiln.
The west end of the fence enclosing the house ran beneath the large 2m-diameter hearth of a fulacht fiadh. Close to the south side of the hearth there was a long rectangular pit that was partly lined with stone and clay. It was the trough of the fulacht fiadh.A large round pit lay to the west of the hearth. It was filled with burnt-mound material and was partly cut away by a medieval pit.
All the features described above were covered by, or filled with, burnt-mound material. The burnt mound itself measured up to 0.35m in thickness and was concentrated around the area of the trough and hearth of the fulacht fiadh but was later spread westwards over a large area and to a much lesser extent eastwards.
No datable finds were uncovered from these features but they are likely to be of Bronze Age date. A large part of an unshed red-deer antler was found in the burnt mound and may represent the first such remains associated with a fulacht fiadh. It may also provide a good 14C date for the structure. Samples of charcoal were taken from all features.
The prehistoric features lay beside, but did not extend into, the bog that delimited the south-eastern and southern sides of the excavated area.
Ditch
A 1.5m-wide and up to 1.5m-deep ditch was dug partly through the burnt-mound material on a roughly straight north-east/south-west line. The ditch terminated before it reached the south-west side of the site, where it was partly cut away by a large medieval kiln. The base of the ditch sloped downwards to the south-west by as much as 1m over its recovered length, but, because of the slope of the ground, it also became shallower as it extended south-westwards. The ditch was filled with stiff, sterile light-brown silt that contained occasional lenses of sand. There was little material eroded from the sides of the ditch in its fills, suggesting it had not been open for very long. There were no traces of a bank accompanying the ditch. No finds were recovered from the silt in the ditch. However, charcoal was found in the silt fill of the ditch and if it had not simply eroded off the burnt mound then it could provide a 14C date for the ditch.
The ditch was covered by an approximate thickness of 0.3–0.5m of topsoil before any of the 13th-to 15th-century features which overlie it were constructed. As a result the ditch could range in date from the prehistoric to early medieval periods.
The steep slope of the site (downwards to the south-east and south) caused a considerable drift of topsoil down the slope. There was c. 2m thickness of topsoil at the base of the slope, while at the top of the site only a few centimetres of topsoil survived.

Medieval occupation
In the medieval period the site formed the rear ends of six medieval properties, which ran downhill from north-west to south-east as far as the edge of the bog. The front (upper) ends of the properties probably faced on to the south side of the roadway that was uncovered in Matthew Seaver’s excavations further to the west at Bridge Park. The individual properties were separated from each other and delimited by shallow, silt-and topsoil-filled drainage gullies, which extended down the hill almost to the edge of the bog. There were two transverse gullies marking the lower ends of the properties. All these gullies contained medieval pottery and they varied from a few centimetres to half a metre in depth.
All the features uncovered in the properties contained a few sherds of medieval pottery. No 12thcentury pottery was uncovered and the sherds found, on cursory examination, largely appear to be of Irish manufacture and are not more closely datable than to the 13th to the 15th centuries. No post-medieval pottery was uncovered on the site.
The properties and features within the properties are described below from north-east to south-west.
Property 1 – less than a 2m width of this property intruded into the site and no features were uncovered within it.
Property 2 – contained no features.
Property 3 – contained a poorly preserved stone-lined keyhole grain-drying kiln close to the northern end of its excavated extent. The kiln was built partly over the demolished and infilled remains of a large medieval building, which stood in the adjacent property to the west (see below). There was some burnt grain (which was sampled) in the drying chamber of the kiln.
The remains of a large oval oven were uncovered towards the lower end of the property. The base of the oven was unlined but heavily oxidised and covered by layers of charcoal. A number of pits, including one very large one, lay north-east of the oven. Several of the pits contained layers of charcoal, which were probably raked out from the kiln and/or the oven. One of the gullies marking the east side of this property also contained layers of charcoal, probably also derived from the kiln and/or oven.
A large pit was also uncovered close to the bog at the southern end of this property. It was partly cut through a pit associated with the earlier fulacht fiadh.
Property 4 – contained the remains of a large medieval building aligned with its long axis northwest/south-east. The upper end of the building was constructed in a deep trench cut up to 1.5m into the subsoil. The building had clay-bonded stone walls but only very small parts of the northern and eastern walls survived. It is not clear where the southern end of the building lay, as it was completely removed and no traces of it or its line survived. There was a large post-hole in each of the east and west walls of the building about two-thirds down its length. The doorway to the building may have lain at its south-east corner as, there, flooring extended across the wall line and out beyond the building. This floor and the internal floor of the building consisted of rammed clay and fine gravel, which produced a very fine and hard floor. The building was divided internally into two unequal-sized rooms by a timber partition across its short axis. The doorway linking the two rooms lay at the west side of the building. Little occupation debris survived and there were but scant traces of oxidisation surviving on the floor at the centre of the south end of the northern room. The building probably had a light industrial function.
After the building was demolished and infilled the grain-drying kiln in property 2 (described above) was built over its north-east corner. A large oval clay-lined oven set in a deep and large oval pit truncated the southern end of the building. This oven was very similar in shape to, but was of larger size than, the oven revealed at the lower end of property 2.
Property 5 – the upper end of the property contained two south-west/north-east-aligned gullies, one of which extended into Property 4, where it cut through the demolished remains of the medieval building. An oval to subrectangular area across the full width of the property but less than 2m across was defined by a shallow topsoil-filled gully. The structure was too narrow to have been a house or building and may have had an agricultural function. It was also cut through the side of the demolished building in Property 4.
A large and well-preserved stone-lined keyhole grain-drying kiln was revealed over the line of the earlier ditch towards the southern end of this property. It also contained burnt grain (which was sampled) and was floored and refloored with clay.
Property 6 – the west side of this property was not uncovered. Here the ground also fell downward to the south-west and the property was aligned north–south, indicating that the front ends of the properties from here westwards probably swung around a curve echoing the contours of the land. The northern end of the property was heavily truncated by medieval to modern pits and disturbance.
At the southern end of the property there were two extremely large kilns set in deep pits, a third and smaller kiln (which had a post-and-wattle windbreak around its northern half) and a large silt-filled pit. It is not clear what was processed in these kilns. Little survived of their structures and they all simply filled up with water and silt after they had been abandoned. Many huge natural boulders stones were dumped into the pits of the disused kilns.