County: Galway Site name: Clonbrock Castle
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA060-051--- Licence number: 11E0056
Author: Rory Sherlock
Site type: Tower-house and bawn
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 574369m, N 739759m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.407344, -8.385478
A programme of test trenching, designed to assess the archaeological potential of the proposed site for a new house beside Clonbrock Castle, was undertaken over eight days in June 2020. A total of eight test trenches were excavated on the site, which is located within a Victorian walled garden beside the late medieval tower-house. Cartographic and architectural analyses suggest that the walled garden, and other gardens nearby, were created between 1807 and 1837, after the demolition of a seventeenth-century house which had been built against the tower-house and before the first edition Ordnance Survey 6” map was surveyed.
The excavation of eight trenches across the site revealed many deposits of early modern date, but the underlying stratigraphy and topography was not always consistent. Significant variations were noted in the depths at which subsoil was found across the site, indicating that the site was formerly quite undulating and suggesting that some of the deeper early modern deposits overlying the subsoil may have been introduced as levelling deposits during the creation of the walled garden in the early 1800s. Architectural fragments, including pieces of brick, slate and window glass, were found in all areas and these are likely to date to the demolition of the remains of the seventeenth-century house after the building was destroyed by fire in 1807.
Some features of interest were recorded during the test-trenching programme, and these include a stone-walled drain and a probable drainage system composed of large slates. These features appear to date to the 1800s and are consistent with Victorian garden drainage structures. No clear evidence was recorded for the seventeenth-century house, but a cut recorded at the north-eastern end of Trench 2 could represent the foundation trench for the western wall of the building. No deposits or features contemporary with the late medieval tower-house were recorded, though some undated deposits could potentially date to this era.
Oughterard, Co Galway
