House — 18th century in Knowth

Eogan was not able to excavate on the sites of the mapped houses of the post-medieval settlement SW of the road, but test-trenching in the area between the mound and the road produced evidence of seven other post-medieval structures that did not appear on any survey, showing just how incomplete the mapping evidence of a well-documented area can be. The houses (max. ext. dims c. 10m x c. 5m) have drystone bases to the walls, although it is possible that these are just the bases of cob or mud walls. Some of the houses can have rounded external corners as some of the medieval houses had. One of the post-medieval house, No. 15, is just SE of the great mound and was fully excavated. It is rectangular (int. dims c. 4.3m plus ENE-WSW; c. 3.3m NNW-SSE) defined by double-faced walls (Wth c. 0.8m; H c. 0.5m) with sharp external corners. Its E wall is entirely missing but it has a paved floor. No features such as a doorway, hearth or window is identified, but it does re-use a stone with megalithic art, which is placed in a prominent position on the outer face of the N wall as well as a medieval quernstone. This house is conserved. (Eogan 2012, 187-20) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 21 September 2020 See the attached illustration: _1 House plan, from Knowth 5, Fig. 6:9