County: Wexford Site name: Ballyellin 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E004146
Author: Gill McLoughlin, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, 120b Greenpark Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Site type: Medieval structure
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 721245m, N 667799m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.747648, -6.204115
Ballyellin 1 was identified during Stage (i) testing (see No. 700 above) within the footprint of the N11 Gorey north service area scheme, Co. Wexford. The Stage (iii) excavation work was undertaken between 9 and 12 August 2010.
Ballyellin 1 was a subrectangular-shaped structure consisting of slot-trenches on three sides. A sample from one of the fills of the slot-trench yielded a radiocarbon date of cal. ad 890–1030. The structure measured c. 7m long by 6m wide and the slot-trenches were a maximum of 0.4m deep and 0.5m wide. Two fills were contained within the slot-trench, both consisting of sandy silt, suggesting that the trenches silted up after the structure had been abandoned. Both fills contained large quantities of slag, the majority of which was concentrated along the eastern side of the structure. In total the two contexts contained 53.5kg of slag. There was no trace of any furnace pits within the excavation area from where this material may have originated, suggesting additional evidence of metalworking may survive outside the land-take. A pit to the east of the structure was dated to the middle Bronze Age (1730–1520 cal. bc).
