House - early medieval

The National Monuments Service's description

On the SE-facing slopes of Bray Head on Valencia Island. The remains of this house, which was excavated in 1997 (Hayden 1997), overlaid the remains of an earlier house (KE087-025008-). This rectangular house (5m N-S; 4.6m E-W) was defined by a drystone wall (T 0.7-1.1m; H 0.7m) along the N and E sides and by collapsed rubble along the W side; the S wall had been truncated by an enclosure (KE087-025002-). The drystone wall comprised of horizontally laid masonry. The house had been built into a shallow pit which was scarped into the hillside at N and had cut through the remains of another house (KE087-025019-). There was a doorway (Wth 0.6m) in the E wall which was lined with large blocks of stone. From the doorway the floor sloped downwards into the house. A projection of masonry (L 0.5m) beyond the entrance may have been the N side of an a porch. The level interior of the house was much disturbed by later cultivation activity. The W wall of an adjacent house (KE087-025009-) may have been largely cleared away when this house was built. Charcoal found on the floor of the hut site in 1995 was radiocarbon dated to between the later 9th and early 11th centuries AD. The excavation showed that this house belonged to the final phase (Phase VI) in a successive sequence of at least six phases of construction in this particular area of Bray Head. (Hayden 1997; Mitchell et al. n.d.)

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Kerry. Volume I: South-West Kerry' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 30 May 2011