What is recorded here

Baltrasna in County Meath holds late medieval fields where straight ditches still cut through soil that once grew wheat, barley and oats. A wide boundary ditch marked the north edge, while smaller drains carried water northwest and a metalled lane ran between them. The fields likely fell silent during the eighteenth century, leaving behind only faint shapes and seeds buried in silt.

The high medieval field ditches (ME045-033----) were succeeded by late medieval or early modern fields of smaller dimensions (Wth c. 20-25m E-W) which were defined by now silted ditches that extended off to the S. A substantial E-W boundary ditch (L 64m plus; max. Wth 6m; max. D 1.5m) and its continuation to the E (L 23m plus; max. Wth 3.7m; D 1.5m) formed the N edge of the system that drained to the NW but extended E and W beyond the excavation limits. The ditches tended to be straight-sided and flat-bottomed with very sterile fills. Four slighter drains (Wth c. 2.7-3.4m; D 1.1-1.4m) with similar profiles and fills extend S from the E-W boundary ditch. They produced evidence of wheat, barley, oats, vetch, peas, and rye, as well as a wide variety of weeds and wild species such as elder, wild parsnip, blackberry, knotgrass, sedge, fat hen, buttercup and wild cherry. At the W edge of the excavated area two slighter open S-N drains (L 13-15m plus; Wth 1.14-2m; D 0.7-0.9m) flanked either side of a metaled surface (Wth 3m) which could be the surface of the S-N lane depicted on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map. No dateable artefacts were recovered from the road or its gullies, although finds from the silts above it suggest that the road and the fields might have become defunct during the eighteenth century. A single sherd of North Devon gravel-tempered ware and the base of a glass bottle of early eighteenth century date were recovered from the primary and secondary fills of the large E-W boundary ditch, but they could be intrusive or evidence of a re-cut. The two corn-drying kilns (ME045-033003-) fit neatly into these fields and their late medieval dates suggest a similar origin for the fields. It is possible that the farmhouse c. 100m to the S, which is the focus of both the high medieval and the late medieval field systems and their associated activities, is the successor of a medieval one, perhaps one of the four houses recorded at Baltrasna in the Civil Survey (1654) (Simington 1940, 102). (Fallon 2009, 45-52) See the attached plan from Fallon (2009, fig. 18) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20 December 2021

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