County: Down Site name: Ballycopeland Windmill
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DOW006:500 Licence number: AE/20/091
Author: Christina O'Regan
Site type: Prehistoric feature/early medieval unenclosed settlement
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 757864m, N 875983m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.607398, -5.556262
Archaeological monitoring and subsequent excavation at Ballycopeland Windmill, Millisle, Co. Down was undertaken in advance of the construction of a new visitor centre.
Archaeological monitoring was carried out over the course of approximately a week and a half from the 10–17 November 2020. A second episode of archaeological monitoring was carried out in April 2021. This was related to the installation of discharge pipes for the new septic tank and consisted of the excavation of a 2m-wide trench along the western edge of the site.
The main excavation recorded a penannular enclosure with associated pits, hearth, and post-holes. The penannular enclosure comprised a shallow trench, likely to have been truncated through agricultural activity, with a south-east-facing entrance. A series of internal pits did not appear to form a typical structural element and were clustered around a possible hearth. In total 32 sherds of earthenware pottery and six lithics were recovered from these features. The single fill of the enclosure returned two radiocarbon dates of between AD670-770 while the basal fill of a large internal pit returned a radiocarbon date of 3784-3646 BC.
Within the western trench, a series of small features and drains were identified and excavated. In total, a single sherd of pottery was recovered from the features while two struck lithics were recovered from the topsoil.
Pottery assessments were outstanding at the time of submission.
IAC Archaeology, 9 Stranmillis Road, Belfast, BT9 5AF
