County: Wexford Site name: Hilltown
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 10E0386
Author: Emmet Stafford, Stafford McLoughlin Archaeology, Park, Bree, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.
Site type: Vicinity of fortified house
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 687735m, N 615091m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.280491, -6.714203
Planning permission was granted for the construction of an agricultural shed at Hilltown, Ballymitty, Co. Wexford. The site is located approximately 70m to the north-east of WX041–031, a fortified house.
Testing of the site of the proposed shed revealed that the site had been stripped in the 1980s prior to the excavation of a series of foundations for a house which was not subsequently built. The stripping of the site at that time reduced ground levels below the original subsoil layer and splintered an underlying shale horizon.
A small deposit of charcoal-stained soil located along the western edge of the proposed shed suggested that, prior to the 1980s ground reduction, the site may have been occupied with deposits associated with a probable dwelling-house marked on the first-edition OS map of area.
Other than the charcoal-stained spread of soil, which had itself been disturbed during the earlier stripping of the site, the testing of the area of the proposed shed did not uncover any features or deposits of archaeological significance
