What is recorded here

Enclosure in Baysrath stood as a palisaded circle on a sunlit Kilkenny plateau, marking human presence from the first centuries AD. Inside its wooden walls, people built houses, fired kilns, and worked metal before later fields and a ringfort cut across the remains. The site belonged to a crowded landscape where Neolithic, medieval and earlier lives overlapped in less than two hectares.

On a slightly raised and rounded plateau on a S-facing slope in pasture. Excavated in 2006-7 in advance of the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford Road Improvement Scheme. Excavation licence no. 2517, AR053, Area B and C. One of a cluster of monuments found in close proximity to each other in an area c. 1.8ha with dates ranging from the Late Neolithic to the early medieval period. A subcircular palisaded enclosure (diam. c. 41.5m) evidenced by a foundation slot-trench with three gaps that may be original. A post-pipe from the palisade yielded a calibrated radiocarbon date of 71-215 Cal AD (UB10703). Four circular post-built structures (KK031-077----) lie at NE while within the enclosure are a rectangular structure surrounding a pit and other domestic pits. A series of kilns (KK031-088----) and metalworking furnaces (KK031-087----) were found in association with the enclosing feature. An earlier flat cemetery (KK031-080----) was found both inside and outside the W extent. The enclosure was truncated by a later field system (KK031-084----) at E and by a ringfort (KK031-082----) at NW. (Channing 2009, 255-6, no. 1003; 2010a, 234, no. 881; 2010b) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 25 September 2013

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