2020:418 - Ticknick, Dublin

Testing and excavation took place at Ticknick, Co. Dublin in the area of Ticknick Park where a number of sites were identified and excavated previously.

Three test trenches opened across the site of a proposed pavilion identified a burnt mound and some French drains. Mill races, drains and streams in Ticknick and surrounding townlands were diverted and culverted during works associated the with Kingstown Gravitational Water scheme in the mid-1850s. At the time, new water courses were added to control the flow of ground water, likely the French drains noted in testing.

The burnt mound was fully excavated, after consultation with NMS. In the main area investigated there were three spreads present. These included a substantial deposit of silty clay that was grey-black due to the presence of charcoal and burnt stone (C2) and two further deposits (C3 and C4) that appeared to have been discoloured by charcoal and burnt stone washing out of C2. There was a single pit located below C2 and a number of stake-holes.

The removal of topsoil exposed the full extent of C2, the deposit of burnt stone and charcoal, which was present to a maximum surviving depth of 0.3m. This deposit was present across an area measuring a maximum of 4.2m (east-west) by 3.6m. Around one metre beyond the southern limits of C1 the ground surface appeared to have been eroded or dug away and sloped away to the south. Some patches of grey clay with charcoal and occasional fragments of burnt stone were recorded overlying the subsoil (C14). This was sealed below a layer of fine silty clay which had much lower concentrations of charcoal (C3). On excavation it appeared that both C3 and C14 had washed down slope from the main deposit (C2). Some animal bone was recovered from C3 although it may be later in date as some pieces of early modern glass were recorded from the same deposit and it is likely that the deposits at the southern end of the site represent later disturbance, possibly connected to the construction of French drains in the field in the 1850s.
The main component of C2 was burnt stone, mainly granite which was found in a variety of sizes from blocks of up to 400mm in length to fragments of 30-40mm length and completely deconstructed into granules through heat/immersion. The surviving granite represented at least 60% of the stone present in C2 while the remainder was a mixture of shale, sandstone, quartzite, schist and limestone. As an unquantifiable proportion of the granite had been reduced to granules this merely represents a guide to the lowest estimate of the granite present.
The largest pieces of the non-granite component of C2 did not exceed 250mm in length. Around 50% of the non-granite component were smaller pieces (30-40mm in length), some clearly reduced in size by heating and immersion.
For the purposes of the excavation, C2 was divided into grids (numbered 1 to 6) to record the distribution of the stone component. The depth of C2 varied across the site, so the grids was laid out across what was anticipated to be the deepest area and extend to the limits of C2. The proportion of granite to non-granite stone was recorded for each grid along with the maximum block sizes and the quantity of stone measuring 30-40mm in length or lower. The stone component for each grid was retained during excavation and then photographed roughly sorted by size. The largest block sizes were found to the north and west (Grids 1, 2 and 4) while there was a higher proportion of the smaller stones to the south and east (particularly Grids 5 and 6). There was proportionately less granite in Grids 1, 2, 3 and 5.

A small number of objects were recovered from C2, mainly in the central area of the western side of the deposit. These included a rough flint scraper (Find 1) and a tanged chert arrowhead (Find 2). The latter corresponds to Sutton Type A of Green’s barbed-and-tanged series and likely dates to roughly 2500-2000 BC.

The removal of C2 exposed a pit and a number of stake-holes and there was no clear evidence for a buried soil horizon below C2.

The upper fill of the pit (C5) was indistinguishable from C2 and, at lower levels, the fill was a mixture of C2, subsoil and brown-grey clay and was recorded as C4. The pit measured 0.8m in diameter at the top and was almost circular, with a roughly circular base (diameter 0.3m), sloping sides and a capacity of just over 100 litres.

Four stake-holes (C7, C9, C11 and C13) were recorded to the immediate east of the pit. The longer axis of the stake-holes aligned in pairs (C7/C9 and C11/C13) forming two lines that crossed over the top of C5.

For Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd