2015:016 - Stockhole, Dublin

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Dublin Site name: Stockhole

Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 13E0464

Author: Richard Crumlish

Site type: No archaeology found

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 718904m, N 742574m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.419867, -6.211137

Pre-development testing was carried out on a site at Stockhole, in north County Dublin, between 24 and 27 February 2015. The project consisted of a parkland cemetery and associated development on a site of approximately 12.1ha. A geophysical survey carried out by J.M. Leigh Surveys in 2010 (Licence No. 10R15) yielded a number of responses of potential archaeological origin. The testing was required due to the size of the proposed development site, the scale of the proposed development and to investigate a number of the geophysical anomalies.

The site consisted of three fields which had been harvested the previous autumn with a partly overgrown area in the field to the south-west the location of Stockhole House, of which there was no surface trace visible. No features of archaeological significance were visible within the site. Quantities of modern pottery sherds, red brick fragments and slate fragments were visible on the ground surface.

The testing consisted of the excavation (by machine) of thirteen trenches located to best cover the proposed development area and investigate the anomalies revealed by the geophysical survey. The six trenches excavated in the largest of the fields in the northern half of the development site measured 300m, 50m, 49.9m, 39.9m, 50.2m and 50m long respectively. The three trenches excavated in the field to the south-west measured 99.7m, 19.9m and 80m long respectively. The four trenches excavated in the field to the south-east measured 70m, 59.6m, 70m and 59.8m long respectively. All trenches measured 1.8-2.1m wide and 0.3-0.8m deep.

Below the topsoil were natural subsoils. The topsoil contained plastic, modern pottery sherds, red brick fragments, ceramic pipe fragments, an uninscribed clay pipe stem, an inscribed clay pipe stem, unworked chert, bits of mortar, slate fragments, animal bone fragments, oyster shell fragments and a scallop shell. A number of land drains were visible across a number of the test trenches.

One of the trenches in the field to the south-west contained an animal burial with associated modern artefacts and re-deposited material containing modern artefacts above a field/land drain. One of the anomalies was accounted for by a band of re-deposited material which contained several modern pottery sherds and was found across two of the trenches in the same field to the south-west. This modern feature may have been associated with the nearby Stockhole House.

Some of the geophysical anomalies were accounted for by the field/land drains, some by variations in the natural subsoil, while there was no evidence for others. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed.

4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo