2019:830 - Wheatfield, Cortown, Meath

Archaeological monitoring was carried out at a small housing development at
Wheatfield, Cortown, ITM 675580, 771316. The monitoring was required as a
planning condition. The site area is c. 3,328sq m (including the compound) and approximately 2,168sq m was topsoil stripped. The monitoring was unlicensed because the desk-based assessment (January 2019 – post planning) demonstrated the site had already formed part of a previous housing estate development and the soils had been extensively moved around in the recent past. There was nothing known or presumed on the site and the site was outside any limit of and known settlement of ‘Cortown’.
Monitoring was undertaken in two areas: the area for housing and the area of the construction compound (a pre-existing road and footpath lay between the two areas). A considerable Church, Rath and probable Tower-house site at Cortown,
ME024-001, are located 250m to the west (at its nearest point).
The monitoring works uncovered no finds or features of archaeological significance. The site had been previously stripped of sod and some topsoil and then used to dispose of extra soils from the previous housing estate works. At the northern end and western side of the housing area there was a fair amount of original topsoil left in situ (c. 0.25m deep) but elsewhere the topsoil was fairly thin and disturbed. The southern end of the site was the compound area for the previous housing estate works. This had been stripped into subsoil previously and still had many chippings pressed into the glacial till. Due to the site being on a slope from south down to north, the formation levels of the houses meant some terracing into the land surface. This showed that topsoil had been mostly stripped from the site and only a thin layer had been put back.
The spoil heaps were inspected for finds but no items that were not wholly modern
were found, implying the area was fairly distant from any 19th-century settlement.
The works involved machine stripping soils with a flat-bladed ditching bucket to a formation layer. In order to clarify the relationships between surface soils and glacial till, several test-pits were dug and the foundation level excavations to the houses were monitored. In the compound area only the grass sod was stripped and this revealed layers of imported gravels and excess soils from the previous housing estate works. This was used as a formation level for the compound in much of the area. In general, glacial till comprised fairly light orange brown gritty sandy silt with occasional large boulders. No bedrock was exposed.

c/o Meath County Council