Kiln - corn-drying

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a slight W and NW-facing slope down to the meandering SE-NW Tinnacross Stream, which is c. 70m to the SW, and c. 6m SE of the flat cemetery (WX016073001-). Both monuments were identified in testing (E004551) land required for the M11 Motorway (Ruttle 2014, 7-8), and were subsequently completely excavated (E004560). The flat cemetery was unrelated to the key-hole type cereal-drying kiln which was visible as a large pit (max. dims 4.68m NE-SW; 2.36m NW-SE; max. D 0.64m) that was partly rock-cut at the SW end. The fire-bowl at the NE end had a fire-reddened base and was filled by two layers with charcoal. The flue and drying bowl were filled with a dark sandy silt with stones and charcoal. Amongst the stones was a saddle quern, and a possible grinding stone was in the sealing layer of brown silty sand with stones (Ruttle 2015, 11-12).

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 26 November 2020

References

Ruttle, E. 2015 M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy Scheme, Co. Wexford. Archaeological Consultancy Services. Licence: E004560. Quarry 3 Stage (iii) Post-excavation Assessment Report. TVAS Ireland

Ruttle, E. 2014 M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy Scheme, Co. Wexford. Archaeological Consultancy Services. Licence: E004551 Quarry 3 Stage (i)a Testing Report. TVAS Ireland