2011:352 - CASTLETOWN HOUSE, CASTLETOWN, Kildare

This site covered an area of 8m by 9m and was discovered during monitoring of the excavation of a services trench in the front lawn of Castletown House. An inhumation burial and a ceramic vessel were previously excavated from the trench (10E0414).

Three crouched inhumations, in varying states of preservation, and four cremation burials were recorded. These burials are part of a larger cemetery site, which extends beyond the area of excavation. Preliminary identification of the pottery accompanying one of these burials has identified it as decorated Food Vessel. This type of pottery is associated with the Early Bronze Age tradition and is a good dating indicator for the inhumation burials. It is likely that the cremations may be broadly contemporary, but definitive dating awaits the results of radiocarbon analysis. Later activity was represented by two other features, at least one of which dates from the post-medieval period.

The northernmost grave-cut was a subsquare stone-lined pit, 1.1m by 1m and just 0.6m deep. The burial in this pit (Skeleton 2) lay on his/her right side, with the head to the east, and was relatively well preserved. It was accompanied by a decorated Food Vessel that had been broken in antiquity but had originally been placed in an upright position beside the hip. The main grave fill was moderately compact mid-grey silty clay with charcoal flecks, occasional flecks of red burnt clay and pebbles. The grave fill was sealed with stony clay.

A second, less well-preserved burial (Skeleton 1) was located 1.8m to the south-east but had been truncated to the east by the trench for the gas pipeline. The surviving dimensions of the grave-cut were 1.3m by 0.85m by 0.08m deep. The burial was on the same orientation, with the head to the east. The skull and long bones survived intact but few of the other bones remained. The grave fill was firm orange-brown sticky silty clay with occasional small stones that was similar to the surrounding subsoil but contained very occasional flecks of charcoal.

The partial remains of a third burial (Skeleton 3) were located 0.45m to the south in Grave-cut [018]. This cut had also been heavily truncated by the gas pipeline trench and its remains measured 1.1m by 0.26m by 0.38m deep. Only a small number of disarticulated bones survived.

The westernmost cremation burial was located 0.8m to the west of Skeleton 2. It was contained within a pit that measured 0.8m by 0.5m by 0.15m and had a concave base. The cremation deposit was contained in moderately compact orange-brown silty clay. It was sealed with friable mid-yellow brown clay that contained occasional charcoal flecks, specks of burnt bone and the remains of a coarsely made pot.

There were three other cremation burials in the north-eastern end of the site. The northern burial pit was 2.25m to the north-east of the stone-lined burial. It measured 0.75m by 0.35m but was only 0.1m deep, indicating that it had been truncated. It had an uneven base and contained a cremation deposit consisting of friable mid-grey-brown clay with moderate inclusions of burnt bone. Three sherds of pottery were recovered from this deposit.

Another cremation pit was located 1.15m to the east. It measured 1.02m by 0.7m and had a rounded base. The cremation deposit was friable mid-grey-brown silty clay with frequent fragments of burnt bone. This burial deposit did not appear to have been truncated; it was 0.46m deep.

Cremation burial pit [019] was located 1.1m to the south and measured 0.74m by 0.68m by 0.28m. It had steeply sloping sides and a flat base. The lower fill was moderately compact brown-grey silty clay with very occasional inclusions of charcoal, burnt bone and stones. It was sealed with mid-brown silty clay with moderate inclusions of burnt bone and charcoal. This deposit was 0.19m deep and contained sherds of decorated pottery.

A subrectangular pit was cut into the northern end of the stone-lined grave, where it had caused some disturbance to the northern stone lining. This pit measured 1.65m by 0.96m by 0.24m and had straight sides and a flat base. The lower fill was moderately compact light brown silty clay with very occasional charcoal flecks. It was sealed with grey-brown silty clay with moderate charcoal inclusions, occasional stone, fragments of animal bone and several pottery sherds that appear to be broadly contemporary with the pottery accompanying the burials.

A second phase of activity was represented by a small pit and a deposit at the north-eastern end of the site. The pit measured 0.34m by 0.37m by 0.1m. It was filled with friable mid-brown-grey silty clay that contained very occasional charcoal flecks and sherds of pottery, one of which is medieval. The deposit of fine-grained grey-brown clay silt was located to the south of the pit. It was c. 1.2m in diameter and 0.2m thick and has been dated to the post-medieval period from finds of bottle glass.

No evidence for an enclosing ditch or an overlying mound associated with the cemetery was uncovered on site. Nevertheless, the excavation area is probably only part of a larger cemetery and there is a possibility that an enclosing ditch may lie outside the area investigated. The demesne lands have been extensively landscaped and any mound that may have existed would have been levelled during these works. Alternatively, this site may have been a flat cemetery.

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