What is recorded here

Eighteen burnt pits and a shallow trough lay hidden beneath two fields on the south bank of the Bride River until housing work exposed them in 2003. One pit held a redeposited medieval or older burial, while the others contained charcoal, heat-shattered stone and metal slag. Ploughing had already cut through most of the features, but the scattered marks still described a place where fire, craft and death repeatedly entered the same earth.

In 2003 excavations carried out in advance of the construction of a large housing development in two fields on the S bank of the Bride River revealed eighteen widely spread pits. The pits varied in size (diam. 0.1-1.6m; D 0.07-0.46m) and were generally circular in shape. All but one of them contained a single fill of dark-brown (burnt) gravelly clay, with varying amounts of charcoal, burnt clay and/or heat-shattered stone. One of the pits (c. 3.5m x 1.3m) was trough-like and shallow and had a possible hearth at its centre. Six other pits (diam. 0.1-0.6m) occurred in an arc and were between 2m and 5.5m apart. In addition to the eighteen pits, a thin oval spread (1.1m N-S; 0.7m E-W; T 0.05m) of burnt soil containing metal slag and a piece of fired clay and a small roughly circular spread (diam. c. 0.4m; T 0.02m) of scorched soil containing charcoal were revealed. Two burnt pits (CO073-147001-, CO073-147002-) were also excavated in the vicinity, one of which contained a redeposited burial (CO073-123----) of medieval date or earlier. All of the excavated features had been truncated by ploughing. (Ní Loingsigh 2003; Ní Loingsigh 2006, 62-3) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

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