2015:047 - Sallins Lodge, Sherlockstown, Sallins, Kildare

Testing was undertaken as part of the preparation of an Archaeological Impact Assessment with respect to the proposed construction of a house on Sherlockstown Road, Sallins. The subject development lands form the eastern extent of the present overall land-holding associated with Sallins Lodge, a late 18th/early 19th-century house located on the western side of Sherlockstown Road on the eastern periphery of the village to the north of the Grand Canal.
Two stories of a small, rectangular tower-house (internal dimensions: Length: 6m north-east/south-west; Width: 4.9m; Wall Thickness: 1.2m) are incorporated (for use as stables/outbuildings) into the later Sallins Lodge, which is attached to the south-west wall of the tower-house and accessed through the probable original tower-house doorway (Height: 1.8m; Width: 0.95m). The ground floor is roofed by a fine round-arched vault (Height: 3.4m). A doorway (Wth: 0.95m; H: 2m) in the north-west wall giving access from the yard outside appears to be a later insertion, as does a now shelved-off doorway in the north angle (at north-west end of north-east wall) which gave access to the remainder of the outbuildings beyond. Traces of a window are visible in the north-west wall and there is a gently splaying window embrasure with a low sill in the south-east wall. The remains were originally noted in 2000 during a visit by the Kildare County Council Conservation Officer.
The development area comprises a largely overgrown garden area bounded by a stone wall fronting onto Sherlockstown Road and to the east of Sallins Lodge. A total of 7 test trenches of varying lengths and orientations, the locations of which were largely due to the nature of the site, were excavated by machine fitted with a toothless ditching bucket (c. 1m wide) down to the surface of the underlying subsoil. No features, deposits or structures of archaeological potential were uncovered and no artefacts of archaeological interest were recovered by any excavations.
It was subsequently agreed with the National Monuments Service that no further archaeological interventions were required of the development.