What is recorded here

Newtownstalaban preserves a rare layered field system on a broad hill above the River Boyne, where three concentric fosses and drifting drainage cuts suggest occupation spanning several ages. The outer D-shaped enclosure measures about 110 by 90 metres, its ditch emerging from the third fosse and swinging east before fading south into smaller plots. A modern cement-road now slices through the ancient lines, yet the gradient survey reveals hands that shaped this ridge long before drogheda’s factories demanded its clay.

Situated on the summit and sides of a broad hill that overlooks a W-E section of the River Boyne downriver from Drogheda. A gradiometer survey (23R0172) has identified a complex enclosure (LH024-094----) defined by three roughly concentric features that are likely to be fosses (Murphy 2023). The third, outer, enclosure is within a larger D-shaped area (dims c. 110m E-W; c. 90m N-S), the ditch of which arises from the fosse of the third enclosure at N and swings around to the E and SE before extending off to the W where it is probably morphing into a field system with field drains extending from it to the S. Some lighter field drains are also attached to the inner subcircular enclosure making smaller plots (dims c. 30m x c. 20m). Some other field drains are attached to the largest enclosure at NE and SE but do not extend very far, and lighter, straighter N-S and E-W drain features further E are probably from an unmapped post-medieval system. The enclosures and field drains are cut by a NNW-SSE service road to the Drogheda Cement Factory. (Murphy 2023) See the attached grey-scale plan from Murphy (2023, fig. 7) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload; 4 May 2023 Murphy, D. 2023 Report on Geophysical Survey at Newtown Rd., Newtownstalaban, Co. Loth. Licence: 23R0172. Unpublished interim Report, ACSU

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