House - medieval

The National Monuments Service's description

Located on the S side of the Main Street. Archaeological excavation (01E1146) in 2001 identified house remains (Hayden 2001), which were excavated under the same licence in 2002 (Hayden 2002). The earliest feature was a N-S gully (max. Wth 1.4m; max. D 0.44m) that was truncated at either end and produced some sherds of Leinster cooking ware. The gully, with three unlined hearths on its E side, was covered by a loam deposit (T 0.2-0.3m). An E-W trench (Wth 1.3m plus; D 0.8m) cut through the loam and subsoil and was bordered by a stone wall and clay floor (dims c. 8m x c.8m; T 0.2m) on its S side. The bases of various hearths lay on this floor but no other walls were evident. A pit which cut through the clay floor is interpreted as a kiln.
Post-dating all this are the foundations of a drystone-built house (int. dim. 4.75m N-S), the W wall of which was complete together with part of the oxidised clay floor. Outside the house to the W were two rectangular pits. A clay floor with a central hearth was laid down over the area, and this was followed by another clay floor and hearth, which appears to have been used in iron smelting. A large house with double-faced stone walls (Wth 0.9-1m) was built in a pit at the W edge of the area but only its SE angle (dims 4.3m N-S; 3.4m plus E-W) was excavated. It used the gravel subsoil as the first floor that was covered by a thin occupation level, a clay floor with a stone-based hearth and a thicker occupation layer of burnt and organic material. A partly stone-lined cess-pit abutted the outside of the S wall and a channel extended E from the E wall. A rough N-S drystone wall further E, an associated clay floor and three hearths are contemporary with the house. These were covered with a layer of ash, charcoal and oxidized clay. Three hearths were within these deposits and a large hearth was on top of it with a rough stone cobbled area. Some pits from an upper level, one with a dressed stone with a chamfered edge, cut through these surfaces. When the stone-built house became defunct it was covered in a dump of yellow clay and loam containing line-impressed floor tiles and thirteenth to fifteenth century ceramics, and what was probably a humus developed.
In the later seventeenth or early eighteenth century a small clay-bonded stone-walled building was built at the W of the site. Only parts of the W and S walls survived, but its thick clay floor produced a sherd of Westerwald stoneware. This building was replaced by another in the same area. The walls of houses that are probably those on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map were identified. (Hayden 2002)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 8 July 2019

References

Hayden, A. 2001 Archaeological Assessment of a Proposed Development Site at High Street, Trim, Co. Meath. Licence No. 01E1146. Unpublished report, Archaeological Projects Ltd.

Hayden, A. 2002 Preliminary Report on Archaeological Excavations at a site on High Street, Trim, Co. Meath. Licence No. 01E1146. Unpublished report, Archaeological Projects Ltd.