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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Road - class 3 togher

Cloncraff Or Bloomhill, County Offaly, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Road - class 3 togher, Cloncraff Or Bloomhill, County Offaly, 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
Cloncraff Or Bloomhill
County
Offaly
Country
Ireland
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.35470, -7.89649
SMR number
OF006-001002-

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)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · 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

The site (Wth 1.05m; D 0.135m) is orientated SSE-NNW and composed of birch roundwoods (diam. 0.07-0.13m) in a parallel arrangement with some brushwood and twigs between the principal roundwoods. A single substructural birch roundwood is set at an oblique angle to the upper roundwoods. Toolmarks were recorded on several roundwoods. A piece of stone similar to the flags of SMR OF006-001001 rested on one of the roundwoods and the proximity of the sites suggests these two site are related.

Not visible at ground level. Described by Halpin (1984) as a stone roadway and timber trackway found c. 1m deep in Bord na Mona Blackwater works in 1983, running between Bloomhill townland Co. Offaly and Ballynahownwood Co. Westmeath. He assigned a medieval date to the trackway. Excavated by Breen (1987, 32) who described the stone flagstone roadway as lying on a foundation of peat with a layer of brushwood underneath. Finds included Horseshoes of 13th-century type along with two leather shoe-fragments which were found above the stone roadway. According to local folklore this trackway may formed part of an old pilgrimage route running between the monastery of Clonmacnoise (OF005-027001-) and the old churchyard (WM035-003----) at Killomenaghan (Breen, Parkes & Bradshaw 1988, 332-3).

Compiled by: Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit (University College Dublin).

Date of upload: 23 May 2011

References

Breen, C.T., Parkes, H. and Bradshaw, R. 1988 Excavation of a roadway at Bloomhill Bog, County Offaly. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 88C, 321-39.

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
All Road - class 3 togher in Offaly All County Offaly records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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