2017:627 - St Columba's Church, Colp West, Meath

The testing of the proposed exterior ground works took place in September 2017 and consisted of three test trenches, with a fourth area opened to cover the percolation area to the north of the church.
Trench 1 ran from the entrance gates, up the lane to the front door of the church with a spur running around the west side of the church tower and the north side of the church as well as extending to the north-east to cover the line of the service line running to the percolation area. The trench was 0.75m wide and an average of 0.5m in depth. The upper fills consisted of a dark brown soft clay loam. Along the line from the entrance gates to the church door, excavation ceased at the level where in situ burials were encountered, which took the form of the top of exposed crania. It was clear that these remains were in situ, supine and aligned east-west, parallel to the gravestones visible on either side of the lane. In situ skeletal remains were noted extending from roughly 2m inside the entrance gate at a depth of 27.48m OD as far as the door of the church at a depth of 27.6m OD.
The test trench extended around to the west of the church tower, despite the fact that no in situ human remains were uncovered, the test trench remained at a depth of 0.5m below present ground level or 27.76m OD. It extended to the east, along the north side of the church, and to the north-east, covering the line of the service trench.
Apart from a number of ex-situ fragments of human bone, and the upper levels of in situ human burials, nothing else of archaeological significance was uncovered.
Prior to backfilling, the trenches were lined with plastic sheeting to ensure that when services are laid, no damage can occur to in situ archaeological remains.
Trench 2 was located in the green field to the north of the graveyard and was positioned on the service line. It ran for a distance of 10m and was 0.75m wide and on average 0.4m deep. Excavation ceased with the uncovering of undisturbed subsoil. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in this trench.
Trench 3 was also located in the green field to the north of the graveyard and was positioned on the service line. It ran for a distance of 15m and was 0.75m wide and on average 0.4m deep. Excavation ceased with the uncovering of undisturbed subsoil. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in this trench.
Two small test trenches were excavated across the location of the proposed percolation area. Each trench was some 6m in length and was 0.75m wide and on average 0.4m deep. Excavation ceased with the uncovering of undisturbed subsoil. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in either of these trenches.
Within the interior of the church the removal of the modern carpet revealed two wooden plinths running along the north and south walls from the west end to about half way up the main church building. The aisle space between had been filled in with a chipboard floor, which was level with the adjacent plinth and also level with the tiled outer sanctuary area. Removal of the chipboard revealed that the aisle area had once been paved with red sandstone flags, set some 0.2m below the level of the wooden plinths on either side and also below the level of the outer sanctuary. The flags ran under the outer sanctuary, indicating that the outer sanctuary was a later addition.
Hand removal of this later addition to the sanctuary area confirmed that the flags continued to the east, towards the altar; it was not clear whether the flags continued beyond this point.
Following the removal of the remainder of the wooden plinths, testing of the interior took place. This consisted of the hand excavation of six 1m square test trenches at the locations of proposed concrete foundation pads. The fills of the three along the northern wall of the church, which were located under the area of the wooden plinth, had an upper 0.1m consisting of a relatively compact stony dark brown clay loam. This overlay a softer dark yellow-brown stone-free clay loam in which were fragments of red brick, sea shell and, rarely, ex situ disarticulated fragments of human bone. This fill continued below the 0.8m depth of the foundation pad-holes. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted in any of the northern pad holes excavated.
The three foundation pad-holes excavated in the southern portion of the church were different to those excavated to the north. Removal of the modern chipboard flooring and wooden plinth had revealed the extent of the flagstone floor of the centre aisle. Sections of the flagstone floor were removed in order to hand excavate the three test pits. This testing revealed a low wall some 0.2m wide with a fair face only on the north-facing side, running from east to west across the pad holes. This wall appeared to respect a hard compact light grey plaster surface which was covered in some 0.3m of a relatively hard and compacted yellow brown clay loam, on top of which and also respecting the line of this wall, lay the flagstones. Below the plaster layer lay a softer dark yellow-brown stone-free clay loam, in which were some fragments of red brick and disarticulated fragments of human bone. This fill continued below the 0.8m depth of the foundation pad-holes.
It was decided to expose the full extent of the low wall and associated plaster surface. It quickly became apparent that the wall on the south side of the aisle had a corresponding low wall on the aisle’s north side, which was also some 0.3m high. The plaster surface ran the full width between the two walls creating a surface some 2m wide, mirroring precisely the width of the flagstone aisle above.
