County: Meath Site name: KILBREW
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 13E0443
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Vicinity of embanked enclosure
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 701848m, N 757493m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.557459, -6.462789
In pre-planning discussions with the planning department of Meath County Council the owners were asked to carry out an archaeological assessment of the site which would then accompany a planning application to construct a dwelling house along with driveway, waste water treatment system and other associated services.
The development site lies 60-70m south of the southern banks of ME038-010, an embanked enclosure or henge; the remains of an 18th/19th-century house (ME038-010001) lie within the confines of the embanked enclosure and there is a souterrain (ME038-032) to the north-east of the embanked enclosure.
A series of ten test trenches were excavated, two of which tested the line of the driveway and the remainder tested the footprint of the house and the sewage system. The deepest deposit of topsoil was 0.3m. The underlying natural layers alternated between the top of bedrock and fine dark brown clayey silt containing a lot of pebbles and decaying stone. In one trench there was a dramatic change from brown clay to a black stony layer on a vertical interface.
No archaeological features were observed other than small deposits of modern rubbish. No artefacts were recovered. A very small piece of unworked flint was found in Trench 4.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath.
