Kiln - pottery

The National Monuments Service's description

Excavated in advance of development in 2004 (Excavation Licence No. 04E0224 ext.).
'The kiln was aligned broadly east-west and was double-flued with a stoking hole at either end and an oval-shaped firing chamber with a raised central platform. Both the firing chamber and flues had a compact fired clay lining and were filled with a silty clay, which produced several sherds of 13th/14th-century pottery as well as fragments of kiln furniture and medieval roof tiles. A linear feature which ran parallel to the north edge of the kiln may have been a drainage gully to keep the kiln area well drained. A number of intercutting sub-square straight-sided pits of varying depths, clustered in two distinct groupings in the south-east of the site, may have functioned as clay preparation or settling pits. Six roughly circular-shaped pits with straight sides and flat bases which ran in a broad arc from the north-west to the southeast of the site may have been clay-extraction pits. A number of other features in the kiln's vicinity functioned as rake-out/kiln waste dumps.' (Halpin 2007, 259-260)
This excavation also uncovered a ditch which pre-dated the kiln, the remains of a possible palisade slot and bank, and a large number of irregular-shaped pits. (ibid)

Compiled by: Claire Breen

Date of upload: 21 June 2013

References

Halpin, E. 2007 Old Mart, Magdalene Street, Drogheda, Urban medieval. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2004: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 259-60 (No. 1085). Bray. Wordwell