Enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in a greenfield area directly north of Celbridge town. Site bounded to the West by R405. The majority of the site was located on pastureland, although the SW portion was truncated by a laneway with mature hedgerows. No surface remains visible of enclosure prior to excavation.
The site consisted of an earth-cut enclosure defined by 2 concentric ditches. It was initially identified through geophysical survey (Nicholls 2018) and test excavation (Coen 2019). Full excavation (Coen 2019) revealed that the enclosure ditch 1.6-2.6m wide by 1.5m deep (max) and would have originally enclosed an area of c.2,965 sq. m. Portions of the enclosure ditch and internal area were substantially disturbed by an entrance avenue aligned on an adjoining property. There were 2 phases of activity recorded within the excavated ditch sections. The primary phase is currently undated but expected to be early medieval. The 2nd phase is dated to the late medieval period by pottery association. Additional artefacts found during excavations include an iron pin shank, various iron nails knives, a sickle, copper alloy objects, a copper alloy pseudo-penannular ring-brooch, a lignite bracelet fragment, stone spindle whorl, and bone pin fragment. Areas excavated outside of the main enclosure revealed additional features: 2 corn drying kilns, bowl furnace and portion of field system marked out with narrow ditches. One inhumation burial [KD011-069001-] was discovered within main enclosure ditch.

See attached Geophysical survey showing partial curvilinear ditch of excavated enclosure and plan of excavated enclosure (after Coen 2019)

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by Liam Coen

Date of upload: 25 November 2019

References

Nicholls, J. 2018 Lands in Crodaun Townland, Celbridge, County Kildare. Archaeological Geophysical Survey Report, Licence No. 18R0212. Unpublished report prepared by Target Archaeological Geophysics on behalf of Archer Heritage Planning and Ardstone.

Coen, L. 2019 Crodaun, Celbridge, Co. Kildare. Archaeological Impact Assessment report. Excavation Licence No. 18E0724. Unpublished report prepared by Archer Heritage Planning on behalf of Ardstone Homes Ltd.

Coen, L. 2019 Crodaun, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, Archaeological excavation of an Early Medieval enclosure & associated features, preliminary excavation report. Excavation Licence No. 19E0214. Unpublished report prepared by Archer Heritage Planning on behalf of Ardstone Homes Ltd.