Kiln

Eighteen potential archaeological sites were found during monitoring of topsoil-stripping on the Celbridge Interchange, from April to December 2001 (Licence no. 01E0306: www.excavations.ie). Most were resolved through subsequent excavation. The scheme was approximately 4km in length and ran from Celbridge to Leixlip through gently undulating land with a mixture of arable, pasture and woodland. The southern part of the scheme runs through an area heavily influenced by 18th-century landscape design, with avenues, woodland and tree-lined field boundaries centred on the early 18th-century house at Castletown. This site (‘Site 7’ Excavation Licence No. 01E0547 www.excavations.ie) was a corn-drying kiln built in to an earlier ditch. The stone-lined kiln was L-shaped in plan (4.5m E-W; 3.8m N-S) and had a fire-bowl on its E side (diam. 0.95m). At the base of the flue on its W side was a circular pit (diam. 0.6m; D 0.3m), the lower fills of which were rich in charred cereal grains but contained no finds. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011