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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Field system

Dowth, County Meath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Field system, Dowth, County Meath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Dowth
County
Meath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.71166, -6.42775
SMR number
ME020-081----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a broad, fairly level area. A remote sensing survey (12R0080 ext.) conducted during 2014 in the Racecourse Field of the Dowth estate recorded elements of a field system that cover almost the entire area of about 20ha (c. 50 acres). These single ditch features create five E-W field divisions, spaced 66-90m apart, and sub-divided by N-S oriented linear elements to create long, rectangular, and very regular fields (dims c. 100-150m x c. 50-100m). There are a number of possible stock-holding enclosures in the corners of some of the fields. One of them (ME020-081001-) at the S edge of the area was tested and Neolithic pottery was recovered from a post-hole in the fill of its ditch (Ni Lionáin 2019, 7-9). A possible ‘plectrum-shaped enclosure’ and associated features were identified in the northeast corner of the area. In the southeast there is a single, curvilinear boundary with a higher magnetic reading than in other areas, which is perhaps a later addition. (Ní Lionáin and Davis 2016, 149)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload; 9 December, 2016
Amended: 1 November 2022

References

Ní Lionáin, C. and S. Davis 2016 Conservation Plan for the Cultural Heritage of the Devenish Lands at Dowth. Unpublished report; National Monuments Service, Dublin

Ní Lionáin, C. 2019 Preliminary report on the Monitoring of Tree Planting Programme in the Old Racecourse Field, the Devenish Lands at Dowth, Co. Meath. Licence: 18E0047. Unpublished report, Devenish

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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