County: Wicklow Site name: The Rectory, Kilbride Road, Blessington, Co. Wicklow
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 20E0301
Author: Grace Fegan, Shanarc Archaeology Ltd.
Site type: Medieval Burial Ground
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 698442m, N 714487m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.171747, -6.527561
Archaeological monitoring was carried out during October 2020, in relation to proposed development works within the grounds of The Rectory (former), Kilbride Road, Blessington. The development works comprised the stripping of topsoil in advance of the construction of housing under planning reference 20/108.
Human remains in the form of one supine extended burial and one poorly preserved and truncated burial were identified during monitoring.
Complete excavation of the development area was carried out between 17 November and 8 December 2020.
Stratigraphically, the earliest activity on the site is in the form of discrete linear and pit cut features. However, the principal function of the site appears to be that of a medieval burial ground. The preliminary results suggest an initial burial phase of formal east-west oriented burials and a later phase of more informal, mostly infant burials; in total 36 human skeletons or partial skeletons were identified at the site.
Later agricultural, domestic and industrial activity, some perhaps associated with the construction of the Rectory in the late 19th century, truncated and disturbed some of the burial remains, particularly to the south and south-west, closer to the Rectory and its garden. The retrieval of medieval pottery suggested that the activity across the site is predominantly from this time.
Unit 39a, Hebron Business Park, Hebron Road, Kilkenny
