What is recorded here

Deserted Dowth village still holds its shape under Glebe Field: burgage plots, house platforms, and a central road following the break of slope. It grew around the parish church and tower house, probably in the later medieval period, before people stopped living there. The plateau keeps the layout closed, waiting for footsteps that no longer come.

Situated in a fold on a broad plateau. A magnetic gradiometry survey (12R0080 ext.) undertaken during 2014 in the Glebe Field of the Dowth estate identified a series of burgage plots with some house platforms aligned along a central NE-SW roadway, which appears to correspond to a natural break of slope. The settlement is probably later medieval in date, and constitutes the manorial village that developed around Dowth parish church (ME020-019----), and the tower house (ME020-018----) that are at the NE end of the ‘street’. The recorded features cover an area of about 3.5 ha (c. 8.5 acres) extending SW from the church. An isolated farmstead c.45m to the south of the W end of the village, evident as a rectangular enclosure (dims c. 40m x c. 40m) with a house structure in the N interior, may have been a higher status dwelling associated with the settlement. (Ní Lionáin and Davis 2016, 157) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 9 December 2016

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