2016:683 - BALLYTHOMAS EAST, Cork

Topsoil stripping in advance of a proposed development by Eli Lilly Kinsale Ltd was monitored by Lane Purcell Archaeology. A spread of burnt stone was uncovered, and an excavation was undertaken. During the course of the excavation a horizontal watermill was also found nearby.

The fulacht fia comprised a thin spread of burnt stone which masked two small troughs. One was oval-shaped, c. 1.5m diameter and 0.35m deep. A layer of split roundwood timbers on its base appeared to be a deliberate floor. Around the perimeter of the base there was a ring of small stake-holes, which probably held a wicker lining to the trough. A radiocarbon date range of 1120–858 BC was obtained from the preserved, waterlogged tip of one of the stakes. The other trough was sub-rectangular in plan, 1.3m x 1m and 0.2m deep. Timber fragments found on its base seemed to have collapsed into the trough. A radiocarbon date range of 1727–1528 BC was obtained from a fragment of waterlogged willow.

The undercroft of the horizontal mill had been cut through subsoil and bedrock, and the timber mill structure was built within the undercroft. The undercroft had been cut through by machine in the past and its upper half backfilled with a mixture of clay and burnt stone from the nearby fulacht fia. The mill was therefore very poorly preserved. Unusually for Irish medieval mills the structure was supported on rectangular posts set in rock-cut post-holes at the base of the undercroft. The walls were of horizontal planks laid edge on edge and presumably fixed to the upright posts. Only two of these planks survived in situ, one each along the north and south sides. Part of the flume survived, though dried out and very badly degraded, as did the beam which supported it, also degraded. The stump of one structural post survived in situ in its post-hole. One substantial though broken timber lying on the floor of the undercroft had a mortise cut through one end and was interpreted as a tie-beam fixed to the upper ends of the structural posts and securing them together. Otherwise only a jumble of broken, degraded timber fragments was recovered, some of which were worked and may have been part of the mill mechanism.

A fragment of a millstone was recovered, as was a copper alloy stick pin, of a type dated to 12th–14th centuries. A dendrochronological date of AD 1150 ±9 was obtained from the flume support beam.