The total excavation of this ‘sunken’ feature revealed that it increased in depth from west to east. At the door into the nave, the plaster was close to present ground level, and increased to over 0.3m at the step to the inner sanctuary. However at this point, it was clear that the two aisle walls and the plaster surface continued to the east. This strongly suggested that originally the aisle ran further east and that the inner sanctuary platform was also a later addition.
Excavation of the top of the low aisle walls both to the north and south revealed the presence of lengths of wooden battens which, although poorly preserved, appeared to run along the top of the walls. It is possible that this is evidence that the aisle may once have had wooden flooring which spanned from wall-top to wall-top, possibly with a void for air circulation below.
The testing outside the church revealed the presence of in situ human burials at an average depth of 27.5m OD. What is most significant is that the remains were found under the main modern access to the church, indicating that this access is not original. However, there was no indication elsewhere within the graveyard of another point of access. The testing also suggested that the numbers of burials on the north side of the church were few if any. Although the testing was by no means conclusive on the matter, no in situ remains were found on the north side despite the fact that in places the test trench in this area was over 0.75m deep.
Testing within the church was equally interesting. Evidence was uncovered for the phased development of the internal layout. The earliest phase appeared to consist of two raised wooden plinths, running along the north and south walls, with a wooden floored aisle between. The foundation for this wooden floor was on two low walls which ran the length of the church. These walls created a sunken area which got gradually deeper from west to east, and is interpreted as a void providing an air flow under and around the wooden floor above.
It would appear that this wooden floor did not preform well and was replaced by a flagstone floor. The sunken area under the original wooden floor to the aisle was infilled with soil, on top of which the flagstones were laid. The wooden plinths on either side remained in use unchanged, with the flagstone floor being laid at the same level as the original wooden floor.
The next phase consisted of the construction of the split level concrete, stone and tiled sanctuary area at the east end of the church. The construction of this element clearly overlay the flagstone floor and the two low aisle walls. It was not clear how far the original aisle would have extended as no excavation took place at the extreme east end of the church.
The final phase saw the sunken flagstone aisle covered over and chipboard laid on top, level with the two adjoining plinths, to create a level surface, which was finally carpeted over.
The church itself was constructed in around the turn of the 19th century, and was funded by the Board of First Fruits. The Board was established in 1711, when the revenue from annates was transferred from the Crown to the Established Church. Annates consisted of a proportion of the stipends of all clergy presented to a living during the first year of their holding the benefice. Until the Reformation these had been payable to the Pope. The Board of First Fruits was initially charged with using the income from annates to buy back impropriate tithes from lay owners, any surplus being devoted to the building and repair of churches and glebe houses. The latter function eventually became the primary one. From 1777 the fund was supplemented with a number of grants from the Irish parliament and from 1801, more substantially, from the Union government. In 1808 Parliament consolidated the Board's various sources of revenue into one account, doubled the size of its annual Government grant and gave it greater freedom of operation. The grant was further increased in 1810, and a system of interest-free loans from the Treasury established. These moneys supported a major programme of building, repairing and enlarging the churches and glebe houses of the Established Church throughout Ireland. With the passing of the Church Temporalities Act in 1833, the Board was dissolved. It was replaced by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1834.
It is not certain who designed Colp, but its overall layout is not unique, and would appear to conform to a simple pattern, of a three-bay main body to the church with a square, two-story entrance tower attached to the west gable. The fact that this design, or minor variations to it, is replicated across many of the Board of Fruits funded country churches dating to this period, would suggest that it was not formally ‘designed’ by an architect, but came form a more general catalogue of designs available at the time.
The fact that the church was not aligned on a true east-west axis is noteworthy. An examination of many of the old gravestones in the surrounding graveyard, which predate the construction of the church, do appear to be aligned properly east-west, while those of a later date, particularly those ‘higher status’ examples, are aligned with the present church. It was thought that this misalignment might be due to the possible re-use of an existing structure in the construction of the church. It was briefly thought that some element of the ‘missing’ castle, known to be located in the vicinity, might have been incorporated into the church tower. However, the testing around the tower revealed an original string course running around the entire tower at foundation level, proving that the tower was constructed in a single phase, with no evidence for an earlier structural element.
Finally, an examination of the cartographic evidence, particularly the 4th edition OS map, dating to the early 20th century, revealed that, prior to the layout of the modern road, the road to the south-west of the present graveyard originally described a definite arc, which, if continued, would have enclosed a circular area some 160m in diameter. It is tempting to see this as evidence for the extent of the original medieval enclosure, which, if this was the case, means the present church and graveyard are located in the north-west quadrant of the earlier enclosure. It is possible, indeed probable, that the original church at Colp would have been located centrally within this enclosure, immediately to the south-east of the present graveyard.

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